Hard Fall: A McStone & Martinelli Thriller by Pascal Scott

Author:Pascal Scott [Scott, Pascal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapphire Books Publishing
Published: 2019-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

Yes.

That was the first thing Elizabeth had noticed about her, after her sense of style and her air of self-confident superiority. The way she enunciated her words, saying yes instead of yeah or uh-huh like everyone else. Like she was on stage, performing or about to audition for a part. Like some entitled beauty queen contestant. Yes.

Her name was Emily Bryson. Elizabeth saw that she’d already hung her initials on the wall above her desk in her half of the dorm room, two tall wooden letters painted sky blue. E.B. Emily Bryson. Next to the initials was a smaller plaque with words engraved in dark wood: Carpe Diem.

Emily extended a long, bony hand as she introduced herself, and who does that? Elizabeth thought. So formal. Elizabeth looked at Emily’s tanned, athletic arms with the soft down of blond hair. She was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt with a green alligator over the heart, white shorts, and Reebok hightops.

“Elizabeth Taylor Bundy,” Elizabeth replied.

“Elizabeth Taylor?” Emily asked, flashing a perfect, bright smile.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “You know, like the actress. I think my mother must have thought it sounded glamorous.”

Emily considered, her slender fingers locked with Elizabeth’s. Emily wasn’t letting go.

“It doesn’t suit you,” she determined, squinting her blue eyes, taking in what she saw, as if she were considering a girl with potential but not there yet. “It’s too regal for you.”

“You two could be sisters,” someone interrupted.

This was Teresa, the exchange student. Emily and Elizabeth looked at each other more closely. It was true. They were both tall: Emily was five-nine in her bare feet. Elizabeth had measured five-eight and a half by the time she had hit puberty, early at age twelve, ahead of the other girls in her class at Fairfax Elementary. Elizabeth had always been self-consciously lanky, the gawkiest kid in her grade, no matter what grade she was in, until junior high when the boys shot up in their first pimple-faced, testosterone-fueled surge of adolescence.

Both were fair with unblemished skin. Emily was more tan than Elizabeth but only because Elizabeth had been living in San Francisco for the last few years. In Los Angeles, her skin had matched Emily’s tone. Emily’s eyes were robin’s egg blue. Elizabeth’s eyes shifted in color from light gray to blue, depending on the light. Emily’s smile showed the dental history of a high-priced orthodontist. Elizabeth’s teeth could have been as perfect as Emily’s if she had been favored by Emily’s circumstances and not thrown into the nominal care of the L.A. County Child Welfare system. Emily was a towhead blonde. Elizabeth was a darker blonde now, but when she had been growing up in Southern California, her hair had lightened naturally from the sun to a shade closer to Emily’s.

“No, not Elizabeth,” Emily mused, still considering.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted suddenly.

“Lizzie,” she announced. “I’m going to call you Lizzie.”

They shook on it, on friendship and the beginning of their time together as Cowellies. It was Saturday, September 17, 1983.

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