New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town 4 страница

Under the bed, George and I looked at each other. Caracas? That was a city in Venezuela — where Anna was supposed to have gone. Was there a connection there?

“Right,” Kyle said into the phone. “No, not tonight — I’ve got a dinner at seven and the Club Mirador party after that. Send me an e-mail and let me know. Right. Talk to you tomorrow.”

After he hung up, he sighed again and walked toward the bathroom. The light went on and we heard water running in the sink. That would have been the perfect time for us to make our escape. But unfortunately the bathroom was right between us and the room door, and there was no way to get past it without being spotted. So we stayed put.

The water shut off and Kyle walked back into the bedroom. I heard the beep of his cell phone as he punched in a number. “Hi, Marsha, it’s Kyle. Could you messenger six more press packets to the hotel? I need them here in an hour. And call Adam and let him know that I want to talk to him at ten. No, ten tonight, not tomorrow morning.”

Wow, the guy never stopped working!

Kyle’s feet stopped by the bed and I heard him sit down. The bottom of the bed sagged a little under his weight and I saw George’s panicked expression. I reached out and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay,” I mouthed at her. I’d been in situations like this before, and I really wasn’t too worried. People didn’t often look under their beds.

“Okay. Call me if you need me,” Kyle said, and ended the call. His feet disappeared as he swung them up onto the bed, sighing yet again. I guessed he was going for five minutes’ rest. Inconvenient and uncomfortable, but still nothing to worry about — as long as neither George nor I had a sudden uncontrollable need to sneeze.

There was a thud and I saw Kyle’s PDA land on the carpet. He must have dropped it by accident. Grumbling under his breath, he sat up again. His feet came down — and his heel hit the PDA and knocked it under the bed!

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The PDA lay there, about two inches from my face. If he looked under the bed…

I held my breath and tried not to move even a hair as Kyle’s hand reached under the dust ruffle. I watched in horrified fascination as it groped around right in front of my nose! Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me, I chanted to myself.

Then Kyle’s fingers closed on the PDA and he withdrew his arm. Slowly, silently, I let out my breath. When I looked over at George, she was staring at me, frozen. Then, still silently, her shoulders began to shake and her face contorted. She put a hand over her mouth. Her face turned red.

I couldn’t believe it. She was cracking up!

I glared at her, willing her not to make a sound, as above us Kyle stood up, moved to the desk chair, and took his suit jacket off the back. At last, thankfully, he left the room. The door clicked shut.

Just in time. A loud snorting sound burst out from behind George’s hand. “Oh, wow!” she gasped. “Sorry, Nan, but suddenly the whole situation just seemed completely hilarious!”

I gave her a frosty look and wiggled out from under the bed. “I’m glad you had your fun,” I said severely. “Remind me not to take you on any more illegal activities. You obviously have a strange way of handling stress.”

“Sorry.” Still giggling, George crawled out from under the bed, stood up, and brushed herself off. “Okay. Let’s do what we came here to do, what do you say?”

I waved at Kyle’s computer, which was indeed sitting on the desk. “Be my guest.”

While she was getting started, I quickly opened the room door and hung the “do not disturb” sign on the knob, just in case the maid was making the evening turndown rounds now.

As George worked, I prowled around the room, but there wasn’t much to look at. Kyle obviously hadn’t spent much time here.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” George groaned. “Too easy! Guess what Kyle’s password is?”

“Uh — Prettyface?” I suggested.

“Nope. PrincessK. As in, Kelly,” George said, rolling her eyes. “The guy needs to get a life — and stop living his daughter’s life for her.”

I peered over George’s shoulder at the screen. “So have you found the e-mail we’re looking for?”

“Not yet.” George scrolled rapidly through Kyle’s Sent folder. “It’s not in here, which isn’t surprising. If he did send it, he’d have had to log in as Anna, so there wouldn’t be a copy of it in any of his e-mail folders. But that doesn’t mean there’s no record of it anywhere on his computer. You just have to know where to look.”

She typed a few keys, scanned a few more screens. Then she sat back in the chair and gave me a satisfied smile. “Ta-dah,” she said. “In the browser cache.”

I looked at the screen again. And there it was — “Anna’s” e-mail. “So Kyle did send it!” I murmured, my skin prickling. Here it was — our first actual evidence that Anna’s disappearance was not what it seemed to be. And that, whatever had really happened to her, Kyle McMahon was involved.

