Page 110 of The Dazzling Heights
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when Avery gets here,” Leda promised the other girl, sitting up a little straighter.
“That might be a while.” Rylin perched on an armchair in the corner, sitting just barely on the edge of the seat, as if she might at any point change her mind and run off.
It was so late that it was almost morning. The sky seen through the curved flexiglass window was still dark, though far in the horizon Watt could make out the first tentative blush of dawn, quartz and rose and the soft gold of aged champagne.
The doorbell sounded again. Watt started to go answer it, but Leda nodded once more, and Avery hurried forward into the room. Her hair tumbled riotously about her shoulders, and she was walking barefoot on the white tufted carpet, holding her delicate beaded shoes in one hand. She seemed disoriented.
Watt saw Rylin shoot Avery a look sizzling with resentment, but Avery didn’t pick up on it. She just ran straight to Leda and threw her arms around her friend. “Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Avery,” Leda assured her, gently shrugging off Avery’s embrace. “Thanks to Watt. He saved me.”
Avery turned her clear blue eyes to Watt, startled, and gave a tentative smile.I didn’t save her foryou, Watt thought, but he didn’t resent Avery anymore, so he gave her a silent nod of understanding. After all, they both cared about Leda.
Rylin was still staring unabashedly at Avery, her face a mask of hurt and wounded pride. Watt wondered what had happened between them.
“I’m sorry I had to call you all here, so late at night. But you need to know what happened, and it couldn’t wait,” Leda began. The pillow was still in her lap; she kept fidgeting with the fringe, pulling at it until the pieces began to unravel. “Tonight I was confronted by a girl named Mariel. She’s out to get us. All of us.”
“Who is she?” Avery’s flawless features creased into a frown.
Leda winced as she spoke. “I think she was Eris’s girlfriend. She works as a bartender at Altitude, and came here tonight as part of the catering team. Apparently she’s been on some kind of vigilante quest to find out what happened the night Eris died. And I gave her exactly what she wanted.”
Nadia was already working at top speed, trying to put together all the pieces of the puzzle in a complete file for Watt.Get her to tell it all. In detail, Nadia requested, speaking directly in Watt’s head now that the others were present. Watt nodded.
“Tell us from the beginning,” he asked Leda. “Everything you can remember.”
Slowly, Leda explained how Mariel had been there tonight, standing behind a bar right when Leda was upset, and alone. Watt knew why—because he’d abandoned her—and felt even more miserable at the realization.
Leda told them that she’d only had one drink, but the next thing she knew the two of them were out on the beach, and Mariel was pestering her with questions about Eris.
Found her, Nadia said, and a pic of Mariel—the official one, from her ID ring—appeared on the back of Watt’s eyelids.
There was something familiar about her, though Watt couldn’t place it.Nadia, have we seen her before?
You ordered a drink from her at the Hudson Conservancy Ball, Nadia reminded him.
Thank god for Nadia’s photographic memory.Maybe she was spying on us then too.
“Is this her?” Watt asked aloud, pretending to use his contacts to send Leda the photo, since Avery and Rylin were watching.
Leda’s jaw tightened in recognition. “That’s her.” She made a swishing motion with her wrist, and the pic projected onto one of the suite’s enormous full-screen walls.
Avery gasped. “I met her at Eris’s grave! She stared at me like she hated me.”
Leda looked down. “After Mariel drugged me and kidnapped me, she asked me how I kept you all from telling the truth. I told her all your secrets.” Her voice quavered, but she forged bravely on. “I told her what you did to Cord, Rylin—and, Avery, I’m so sorry, I told her your secret too.” Watt glanced at Avery, waiting for a pained expression to cross her face at the reference to Atlas, but she just pursed her lips and said nothing.
Leda turned to Watt last of all. “And, Watt, I told her about Nadia …”
It’s okay, Watt hastened to reassure Nadia,we can figure this out—
“… I even told her where Nadia is,” Leda finished.
Watt swallowed bravely over the horror that threatened to close up his chest. If Mariel told anyone that Nadia was in his brain, it was the end of both of them. “It wasn’t your fault, Leda,” he assured her.
Leda looked around the room, clearly waiting for the others to jump on her, to blame her—but neither Avery nor Rylin spoke up. Watt was surprised, and glad. Maybe he wasn’t the only one Leda had made peace with recently.
Leda took a shaky breath. “Now Mariel thinks you all deserve to pay for Eris’s death, since you helped cover it up. I wanted to warn you, because she’s out for revenge, and there’s nothing she won’t do. She left me fordead.”
“Let me get this straight,” Rylin interjected. “This girl Mariel thinks we’re all involved in the death of her ex-girlfriend, and she knows all our secrets, and she’s out to make us pay?”
