2: 2
After that, the dorm went cold as ice. Lucretia and Cicely closed ranks completely, treating me like an enemy every single day.
Honestly, I wished they'd stay far away from me.
I was only living in the dorm to satisfy my father's little test, and to keep an eye on the group's investment projects out in the university district. I had no time to waste on them.
But that's the thing about people like this. Ignore them, and they come looking for trouble anyway.
Friday afternoon I had no classes, so I was getting ready to head downtown for a business dinner.
I opened my locked closet to grab the haute couture gown that had just been flown in.
But the door was hanging ajar, and there were scratch marks on the latch where someone had jimmied it with wire.
The closet was empty.
Frowning, I turned toward the room. Cicely was sitting at her desk painting her nails.
Her eyes darted away, and the hand holding the brush gave a little jerk.
I walked over and gripped her wrist. The brush dropped, staining the desk red.
"Where's the black gown from my closet?"
Cicely flinched, then stammered, "I... how would I know? Maybe you put it somewhere and forgot. You're rich, you've got tons of clothes. What's the big deal about losing one?"
I stared at her, pulled out my phone, and opened the screenshot Tessa Finch had just sent me.
It was a social media post.
Lucretia, in heavy makeup, wearing my haute couture gown and holding a glass of red wine, posing in front of the Finance Department mixer backdrop.
The caption read: "A little indulgence now and then is the best reward for an ordinary life. New dress, so slimming~" Set to hide from me only.
I let out a cold laugh, released Cicely's hand, and went straight downstairs to flag a cab for the Finance Department event center.
I pushed through the doors into pounding music, and spotted Lucretia at once.
She was surrounded by a few guys, laughing away, a slice of cream cake in her hand.
Somebody bumped into her, and the cake smeared straight across the chest of the gown.
Lucretia yelped and started scrubbing at it desperately with a napkin.
The red cream soaked into the silk, leaving a huge grease stain that would never come out.
I walked over, face cold, and grabbed her arm.
"Fun, wearing someone else's dress?"
Lucretia looked up, saw it was me, and the color drained from her face in an instant.
The guys around her all froze and turned to look.
"Marion... how are you here?"
Her voice trembled as she shrank back. The glass in her hand shook, and the last of the red wine spilled all over the skirt.
I looked her up and down. Three holes stomped into the hem by high heels, a slick of red grease across the chest, a cigarette burn on the back.
This eighty-eight-thousand-dollar gown was completely ruined.
"You pried open my closet lock and took it without asking. That's called stealing."
I couldn't be bothered with more talk. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.
"Hello, is this 911? Southport University, Finance Department event center. Eighty-eight thousand dollars of my personal property has been stolen and deliberately destroyed. The evidence is solid. Please send an officer. I want to file a report."
When I hung up, no one in the room made a sound. Lucretia's legs buckled and she nearly collapsed.
She lunged at me and clawed at my wrist.
"Marion! What are you doing? I just thought your dress looked nice, so I borrowed it. We're roommates. Do you really have to call the cops and have me arrested?"
"Eighty-eight thousand? That's robbery! There's no way a lousy dress costs that much! Quit trying to scare me!"
I stepped back and shook her off, wiping my wrist with a napkin.
"You've been sneaking my La Mer and my wintersweet perfume this whole time. I didn't bother making an issue of it. I chalked it up to feeding a stray."
"But now you've gotten bold enough to jimmy open my closet and put your paws on this dress."
"So let me tell you this. Even if God himself came down today, you're going to cough up every last cent of that eighty-eight thousand."