I checked the time stamp. The message had been sent at 7:30 a.m. — half an hour before Anna and I were supposed to meet! So whatever happened to her, it must have already happened by then.

“George, is there a way you can save this info and send it to your computer?” I asked. “It’s the only proof we have so far.”

“I think so. I just have to translate it into plain text.” George hit some more keys, then highlighted the whole message, including the time stamp and the various identifiers proving that it came from Kyle’s computer, and copied it into an e-mail. She hit Send, then opened the Sent folder and deleted it. “Unless he’s a computer geek, he’ll never know we were here,” she promised me.

Before she shut the computer down, I asked George to show me one more thing — Kyle’s schedule. She brought up the calendar screen and I peered at it. Wow. Kyle had had meetings last night until a dinner that started at 7:30. And then he’d had meetings again this morning, starting with a working breakfast with his staff at 7:00!

“So did he send the e-mail during his staff meeting?” George wondered. “That’s unbelievably cold-blooded!”

I had to agree, it was hard to believe. I was starting to wonder just exactly when Kyle had found the time to fit in a kidnapping. He was one busy man!

Just then my cell phone vibrated from my jeans pocket. I fished it out and saw that I had two text messages. One was from Ned, with a fax number. The second was from Bess.

“‘Following Kelly 2 secret meeting!’” I read aloud. “‘Come quick!’”

“Time to motor,” George said.

As she shut Kyle’s computer down, I made a last-minute sweep of the room to be sure we’d left no sign of ourselves there. Then we hurried out. “Where r u?” I texted Bess.

“8th St. & 5th Ave.” came the answer.

“On our way,” I wrote back.

With Bess texting us her new position every couple of minutes and George finding the locations on her PDA, we wove through the streets of New York. We were moving slowly east.

We finally caught up with Bess on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. She was loitering by a window display of shoes across the street from a restaurant called JoEllen’s Kitchen. “Don’t look,” she told us immediately. “She’s in there at the table by the window.” She jerked her head backward to indicate the restaurant.

“By herself?” I asked, disappointed.

“I think she’s waiting for someone,” Bess explained. “She’s been in there for about fifteen minutes and I don’t think she’s ordered anything. The waitress keeps coming by and refilling her water.”

“Nice work,” I said. “What else did you find out today?”

“Kelly does seem to be acting pretty squirrelly,” Bess said. “I stopped by your room pretending I was looking for you and she was superfriendly, like she usually is. We hung out and chatted for a while, and I got some info about what her dad was doing last night — I’ll tell you about that in a second — then I asked her what she was doing tonight and she totally clammed up. I didn’t want to get her wondering about what I was up to, so I just said good-bye and left. I waited in the lobby until she came out and followed her.”

“Smart!” I told her.

“So what should we do now?” Bess asked.

“We wait and see who she’s meeting with,” I explained. “We might want to move to a different window — there’s only so long we can look at shoes without seeming suspicious.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I could look at them all day,” Bess remarked. “Although these” — she shot a glance at the display, which was full of studded combat boots and vampy platform shoes in various extreme colors“ — are not exactly my style, I have to say.”

“I think the glittery red ones with the six-inch heel are totally you,” George said.

I laughed. “Come on, let’s keep moving up and down the street. As long as we can still see her window, we’ll be okay.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you in all the excitement — your friend Officer Johansen gave me two names of protesters who got arrested,” George told me as we strolled down the street. “I got in touch with one of them — a guy named Mark Breed love who’s a student at one of the local colleges.”

“You guys are so efficient!” I said appreciatively. I glanced back at the restaurant window. Kelly was still alone. “So what did he have to say?”

“Something pretty interesting,” George replied.

“Which is…?” I prompted when she paused.

She looked satisfied. “Well. He was kind of bitter because he’s not really into animal rights himself. He just went along with it because this girl he likes is into it. Then he got arrested, and she didn’t get arrested, and she didn’t even come to bail him out!”

“Bummer,” Bess commented.

“Yeah. So anyway, he was happy to spill whatever he knew. And guess what he said?” George paused expectantly.

“I have no idea!” I protested, punching her lightly on the arm. “Would you quit with the suspense?”

