Privilege (Privilege 1)

Instantly, dozens of articles from myriad magazines, newspapers, and gossip sites popped up. Ariana clicked on the first, a New York Times piece, and read slowly and carefully.

Following the evidence Ariana had planted for them--the footprints she had left in the soft earth leading to the dock from which she had launched the skiff--the FBI had dredged Lake Page for her body. They had, of course, found nothing. None of this was a

surprise. But the following paragraph left Ariana's mouth dry.

"I don't care how long it takes. We are going to keep searching this lake until we find my daughter, "Arthur Osgood said. "I don't care if I have to personally pay to have this lake dredged a hundred times. My daughter will have a proper Christian burial. "

"Crap, Daddy," Ariana said, her accent sounding more pronounced than usual in the silence. She covered her mouth with her hand and

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leaned her elbow on the desk. Why couldn't her father just let it go? It wasn't as if he'd cared to see her when she was "alive." She knew that her father loved her in his own way--he had, after all, paid all that money to ensure she was placed at the Brenda T. rather than at some maximum security prison, and he had bought off all those people just so she could wear her fleur-de-lis--but he hadn't been up to visit her once since her incarceration. Why the doting father act now?

The rest of the article contained information about her childhood, her conviction, her sentence. A little bit about that awful mess with her sister last year at Easton and an editorial aside about how insanity obviously ran in the family, which made her want to call the newspaper and complain. Reporters were supposed to report, not make diagnoses.

Then Ariana came to a quote that stopped her blood cold.

"She was my baby, "Lillian Osgood said via phone, through anguished sobs. "My one and only child. I don't care what you all think she did. She did not deserve to die this way. "

A follow-up call was fielded by Mrs. Osgood's psychiatrist, who told this reporter that her patient would be making no further comment.

Ariana's heart expanded in her chest as tears welled in her eyes. One hand flew to the fleur-de-lis necklace as the other compulsively reached for the phone next to the computer. Her mother was in pain. She had to call and let her know that her baby was all right. But before she dialed through the area code, her logic kicked back in and she stopped herself.

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No one could know she was alive. Not even her mother. Especially not her mother, who had a tendency to babble when drugged, which was most of the time. Ariana put the phone down again and covered her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks. She was never going to speak to her mother again. Never going to see her or hug her or hear her sing her favorite lullaby. Ariana's heart filled with grief, overwhelmed by the loss. How was she going to do this? How was she ever going to get through all of this alone?

There was a quick rap on the door, and Ariana's head popped up. She quickly dried her tears with her hands and stood up, slapping the laptop closed. "Come in."

A slight woman with white hair and a boxy gray uniform strode into the room, holding what appeared to be a scrap of purple nylon.

"Hello, miss," she said with a quick bow of the head. "Miss Briana Leigh asked me to bring this to you."

She held out the bathing suit. Ariana plucked it from her fingers and held it up, trying to discern where the many flosslike straps were supposed to go. Never in a million years would Ariana have ever been caught dead in such a revealing suit.

But then, she wasn't Ariana Osgood anymore.

"Thank you," Ariana said.

The woman smiled and scurried from the room. Ariana opened the laptop again and, with one final thought of her mother, quickly deleted the Google history. She could leave no evidence of Ariana Osgood behind. As of that moment Ariana Osgood was dead.

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LACK OF TRUST

Briana Leigh had a manicurist on call. Other than Vienna Clark, an old friend from Easton Academy whose mother owned several upscale salons in New York and L.A., Ariana had never met anyone who had a manicurist on call. But the second Briana Leigh had seen the sorry state of Ariana's cuticles and toes, she had speed-dialed Libby Lane's Gold Star Salon. Now, as Briana Leigh lounged in the hot tub next to her indoor pool, Libby Lane herself sat at the end of Ariana's lounge chair, going to town on her calluses with a pumice stone.Ariana would have been offended by Briana Leigh's audacity, if she hadn't been so very grateful.

"Your magazines, miss."

The maid who had delivered the bathing suit that was currently riding up Ariana's ass placed a stack of fashion mags on the slate floor between Ariana's chair and the hot tub. Ariana glanced at her hostess and, when the girl said nothing, uttered a quick, "Thank you."

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The woman smiled at Ariana for the second time that day, and Ariana started to realize that those two words were a rarity around this house. All that money and Briana Leigh couldn't even spare a thank-you here and there to the people who took care of her evil, greedy, traitorous self?

No matter how hard Ariana tried, she just could not wrap her brain around the idea of killing for money. Especially one's own parent. Crimes of passion were another story. Those she could understand. She knew firsthand how a person could come to that. But what Briana Leigh had done was unthinkable. And what she'd done afterward--pinning the murder on her innocent best friend--was even worse.

She reached for the Vogue on the top of the stack and Briana Leigh gasped.