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Overview
Jackie, Lettie, and Laura Beth barely survived the holidays . . . literally. Jackie's on lockdown while the hunt is on for her stalker, who somehow got into the White House and left her an ominous note. Laura Beth and Sol are finally back together after a scandal almost tore them apart, and Lettie, who's forced to live with Whitney and her gossip-mongering mom, has let down her guard enough to fall in love with Daniel. For the Capital Girls life is always complicated, especially when they're under 24-hour media scrutiny. But that won't stop the three friends from making their senior year the most amazing ever—even as the mystery deepens over Taylor Cane's death and First Son Andrew Price's role in it.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250031228 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/23/2013 |
| Series: | Capital Girls Series , #3 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 668 KB |
| Age Range: | 13 - 17 Years |
About the Author
ELLA MONROE is the pseudonym for the Washington, D.C. based writing duo, Maz Rauber and Amy Reingold. Rauber is a former reporter who covered national politics—and all its scandals—for the New York Post. Reingold is a writer, a textile artist, and a classically-trained Cordon Bleu chef. Raised in small-town Illinois, she has lived in London and Hong Kong. They both live in Washington, D.C.
ELLA MONROE is the pseudonym for the Washington, DC based, debut writing duo Marilyn Rauber and Amy Reingold. Maz Rauber is a former reporter who covered national politics—and all its scandals—for the New York Post. The Australian-born writer lives in the DC area with her husband and, on occasion, their two college-aged children. Amy Reingold is a writer, a textile artist, and a classically-trained Cordon Bleu chef. Raised in small-town Illinois, she has lived in London and Hong Kong. But her favorite by far is the nation’s capital, where she and her husband have raised two daughters and assorted pets.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The past month had been hell.
Scratch that. The past year had been hell.
And now this?
Jackie Whitman threw herself onto the sofa and glared first at the TV, then at the gold-embossed card in her hand.
Mrs. Elizabeth "Libby" Ballou Miss Laura Beth Ballou
AND
Senator Jeffrey Ives
KINDLY REQUEST YOUR PRESENCE AT A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF TAYLOR CANE
Jackie could hardly believe a whole year had passed since Taylor was killed in a car wreck. It still seemed unreal. Yet it was also too real. Too raw.
Unreal to think that Taylor — her best friend, the one who taught her that life should be fun and loyalty a given — had had sex with Jackie's boyfriend the night she died. Andrew's devastating confession, though, was as real and as raw now as the day she heard it.
A whole year later, and she still hadn't discovered the answer to "Why?" What dark secret had forced Taylor to betray her?
Seething, she reread the surprise invitation to an event she'd known nothing about, then shoved it back in her purse and snapped the clasp. She didn't need this. Not today of all days.
In less than an hour, unless a miracle happened, Senator Jeffrey Ives — Laura Beth's soon-to-be stepfather — would be announcing his candidacy for president of the United States. Running against President Deborah Price, Andrew's mother and the boss and best friend of Jackie's mom.
Throwing Jackie and Laura Beth into enemy camps. Threatening to destroy what was left of the Capital Girls. If Whitney Remick didn't do it first, of course. Jackie shoved away thoughts of the two-faced Cali transplant. She didn't need that worry today, either.
Senator Ives's announcement was why Jackie was sitting in the First Family's private living room in the White House, waiting for President Price and Jackie's mom, Chief of Staff Carolyn Shaw, to arrive. So they could all watch it together. Like one big happy family.
Jackie stared at the TV, where a blond, Botoxed reporter was standing outside the senator's brand-new Iowa campaign headquarters.
Jackie couldn't believe her ears. The presidential election was almost two years away and Senator Ives hadn't even won the Republican nomination. Yet the reporter was already referring to him as President Price's "worst nightmare" and "her most formidable obstacle to a second term."
"What crap!" she said out loud.
Without warning, Jackie felt a pair of warm hands on her shoulders. She shivered in delight as the strong fingers began to gently yet firmly massage the tense muscles in her neck.
Andrew, she thought, surprised, but also thrilled by his touch.
"Should I stop?" Andrew's brother, Scott, said from behind the sofa. "Or should I see what else needs my magic touch?" he whispered teasingly.
A wave of guilt washed over her. His hands felt so good she didn't want him to stop. But what if their mothers walked in on them?
Or Andrew? Though their relationship had hit rock bottom, they were still "a couple" in the eyes of their parents and the public. After all, the Ankie romance, as the media dubbed it, was fodder for the tabloids and great family-values publicity for the president. And as much as she wished it didn't, her stomach still did a little flip whenever she looked at him.
Yet there was also no denying the chemistry between her and Scott. But what if it was more than that? Like Andrew, she'd grown up with Scott. He was a good listener, someone she'd always been able to talk to. Hang with. Trust. The way she used to with Andrew.
Despite her anger toward her best friend, Jackie tried to imagine how Taylor would handle Scott's flirting.
