She trained the binoculars on the great doctor, her hands aching from the force of her grip. The boat docked. Dr. Meloni was escorted to the vessel and helped aboard. She watched as he knelt over her body, covering his mouth and nose against the stench. He looked her over and shook his head. Shrugged his shoulders. Ariana felt sick. He was going to ruin this whole thing. He was going to say he couldn't be sure.
But then, something caught his eye.
Slowly, Dr. Meloni reached inside the collar of the light blue shirt and pulled out the fleur-de-lis. He stared at it for a long moment, in total shock. Then he dropped it, stood up, and backed away. He said a few words to the officer who was obviously in charge, and both men nodded.
Meloni was probably spouting some crap about how well he knew her. How she never took that necklace off. How she had an almost unhealthy attachment to it and all it represented. How she never would have given it to anyone else because she was pathologically OCD and couldn't let go of the past.
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"Surprise, surprise, doctor," Ariana whispered triumphantly. "Maybe next time you should try harder to understand exactly what your patients are capable of."
Finally, the body was lifted up and placed into a black body bag. All Ariana could do now was hope that Meloni's identification would be enough--that they wouldn't perform any further tests on the body. But she knew her parents well enough to know that they wouldn't want her corpse defiled any further than it already had been. Hopefully they would use their considerable power to make sure that her body went untouched from here on. After all, the authorities had just found the body of a blond teenager dressed in prison garb, wearing Ariana's signature necklace. Who else could it be?
Ariana forced herself to look one last time at Briana Leigh's bloated face. She let the remorse wash over her. Let herself feel the loss of innocent Briana Leigh Covington. Even felt a pang for Teo, waiting all alone in Ibiza for the past weeks, having no idea what had happened to his fiancee.
Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and shoved it all aside. There was nothing she could do about that now. All she could do was honor Briana Leigh by living the life the girl was meant to have.
As the body bag was zipped up, Ariana got up from her chair and began to pack her things.
It was done.
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THE END
Easton, Connecticut, looked exactly the same. Not that Ariana had been away very long, but she had been through so much, she somehow expected everything to have changed. But there were the quaint little boutiques, the tiny exclusive restaurants like Latour and Frattelli's, the cute old-school police station with its orb-topped lampposts out front. Even the people on the street seemed the same to her. Lunching ladies with their tiny dogs lounging in their purses, wealthy boys on skateboards dressed all grungy like they couldn't afford Hugo Boss, teenage girls squealing into their cell phones as they swung their shopping bags.It was all so quaint and sunny and happy. It didn't feel like the right place for a funeral.
Ariana hid a smile as she turned her Audi down Elm Street and St. Peter's Episcopal Church came into view. Several black limousines were parked outside along with dozens of cars. The doors were open
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and Ariana could hear the organ playing its somber tones. She would have given anything to be a fly on the wall inside, but the church was too small. Too cozy. And most of the people inside had known her since birth. The risk was simply too high.
With a longing sigh, Ariana turned at the next cor
ner and headed for Coleman Park--a large square at the center of town containing a duck pond, dozens of benches for lounging, and a few colorful play areas for children. She shook her head as she tooled around, searching for a parking space on the pristine, tree-lined streets. Leave it to her mother to plan her funeral in Easton. After days of scouring the obituaries, Ariana had found the details of her final party in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She was to be cremated and her ashes spread in Easton's Coleman Park--Ariana and her Billings sisters had helped renovate the park as part of a community service project. A small accompanying article had quoted her mother as saying that Ariana had spent the happiest years of her life at Easton Academy, but that since the institution had refused to let the family scatter her ashes on the premises, this was the next best thing.
It was so Lillian. Her mother would believe that Ariana's happiest years had been at Easton, because that was where her mother had always wanted her to be. But if Ariana had had her way, she would have been buried on the family plantation--the place where she had spent the few happy times together with her mother and father and grandparents and cousins. Maybe one day Briana Leigh Covington would buy the old place from the Osgoods and actually make that dream come true.
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Ariana parked the car on the street, directly across from one of the entrances to the park. She was about to lock up her purse but stopped herself. That was an Ariana Osgood thing to do. She wasn't Ariana Osgood anymore. Briana Leigh Covington wasn't nearly as cautious. Perhaps she should try to shed some of the old paranoia. She placed the black clutch under her arm, straightened her wide black hat and sunglasses, and got out of the car with her valuables still inside her purse. A pair of police officers were loitering near the edge of the pond; Ariana assumed they were stationed there for crowd control. She found a spot near an ancient elm tree several yards behind them and waited.
Before long, the procession of cars made its way to the park. Several Easton police officers arrived to close down the road and make it easier for the mourners to get through. Ariana knew her father must have paid a pretty penny for that kind of service. She wasn't exactly Easton's favorite former resident.
Standing at a safe distance from the pond, Ariana was able to see each of her guests as they arrived. Her uncles and aunts and cousins--the young ones looking uncomfortable in their formal suits and dresses. Her father's colleagues, checking their BlackBerrys as they emerged from their chauffeur-driven cars, clearly counting the minutes until they could get back to their lives. Then a silver Mercedes convertible pulled up and Ariana's heart collapsed when she saw the stone-faced brunette behind the wheel. It was Noelle. Noelle had come to her funeral.
Ariana's chest flooded with a thousand different emotions. Anger,
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sadness, abandonment, glee, nostalgia. Noelle lifted her thick brown hair over her shoulders as she got out of the car, wearing a tasteful black suit and black heels. Then she turned around to wait as a red vintage roadster pulled up behind her. When Kiran Hayes and Taylor Bell emerged, Ariana had to hold her hand over her mouth to keep the emotion at bay. Taylor had gained some weight, but wore it well in a black dress and belted jacket. Kiran looked as gorgeous as ever, her hair cropped short, a pillbox hat and veil atop her head. Kiran and Taylor held hands for support as they approached the rest of the mourners, but Noelle, of course, didn't need any such help. She followed behind her friends, her head held high. The only betrayal of any emotion was when she quickly lifted a handkerchief to her nose, but she just as quickly folded it away.
Ariana watched her friends and all emotions blurred into nostalgia. These were the girls with whom she had spent some of the most incredible times of her life, and she ached to talk to them. She wanted to tell them what she had been through, that she was so mad at them for never visiting her in prison, but that she was so grateful they were here now. The knowledge that she couldn't do any of this was almost too much to bear.
Instead, Ariana forced herself to focus on the later arrivals. She was surprised when Daniel and Paige Ryan showed up. Wondered what that was about. Then was disappointed when none of the other guys arrived. No Gage, no Walt Whittaker, no Josh Hollis or Dash McCafferty or Trey Prescott.
They were probably still mad at her. Probably still hated that she