Night of the Living Deb by Susan McBride Page B

asked. She wasn’t much for hanging out with the girls. She always had some kind of rich boyfriend who was takin’ her out.”
    Well, that counted out Malone then, as he still had student loans to pay off, and the last time we’d gone to the movies, I’d had to pay for the tickets and the Junior Mints.
    But it didn’t explain why Brian had chased Trayla backstage and why he’d left with her, if that’s what really happened.
    It could’ve been a weird coincidence, I told myself.
    One of those rare cosmic occurrences that only happened when there was a Harvest Moon.
    Or not.
    My teeth began to chatter.
    “So no one knows where Trayla went off to?” Allie asked,
    because I stood there like an idiot, staring at the make-up smeared mirror and the way it distorted my reflection.
    “Nancy in the office said Trayla’s home phone was disconnected and that one of the girls had heard her mention something about getting a ticket out,” Lu related.
    A ticket out, huh?
    Hopefully, that was a solo flight and not a trip for two
    with my missing boyfriend.
    A wave of nausea hit me, just contemplating it.
    No, no, no.
    This wasn’t happening, not to me.
    Brian would never ever cheat.
    Would he?
    I shook my head, saying, “No,” repeatedly, even as a wave of dizziness swept through me, so fierce that I had to lean on Allie to stay upright.
    “Kendricks, you okay?”
    Her voice was garbled, thick as peanut butter.
    “You’re not gonna faint, are you?”
    Faint? Me?
    Hell, no.
    I’m a Blevins Kendricks. We don’t swoon.
    Nope. What we have are weak stomachs.
    With a gut-wrenching heave, I leaned over and puked on the vinyl flooring.
    Adios, banana pancakes.
    Or what was left of them anyway.
    “Jesus, Kendricks! You nearly tossed your cookies on my Jimmy Choos!” Allie screeched.
    I balanced hands on thighs, my legs vaguely shaking, lifting my head to mutter, “Sorry,” but I didn’t mean it.
    I’d missed her Choos?
    Damn.
    This was clearly not my lucky day.
     
    Chapter 9
    Allie took the wheel on the way home. Said she didn’t trust me in control of anything as deadly
    as an automobile when I was nearly catatonic.
    She was afraid I’d drive us both into a tree, and all because I couldn’t summon the energy to do more than stare blankly at her rapid-fire questions: “Are you gonna puke again? You need to lie down? Want me to call your mother? How about your therapist?”
    I didn’t have a therapist—surprising, huh?—nor did I have the oomph to utter anything but monosyllables; though she needn’t have worried for her life.
    Odd as it sounded, it wasn’t her I wanted to kill, not this time.
    It was Malone.
    If he had truly done the terrible deeds that everyone was trying so hard to convince me he had, I figured a raking over hot coals while tarred and feathered was too good for him.
    But I had to find him first.
    I had to hear the words “We are through . . . over . . . done . . . kaput” from his lips before I’d wave my white flag and surrender to heartbreak.
    Oh, and I would.
    Find him, that is.
    That Nazi Hunter dude had nothing on me. I was pushy, nosy, and I had plenty of resources, not to mention infinite vacation days.
    Being that I worked for myself—thanks to the trust fund Daddy had bestowed on me from the time I was eighteen, meaning my mostly pro bono Web design work didn’t have to pay all my bills (and seldom did)—I could take off as long as I needed to track down my errant boyfriend.
    I’d left business cards with Lu the Busty Barmaid and the soprano-voiced bartender, along with the offer of money for information—ditto the overly made-up hostess and bouncer in the foyer—all on the off-chance Malone turned up at The Men’s Club again or someone would remember something they’d forgotten to mention. (It’s amazing how often cash can jog one’s memory.)
    Although I seriously hoped the next phone call I got was from Brian, explaining this whole mess away.
    Just in case he had and I’d