"Maybe we can continue this later," she purred, channeling Taylor's wild, party-girl self.
"I'm down with that. Just name the time and the place." She could hear the smile in his voice.
"Be careful what you wish —"
A voice cut her off.
"Hi!"
Lettie Velasquez walked into the room, beaming.
"I'm here to cheer you up," she declared. "Your mom arranged it. Sorry it took so long. They've really amped up the security around here."
For most of winter break, Jackie had barely moved an inch without a Secret Service tail.
All because some insane person keeps threatening me.
Her skin crawled at the thought of the terrifying note the stalker somehow had smuggled into the White House Christmas party. She felt violated all over again.
"Hi, Scott!" Lettie said. "Where's Andrew?"
"Hey, Lettie! He's helping Dad bake brownies," Scott answered, giving Lettie a quick hug before walking around the sofa and sitting next to Jackie. "Too bad Andrew can't slip some weed in the batter. That'd really cheer us up. But Number One Perfect Son would never do that."
Jackie slapped him lightly on the arm, her hand lingering.
"Behave!" she joked, although she was half-serious.
Scott's fondness for smoking weed had landed him in a Midwestern reform school, sent there by his parents. Now he was on family probation — the Prices having just agreed to let him stay in D.C. for the rest of his senior year.
As for his crack about Andrew, it was anything but true. Actually, Andrew's "perfect" façade had crumbled. At least behind closed doors. He'd been drinking way too much, getting lousy grades at Georgetown University, and generally acting like a jerk. So she wasn't about to defend her so-called boyfriend. Besides, she didn't want to get stuck in the middle of another Andrew-Scott rivalry thing. When they were little kids they'd fought for their mother's attention and argued over stupid things like who got to bat first in a game of T-ball. Instead of growing out of their sibling rivalry, now it was worse than ever.
So she bit her lip. And withdrew her hand from Scott's when she saw Lettie giving her a puzzled look.
"Scott, move over. Lettie, come sit next to me," she said.
"I'm good! You know me, I like to sit on the floor when I watch TV."
Jackie shifted her legs so Lettie could lean against the sofa. She picked up Lettie's long, black ponytail, pulled out the elastic, and started to make a Katniss braid. Lettie, with her dark hair and eyes and olive skin, could have easily passed for the Hunger Games heroine.
As she divided the hair into three thick strands, she thought how ironic it was that Lettie was offering to cheer her up. When it was Jackie who should be comforting Lettie, whose entire family, apart from her brother, Paz, was trapped in their home country of Paraguay, where civil unrest had broken out.
"Have you heard from your mom and dad?" she asked. Lettie shook her head slowly.
"Not for a while," she said. She was quiet for a moment before continuing. "That's the hardest part. It's so difficult getting letters in and out and the phone lines are down a lot of the time, so it's impossible to call. And of course, the government's shut down the Internet."
"You are so unbelievably brave. I don't know how you do it."
"I don't have any choice," Lettie said simply. "I force myself to focus on my studies and I convince myself that the ambassador will keep them safe as long as Mamá and Papá continue working for him. Besides, most of the clashes are in the countryside, not the capital."
Jackie knew that Lettie followed every single news item about the country and that right now, there seemed to be a little less bloodshed.
"It can't be easy living with Whitney and her mom," Scott said. Jackie had been thinking the exact same thing since the day Lettie moved in with Whitney and her parents, William Remick and Tracey Mills, who were nothing like Lettie's own close-knit family.
"I'm surprised Whitney didn't force you to bring her along today," Jackie said, using both hands to twist the ribbons of hair into a braid.
"Oh, Whitney's not as bad as you think. Anyway, she's still in L.A. Fortunately, her mom didn't know I was coming here otherwise she would have made Whitney fly back early."
"Did you get your invitation yet?" Jackie asked, cutting off Lettie's lame defense of Whitney.
"What invitation?"
Jackie rolled her eyes.
"We've been summoned to a memorial celebration for Taylor. Hosted by Laura Beth and her mom. And Senator Ives. Tracey Mills probably got to yours first so she could steam it open." Whitney's mom was a gossip columnist who'd do anything for a scoop.
Lettie twisted her head around to look at Jackie, her mouth gaping. "A Taylor celebration? You're not serious."
"I wish."
Not that an event to mark the one-year anniversary of Taylor's death was a bad idea. It was the sneaky way Laura Beth had done it, not even discussing it first with Jackie or Lettie. And why was Senator Ives's name on the invitation? He had never even met Taylor.
The campaign hadn't even started and yet the two Ballou women were already plotting behind Jackie's back to make sure Senator Ives scored political points with the media and Washington's powerful elite. Starting with Taylor's mom. Jennifer Cane. The Fixer. The keeper of Jackie's secrets, who Jackie owed big-time.
My name should be on that invitation, not theirs.