“He said…” George paused once more, then went on, “He said that the person who came to the animal-rights group with all the info about Pretty Face was someone connected with the pageant!”

Bess and I both gasped.

George grinned. “I know. It’s an inside job. Scandalous, right?”

“Someone connected with the pageant? Who?” I demanded.

“He didn’t know her name. He only saw her once, the night of the ‘happening’ at the Horatio,” George said. “But he says she was about our age, and petite, and blond.”

My heart sank. Kelly was petite and blond. Of course, there were other people connected with the pageant who were petite and blond too, but no one else that I knew of who’d been acting as suspicious as Kelly had.

Only I still couldn’t figure out why she would be trying to sabotage her own father’s company on the sly….

I glanced back at the restaurant window again — and did a double take. While George had been talking, Kelly’s dinner companion had arrived. Kelly was leaning across the table, her face intent as she said something to him.

We moved closer and I could see that Kelly’s friend was a guy of about eighteen, with a scraggly black goatee and longish hair that he kept pushing out of his eyes. He wore an ancient blue T-shirt that read SAVE THE WHALES. He was gazing at Kelly with a soulful expression.

“Oh, that guy is definitely an animal-rights protester,” Bess murmured. “Look how thin he is. He’s probably a vegetarian.”

I sighed. I wasn’t looking forward to this — I really liked Kelly, and I didn’t want to get her in trouble — but I had to confront her and find out once and for all what she was up to. Especially if she could shed some light on Anna Chavez’s disappearance.

“Come on,” I said. Squaring my shoulders, I walked into the restaurant and marched up to Kelly’s table. Bess and George were right behind me.

“Hello, Kelly,” I said.

She glanced up and her face turned white. “What — how —,” she began.

I folded my arms. “Kelly, is there something you want to tell me?”

 

THE WRONG ANSWERS

 

“Oh, no!” Kelly said. Reaching up, she grasped my arm. Her blue eyes were huge. “Nancy, please, don’t tell my dad about this!”

My heart sank another few inches. More proof that I’d been right.

“I don’t want to tell on you,” I said quietly. “But I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Maybe if you tried to explain it to me…”

“Kelly, who are these people?” the guy asked, looking bewildered. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, like you don’t know, Mr. Animal Activist,” Bess said darkly.

“Huh?” the guy said, staring back at Bess.

A waitress walked up with a loaded tray. “Your bacon cheeseburger,” she said, setting a plate down in front of the skinny guy. “And your Cobb salad,” she said, putting a bowl in front of Kelly.

“A bacon cheeseburger!” Bess cried, outraged. “You hypocrite! Do your friends at PETA know about this?”

“ What? ” the guy said, looking alarmed now. “Pita? You mean the flatbread? What are you talking about?”

“Why would you want to ruin Pretty Face, Kelly?” George asked. “I just don’t get it.”

“What?” Kelly demanded. And then everyone was talking at once.

“Hold on, hold on,” I called, raising my hands for silence. I was starting to think something was seriously off. “I think we’re misunderstanding each other.”

As soon as everyone was quiet, I turned back to Kelly. “What is it you don’t want me to mention to your dad?” I asked.

Kelly reached across the table and took the skinny guy’s hand. “This is Andrew.” She introduced us. “He’s from River Heights. We used to date.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “And…?”

“And, well, my dad didn’t exactly approve. For one thing, Andrew’s older — he’s in college now,” Kelly went on.

I could think of a bunch of other reasons Kyle wouldn’t approve of Andrew. But the main one was that, in Kyle’s eyes, no boy would ever be good enough to date Kelly.

“Anyway, Daddy made me stop seeing him.” Kelly gave Andrew a shy smile. “But I didn’t stop caring about him. So when I got to New York, I called him and we made plans to see each other tonight. It was bad to go behind Daddy’s back, I know. But I just had to.”

“Oh,” Bess said in a small voice. “So, uh, Andrew, you’re not an animal-rights activist, I guess.”

“Um, no,” he replied, still staring at her as if she were insane. “I’m a computer science major.”

“Wait. You thought I was involved with those nutty protesters?” Kelly asked. She gave an incredulous laugh. “Why in the world would you think that?”

“Excuse me, but are you girls going to sit down?” the waitress asked. “Because you’re blocking the way here.”

