"Okay. Time for bed!" Ariana said in a bright voice.
Briana Leigh crashed back onto the bed and rolled over. Face to the comforter, she half-crawled, half-slithered up the bed until her head was in the vicinity of the pillows. Ariana unfolded the cashmere throw at the foot of the bed and placed it over Briana Leigh.
"Thanks," Briana Leigh said, pulling the blanket up under her chin as she curled into a fetal position. "You're a good friend."
Ariana's mouth twitched into a smile.
"You're not going to leave me, are you?" Briana Leigh asked.
Ariana's chest welled with pride. She had already done it. Already made herself indispensable to Briana Leigh. But the pride was unexpectedly tinged with guilt. She realized with a start that she felt sorry for the girl. Clearly Briana Leigh had her lonely, vulnerable side. She
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was starting to depend on Emma Walsh, and all Emma Walsh was going to do was use her and bail.
"No. I'm not going to leave you," Ariana lied, a lump forming in her throat.
"Good." Briana Leigh closed her eyes. "I love you, Kaitlynn." Ariana froze, hovering over Briana Leigh's bed. Her blood hardened in her veins, the guilt, pity, and sorrow instantly obliterated. For a moment she had forgotten why she was here--what Briana Leigh had done. Had been lulled by her loneliness. It must have been all the alcohol. Now, feeling suddenly sober as she stared down at Kaitlynn's mortal enemy, she could have torn her own hair out in penance for that lapse.
I love you? I love you? Ariana thought of her friend curled up on her bed in the Brenda T. while this murderous bitch cuddled into her imported Italian comforter in her multimillion-dollar compound. If Briana Leigh had really loved Kaitlynn, then what she had done to her was all the more evil. Trembling, Ariana's fingers slowly curled in. For the first time since she had broken free, she saw red.
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DEAR KAITLYNN
Ariana took a step back from the bed and breathed.
In, one... two... three...Out, one... two... three...
In, one... two... three...
Out, one... two... three...
It took several moments for her to come back to herself. For her pulse to stop rushing in her ears. She breathed in one more time, and the room snapped back into focus.
She could not harm Briana Leigh. That was not what this was about. As much as it pained her to think of it in these terms, she--and Kaitlynn--needed the girl.
But she would have given anything to be able to teach the girl a lesson. Maybe someday... Maybe someday she would have the chance. But not now. Not today.
Slowly, Ariana stepped away from the snoring heiress and made
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her way out of the room. As soon as the door was closed behind her, Ariana felt more in control. She had come so close to the edge. Too close. She had promised herself a new start. There was no way she was going to get that new start if she let herself cross over to the bad place.
The adrenaline rush had one benefit, however. It had cleared her mind of any residual effects from the alcohol. Ariana was fully awake and alert and saw everything around her with crisp clarity. Briana Leigh was completely passed out. This was her chance.
Ariana took off her shoes and jogged downstairs, the Southwestern-style tile floor frigid under her bare feet. The house was as still as a graveyard as she raced into the long hallway off the great room at the center of the Covington home. Briana Leigh hadn't given Ariana the full tour, so she had to stop to open each of the curved wooden doors along the way. Ariana found a pair of guest rooms, a gym, and what appeared to be some kind of indoor Zen garden. Here Ariana paused, taking in the lush greenery, the burbling waterfall and pond, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Buddha sitting at the center of the room. It was all so soothing. She could picture Kaitlynn sitting here for hours. Maybe she would build a sanctuary like this in her new mansion. The one she planned to build for herself and Kaitlynn with Briana Leigh's money.
With a smile, she closed the door to the garden and continued the search. Finally, toward the end of the hall, she found a room that seemed promising. It was an office of some kind, outfitted with dark brown leather furniture and animal pelts and woven Native American tapestries, like an upscale western lodge. The desk in front of the picture
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window was huge and imposing, made out of roughly hewn oak. It was a man's desk. Briana Leigh's father's desk.
For a moment, Ariana paused in the center of the bearskin rug, feeling the ghost of Briana Leigh's father in the very walls around her. She wondered what he would think of her plan. Had he forgiven his daughter for murdering him in cold blood, or would he want to see the traitor get what was coming to her?
Ariana felt a thrill run up her spine, and somehow knew it was the latter. She opened the file cabinets and dug through the folders, giving herself several stinging paper cuts as she hungrily searched the pages and pages of documents, all having to do with Mr. Covington's many business deals. His money may have come from old oil, but he had his hands in a number of different flourishing businesses. After perusing all six drawers' worth of boring tax documents Ariana had not found what she was looking for.