Briana Leigh hesitated, than laughed, spreading her arms wide. "Nothing! Honestly. I just wanted to thank you."
The woman tilted her face back a bit to look Briana Leigh squarely in the eye. "Well, we'll see how much you're thanking me once I get those progress reports. I'd better see serious improvements in your grades, Briana Leigh."
Ariana tried not to smirk. The woman had no idea the number of As and excellents that were coming her way.
"Don't worry," Briana Leigh said, leaning down to give her grandmother a peck on the cheek. "I think you're going to be very proud of me this year."
"We'll see," Grandma C. said. "And don't go spending all the money I gave you on clothes and nights on the town. That money is for emergencies."
Briana Leigh's smile widened and Ariana hid a grin behind her hand. Her friend actually planned to use the fifteen thousand dollars her grandmother had given her to pay for a small oceanside wedding once she got to Ibiza. Ariana had hoped that Briana Leigh would give her some of the cash as well, but instead Briana Leigh had emptied the twenty-four hundred dollars from her checking account and given that to Ariana to use for incidentals. It was a start. And soon Grandma Covington would begin sending Briana Leigh's monthly allowance to her mailbox at Atherton-Pryce. All in all, Ariana would have more than enough money to live on.
Everything was working out as planned. Both Ariana and Briana Leigh were going to have the lives they wanted.
226
As the Covingtons said their last good-byes and Briana Leigh boarded the plane, Ariana stepped forward. She clutched the new Louis Vuitton travel case Briana Leigh had purchased for her in both hands.
"I just wanted to say thank you for letting me stay with you, and for letting me fly back east on your private jet. It's very generous of you, Mrs. Covington," she said. "I can't thank you enough."
Especially considering you're going to be paying my way for the next two years, she thought, biting back a Cheshire-cat grin. Of course, when it came to Princeton, she was going to have to figure out a brand-new plan, but she had two whole years to work on it, and she wasn't worried. Look what she had accomplished during sixteen months in prison."Miss Walsh, you seem like a very nice girl," the woman said, squinting.
"Thank you," Ariana said, pleased.
"Let me give you a piece of advice," Grandma Covington said, lifting a gnarled hand as if to point at Ariana. "Once my granddaughter is situated on campus, stay as far away from her as possible. That girl is a bad seed. Plain and simple."
Ariana's heart automatically thumped with foreboding.
"Let's go, Jonathan," Mrs. Covington said to the chauffeur standing at her side. "I want out of this sun."
The chauffeur grasped the handles on the back of her wheelchair and turned her until her back was to Ariana. She wished she could think of something to say in parting, but nothing came to mind.
227
Then the plane's engines whirred to life behind her and she realized that anything she said would have been lost in the noise anyway.
When she turned around, Briana Leigh stood at the top of the gangway stairs, waving at her to hurry up. Ariana wondered what, exactly, Grandma Covington had meant. Was it just because the two of them didn't get along, or did Grandma C. really sense something dark in her granddaughter? What, exactly, did the old matriarch think had actually happened the day her son was murdered? As much as she was dying to run after the woman and ask, Ariana knew that she couldn't. It was not her place. Mrs. Covington's thoughts on her son's death and her obviously complex feelings for Kaitlynn and Briana Leigh would have to remain a mystery.
Ariana rolled her shoulders back, placed her hand atop her hat to keep it from blowing off in the wind, and strode toward the family plane. As close as she had become with Briana Leigh over the past week, she was starting to feel that parting ways with her and her dysfunctional past was going to be a good thing.
228
PURGED
"How many of those have you had?" Ariana asked as Briana Leigh attempted to place an empty vodka and cranberry on the table between their two facing leather seats. She kept missing the edge of the table, so Ariana finally leaned forward, took the glass from the girl's hand, and put it down. Briana Leigh was sloshed and getting seriously messy. Ariana wrinkled her nose as Briana Leigh wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
The new Briana Leigh Covington is going to have much better manners, Ariana vowed."I want to drink enough to be passed out on the plane to Ibiza," Briana Leigh explained, closing her eyes and tipping her head back.
Ariana tried not to sigh as she turned the page of that day's Washington Post. She had gone this long without criticizing Briana Leigh's habits. Why start now? Especially when Briana Leigh was giving her the biggest gift Ariana could have ever asked for: her life.
229
"What's with you and that newspaper?" Briana Leigh asked, sitting up again. She leaned her arm heavily on the armrest and snapped her fingers for the flight attendant, who immediately started mixing another drink. "You're so serious all of a sudden."
"Just want to know what's going on in the world," Ariana replied lightly, trying not to betray the pounding of her heart.
She turned the pages slowly, even though all she wanted to do was tear through the thing in search of any mention of her name. The moment she had seen the paper folded neatly on one of the airplane's tables along with the New York Times and USA Today, her pulse had started to race, but she had forced herself not to pick it up until now, when there was only an hour of flight time left in their flight. Otherwise, if the news was bad, she might have spent the whole flight obsessing and feeling ill.
The stewardess delivered another vodka and cranberry. Ariana turned to the last page of the local section and froze. There was the headline.