“Kelly, do you mind if we share your booth for a minute?” I asked. “I just need to clear a few things up.”

Kelly hesitated, but then she and Andrew slid over on the booth seats to make room for us.

“The night of the first protest, I found an empty tube of stage blood in our bathroom garbage,” I explained to Kelly.

“How could you think I’d sabotage my own father?” Kelly asked me. She sounded angry. “I don’t know where the stage blood came from. But I can’t believe you, Nancy! I thought we were friends. But you seem to think I’m capable of being some kind of sneaky criminal.”

“I’m sorry. I really am,” I said. Suddenly I felt incredibly tired and confused. “It’s just that there was the tube of blood, and then when I asked you about the protest, you got all nervous and said you hadn’t seen it —”

“That was because I sneaked out of the reception to call Andrew,” Kelly told me. “I really didn’t see it. Is that the only reason you suspected me?” She sounded hurt.

“No,” I said gently. “You acted so secretive every time I asked you if you wanted to do something with me. I guess I thought you were hiding something from me.” I shrugged. “Which turns out to be the case.”

Kelly looked ashamed. “I guess that’s true,” she murmured. “I was afraid I’d jinx things if I told anyone what I was doing. I was sort of afraid that Andrew wouldn’t want to see me again.”

“Are you nuts?” Andrew said, taking her hand. “Of course I wanted to see you!”

Kelly gave him a smile. “I know that now, but I didn’t then.” She turned back to me. “Plus I felt bad about deceiving my dad. That’s why I didn’t tell you what I was up to. I guess I was acting a little weird. I’m sorry, Nancy.”

“Me too,” I told her.

“But there’s more,” George said. “Today we talked to someone who told us that the person who masterminded the protests was a Pretty Face pageant insider. Someone our age, with blond hair.”

“There’s at least four girls in the pageant with blond hair,” Kelly pointed out. “Me, Piper, Cheryl Amery, Madison Lane —”

“Piper,” I said as something finally clicked in my mind. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner? Of course, Piper!”

“You think Piper is the one?” George asked.

“Well, she’s blond, she’s petite, she’s a pageant insider. And I just remembered the key point. She was in our room the night of the first protest, wasn’t she?” I said. I glanced at Kelly. “Didn’t you say she was one of the girls who came up to hang out after the party? She could have left the empty tube in our garbage can then.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said, frowning. “But why? Why would she want to hurt Pretty Face?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but Piper has been pretty bitter ever since I won the crown,” I said. “She seems to think it was rightfully hers. Put that together with what happened to her sister —”

“You mean Robin?” Kelly asked. Robin Depken had been the runner-up Miss Pretty Face River Heights the previous year, when Kelly had won. Kelly had actually won Miss Congeniality to start with, but then both the winner of the crown, Portia Leoni, and the runner-up, Robin Depken, had been disqualified. Portia had been framed for shoplifting, and Robin had been disqualified because one of the judges admitted to skewing the votes in Robin’s favor, though that hadn’t been Robin’s fault. In the end, Kelly had ended up taking the crown.

“Yes. Between Robin being disqualified and Piper losing to me, I could see why Piper might start to think the contest was rigged against her family,” I said.

“So she wanted to take revenge,” George suggested.

“Maybe,” I agreed.

“I’m not sure I believe that,” Kelly objected. “Piper hasn’t seemed negative at all about being the runner-up. Nancy, I have to tell you, I think you’re overly suspicious.”

I sighed. “I guess I need to talk to Piper. But carefully.” After my false conclusion with Kelly, I wasn’t about to accuse anyone else without unshakable proof. I just hoped Kelly could forgive me.

Although, since it now seemed almost certain her father was involved with Anna Chavez’s disappearance, chances were Kelly was going to have much bigger reasons to be upset with me soon….

The thought made me feel even more exhausted. Suddenly all I wanted was to go back to the hotel, crawl into bed, and stay there for a week.

That was the moment at which Kelly, checking her watch, turned to me with a frown. “Nancy, it’s eight fifteen,” she said. “Doesn’t the party at Club Mirador start pretty soon?”

