Nina batted at the air. “It’s nothing. It’s just that I called Vlad like, sixteen times. He never even called back.”
I harrumphed and poked at the bowl of green Jell-O sitting on my bedside tray. “He’s sixteen years old. Does he ever call back?”
Nina puckered her cherry red lips, her perfect fa?ade unmarred. I briefly wondered what it would be like to look perfect all the time or be eternally sixteen.
“I told him you were at the hospital. He still didn’t call.”
I frowned, stung. “Sixteen,” I said again.
Something nagged at me.
“Heddy.”
“What?” Nina asked, pausing her pace.
“Heddy’s not a geezer. Hey, Neens, pass me one of those yearbooks.”
Nina did as she was told and pulled one out for herself, curling up next to me in my bed. She flopped open the book, her face immediately breaking into a grin. “Ah, the seventies. Everyone looked horrible.”
“Look up Heddy Gaines.”
Nina went to the index, her finger going down the line of names. I did the same, and we both flipped our books open to Heddy’s smiling mug at the exact same time.
And it was the exact same picture.
“Wow, she hasn’t changed a bit,” Nina said.
“No, she hasn’t changed at all from 1971 to 1994.” I grabbed another book. “Exactly the same in 2010.” I pulled it closer, studying it. Finally, I flipped to the other indexed page. “Heddy Gaines, Lock and Key Club advisor.”
My heart started to thump. “Heddy hasn’t aged in thirty years.”
“A lot of women look good for their ages. Look at me.” Nina modeled her perfect mug.
“You don’t age, Nina.” I yanked another book—this one from ’63—and flipped it to show Nina. “Neither does Heddy. Not at all.”
Nina blinked, not quite absorbing.
“You know who else doesn’t age? Kale or Lorraine.”
Nina’s eyes went saucer-wide. “Heddy’s the witch.”
“She’s the faculty advisor for the Lock and Key Club. She was handpicking her victims.”
“So what about the dead janitor guy?”
“Maybe it was too much for him to handle. Maybe the guilt got to him. She’s got to do the spell tonight—the seventh night. We’ve got to get to them, Neens. She’s got Kayleigh and whatever she’s going to do to her is going to happen tonight.”
I kicked the covers off my legs and yanked the tape from my hand, wincing as I removed the IV.
“What are you doing?” Nina wanted to know.
“I’m getting dressed. Um, where are my clothes?”
Nina bit her bottom lip, the blood she had just drunk just barely coloring her cheeks. “I took your clothes home by mistake.”
“What? How do you take someone’s clothes by mistake?”
“Will put them in your shoulder bag and told me to take them home. He figured you’d stay in the hospital until the doctor let you go if you had no clothes.”
“Some mistake.” I put my hands on my hips and paced for a half a minute before I pointed at Nina. “Go. Downstairs. Go to your car and get me something to wear.”
Nina opened her mouth to protest, but I pinned her with a glare. It was widely known that any free space that Nina had or could find was stuffed with emergency couture. Her UDA file cabinets were stocked with high-end shoes and intricate bustiers. Her earthquake kit held Band-Aids, a ham radio, and a selection of gowns from Carlos Miele’s winter collection—and the trunk of her car was nothing less than a closet on wheels.
“Get. Me. Something.”
Nina held up her hands. “Okay. Okay! But most of what I have are gowns or dressy.”
I gritted my teeth. “Find me something to wear.”
She skittered out the door without another word.
I dialed Will and paced while it rang. “Will? Will! Answer the phone! Fine. I need you to meet me at Battery Townsley. Bud wasn’t working alone. I think he was just the fall guy. Call me when you get this.”
Nina came back through the door, lugging a log-shaped Louis Vuitton with one hand and pressing a pair of stiletto-heeled black boots against her side with the other. “I brought everything I had in the mobile armoire. But I’m warning you—there are none of your things in there. Lexus and poly-cotton blends don’t mix.”
I rolled my eyes and took the bag from her, dumping its contents onto the bed. A heap of black leather, hot pink lace, and tiny skirts or possibly large belts flopped out. I looked skeptically at the pile and briefly wondered if I could possibly kick butt while mine was hanging out. I picked up the hot pink hunk of tulle. “You don’t have anything any little more authoritative looking?”
Without saying a word, Nina dove into the pile and fished out the black leather pants. One more shot and a matching shirt-possibly-headband came out.
“You can’t expect me to wear that.”
“Look, you asked for clothes and I got you clothes. You asked for authoritative and I got you authoritative. If you’d rather hunt down that crazy caught-in-time witch in your hospital gown, be my guest.”