I looked at my own watch and gasped. Oh, no! In the excitement of the evening, I had forgotten about tonight’s event: the pre-pageant press party at the club. The party started at nine o’clock, but all the contestants were supposed to be there at eight thirty. That was in fifteen minutes — and the club was all the way over on West 57th Street. If I’d learned one thing about New York City, it was that there was no way to get from the East Village, where we were, to West 57th Street in fifteen minutes. Not to mention the fact that I was still in my jeans, a white tank top under my denim jacket, and sneakers, and not wearing any makeup.

I slid down in my seat and groaned. “That’s it. I’m done. Looks like Piper can have the crown after all. Harrison Hendrickson will make sure I’m kicked out of the pageant after this.”

There was silence around the table. Then Bess smacked her palm down on the tabletop.

“No!” she declared. “I’m not going to let that happen!”

George turned to stare at her. “Excuse me, but what exactly are you planning to do to stop it?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Bess said. She leaned forward and put her hand on my arm. “Nancy, we can still save the situation,” she said urgently. “All you have to do is trust me — and do exactly as I say.”

 

MAKEOVER ON THE MOVE

 

“Uh — okay,” I said to Bess. I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was up to, but I knew she was serious. “I trust you. Tell me what to do.”

“Kelly, switch shoes with Nancy, please,” Bess directed rapidly. “We already know your feet are the same size from when you loaned Nancy your tennis sneakers. And we’ll need your jacket, too, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you switching clothes?” Andrew asked plaintively.

“Because Kelly is nicely dressed for her date with you,” Bess told him, “and we need to glam Nancy up fast.”

I was already putting on Kelly’s shoes, which were heeled sandals that actually looked really good with my jeans. I pulled on her jacket, a below-the-hip blazer in dark blue velvet, and handed her my denim jacket.

“Let’s go,” Bess commanded, grabbing my hand.

“Thanks, Kelly,” I gasped over my shoulder as Bess hauled me outside. George was following, looking as startled as I felt.

“Good luck!” Kelly said.

“Uh — nice to meet you,” Adam called after us. Bess stood on the curb and stuck her hand in the air. A taxi drew to a halt down the street from us and a couple started toward it. Bess ran forward and grabbed the door.

“This is an emergency,” she told the couple sternly. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to catch the next taxi.” She opened the door, then waved George and me inside. “Let’s go, not a moment to waste!”

“Where to?” asked the driver, a young man in a turban.

“Club Mirador on West Fifty-seventh Street,” Bess said. “And if you can get us there before eight thirty, I’ll pay you ten dollars extra.”

“Not a problem,” said the driver, and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires.

“Bess,” I said nervously as we zoomed down St. Mark’s Place, “this seems kind of dangerous. Oof!” We hit a pothole and bounced.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Bess assured me. “Plus, taxis all have V-8 engines and extrastrong shocks. They use the same model they use for police cars. We’ll be fine.”

One of the weird but wonderful things about Bess is that she knows a ton about cars.

“I don’t think Nancy was worried about us so much as the pedestrians — and other vehicle operators,” George murmured as we narrowly missed ramming a bicycle messenger who jumped the traffic light.

“If they’re going to break the traffic laws, then they’ll have to take the consequences,” Bess snapped. She was rummaging in her bag. A second later she pulled out her makeup case and ripped the top off a sampler of Perfect Face. “Turn toward me, Nan.”

Obedient — or, rather, stunned — I turned my face and let Bess smooth the shimmery lotion onto my cheeks. The familiar tingle spread over my skin.

“Good,” Bess murmured. “Now your eyes.” Pulling out a blue liner pencil, she quickly and expertly lined my eyes. I cringed, expecting every second to have my eye poked out. But miraculously it didn’t happen.

“Good thing you and I wear the same makeup colors,” Bess said, steadying her hand against my cheek as the taxi jolted along. She stroked on a coat of mascara.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I managed to say while she patted blush onto the apples of my cheeks.

“No talking,” she chided, and started outlining my lips with a different liner pencil. She filled in the outline, then applied shimmery gloss over everything. “Whoops!” she said as we bounced over a bump. Pulling a cotton swab from her makeup bag, she dabbed at the gloss that had smeared onto my cheek. “No problem.”

“It’s eight twenty-two, and we’re only at Thirty-first Street,” George informed us.

“I can go faster,” the driver called eagerly. The engine roared and the car surged forward even more swiftly.

“Is the mascara dry yet? Can I shut my eyes?” I asked. “Because I’m afraid to look!”

“You have to shut your eyes anyway, because I need to put some shadow on them,” Bess told me. “But I’m telling you, Nancy, we’re perfectly fine. The driver is a pro. And so am I.

“Okay, open now,” she said a minute later. I opened my eyes to find her and George staring at me with considering looks on their faces.

“That’s pretty amazing, I have to admit,” George said after a moment.

“Thanks, but I’m not done yet,” Bess said. She pulled out a hairbrush. “Flip your head upside down, Nan.”

I did as I was told. I felt the brush tugging at the roots of my hair. Then Bess ordered me to flip upright again.

“See? It’s all nice and full now,” she said approvingly.

Reaching into her bag once more, she pulled out a gorgeous necklace of twisted silver wire and gemlike bits of glass. “I bought this on Saint Mark’s Place while I was waiting for you guys,” she told us. She unclasped it and fastened it around my neck. “It looks perfect with your outfit, Nancy!”

Digging into her bag once more, she came out with a compact mirror and handed it to me. “Check yourself out.”

I peered at my reflection. I had to admit, I looked really good. My makeup looked professional, the necklace looked fantastic with the velvet blazer, and even my tank top and jeans seemed like they were part of the plan.

“You are some kind of wizard,” I told Bess.

“The scary kind,” George chimed in. “In a good way, of course.”

“I can’t believe you pulled this all together so fast, and out of nowhere!” I added.

“It’s a talent,” Bess said modestly.

“Eight twenty-eight,” George called.

“We are almost there, don’t worry, ladies! I will not fail you!” the driver cried. He seemed to have entered fully into the spirit of the adventure.

We tore around a corner and then shuddered to a halt in front of Club Mirador. Bess threw the cab door open and let me out. “You run in,” she ordered me. “George and I will pay the driver. We’ll see you later at the hotel.”

I gave her a quick hug. “My heroes. Thanks a million!”

As I slipped inside the club, my watch told me it was 8:30 exactly. I spotted the other contestants and made myself walk demurely toward them. I stopped next to Piper and Raven. Piper scowled at me. Harrison Hendrickson caught my eye and gave me a tiny nod.

Phew!

The event was, frankly, sort of a blur. I was exhausted — it seemed like this day had gone on for at least a week — and I was also distracted with thinking about my case, or cases. I couldn’t stop staring at Kyle McMahon. He was schmoozing and smiling like he always did, but I could see the lines of exhaustion and stress on his face. Was it really possible that he’d had Anna Chavez kidnapped? He really didn’t seem like the criminal type. Then again, the evidence we’d found on his computer was pretty much unarguable.

I also wanted to question Piper about the protests and see if I could get her to reveal anything, but every time I came near her she would walk away from me. This was going to be tricky, since she so clearly didn’t like me. She was going to like me even less when I accused her of trying to sabotage Pretty Face. But I had to get her to tell me what she knew. It might lead to my finding Anna.

I listened while Kyle made a speech about Pretty Face. He talked a lot about how Pretty Face had grown in the last few years. “As most of you know, we’re building new corporate headquarters on Albany Street in downtown Manhattan, and we’ve almost finished construction on the office tower,” he said. “I went to visit the building site earlier today and it is spectacular — a state-of-the-art facility with its own product-testing labs, all constructed with green technology.” A sudden grin broke across his face. “It is really amazing. It’s even got a helicopter landing pad on the roof!”

The crowd laughed appreciatively. Then Kyle’s grin faded and he looked earnest again. “Seriously — what a boon for the city! Our company is one of the leaders in helping to revive the economy of that area.”

He went on to talk about what a good corporate citizen Pretty Face was, with its eco-friendly products and its many charitable and community outreach programs — the pageant being one of them. “The pageant is a win for everyone,” he said. “Pretty Face gets lovely, fresh-faced young ambassadors for its product line, the contestants who win the regional titles get scholarships and a lifetime supply of our wonderful cosmetics, the one who wins the national title gets a trip around the world and much more, and everyone’s happy.”

I glanced at Piper, who was standing near me in the crowd. Her face wore a sneer. Then, as she noticed me looking at her, she smoothed it out into a bland smile.

There’s one person who’s not happy, I thought.

A second later I caught myself stifling a huge yawn. Man, I was tired!