She wrapped the elastic around the end of the braid and Lettie draped it over her shoulder, her Capital Girls charm bracelet jangling. Taylor had come up with the name of their exclusive clique in seventh grade and Libby Ballou had ordered four identical bracelets, adding a charm every year to represent each year of the girls' friendship.
After Andrew's confession, Jackie had thrown her bracelet in a bedroom drawer. And she hadn't worn it since.
Jackie suddenly thought of a whole new reason to be terrified of a Price-Ives election fight. What if someone dug up the secret fact that it was Andrew, not Taylor, who was driving the night of the fatal crash? What if that someone was Laura Beth, who Jackie worried already suspected the truth?
If Taylor was willing to betray me, why wouldn't Laura Beth? Until Sol came along, Laura Beth had harbored a not-so-secret crush on Andrew, obviously fantasizing about one day being his First Lady. But that's all it had been — a deluded dream. Becoming First Daughter in an Ives White House, though, that was a real possibility.
CHAPTER 2
"Mama, please stop fussin' over my hair. It looks fine," Laura Beth said, ducking out of reach. She'd just spent an hour putting up with the team of stylists that her mama and Senator Ives had kept hidden from the press, in order to prevent any negative stories getting out about the super-rich Ballous.
"Fine just won't do, Laura Beth," her mama chided. "This is our first step on the road to the White House. If all goes as planned, we'll be refurnishing the presidential mansion and presidin' over State Dinners with Kate and Will before you can blink an eye!"
Laura Beth held her tongue. She couldn't blame her mother for being on edge. She knew Mama was so in love with Jeffrey Ives she wanted everything to be just perfect for him. Mama also had a big stake in his success. She'd regain the status she'd had when Daddy was alive and she was the queen bee of the Republican Party. Even so, she'd been extra irritable lately, and Laura Beth wondered if there was something else on her mind.
She forced herself to smile sweetly.
Laura Beth had always envied Jackie's place in the spotlight and never understood why Jackie constantly complained about it. But now she was starting to get it. She was stuck in Iowa for what seemed like forever, rushing from one photo op to the next, practically around the clock and treated like a prop, shoved into the public eye when needed and ignored when the TV cameras turned off.
Obviously, Jeffrey's handlers were incompetent. They didn't seem to understand what an asset she could be to the campaign.
With her political savvy — thank you, Mama and Daddy — her natural acting talent, and her girl-next-door good looks, she'd be the perfect face of the "youth vote for Ives." She pictured her image blasted across social media, from Facebook fan sites to face-to-face interviews with Jon Stewart. She might even be able to swing him Republican.
Yes. She knew exactly what her role should be. She just had to come up with a plan to make it happen.
She wished Jeffrey would hurry up and get here so everyone could take their places inside the cavernous Des Moines conference room where the reporters and Ives supporters were waiting for his announcement.
She eyed her two soon-to-be ugly stepsisters, Dina and Frances Ives. They looked like they were actually into it — thrilled to be killing time in the middle of freakin' nowhere.
Those two — with their flawless skin, naturally straight black hair, prominent cheekbones, killer bodies, and fake sweetness — truly put her gracious Southern manners to the test.
"Listen! They're chanting his name!" Dina squealed, bouncing up and down on her Mary Janes as the noise filled the hallway. "It's so exciting!"
The only thing the roar did for Laura Beth was give her a headache. Which was fast turning into a migraine when she thought about what she was being forced to wear in front of all those people.
Here she was, about to go on national TV, in a no-brand knit dress that looked like something Lettie would choose if left unsupervised. The beige color totally washed out her delicate complexion and the cut was as shapeless as a sack. When she had a divine, perfectly tailored, turquoise suit hanging in her hotel room.
But the campaign manager had decided all three girls, especially Laura Beth, needed a down-home makeover. To her horror, the three of them had been dragged to dreary Corn Capital Mall, where Ann Taylor passed for high fashion and the only thing French were the fries.
She pulled out her iPhone.
Promise me you won't watch the announcement. They're making me wear a hideous dress. I look like a librarian and not the sexy kind in the movies, she texted her boyfriend, Sol Molla.
She wondered how much this campaign was going to ruin her sizzling love life. It was tough enough with Sol as a full-time student at Columbia in New York City.
"You look very cute, Laura Beth." Frances interrupted her thoughts, giving Laura Beth a condescending glance while also trying to read the text message over her shoulder. "Your frizz is just adorable."
Laura Beth gritted her teeth.
Kill them with kindness, she reminded herself.
Along with being Senator Ives's daughter, Frances was an arrogant congressional aide who worked with First Husband Bob Price on education issues. She was always blabbering on about how great he was, as if he were a hero instead of a two-timing husband and neglectful father.
But Frances's little sister was even worse. A bratty, conniving junior who'd only just started at Excelsior Prep, Dina had quickly become BFFs with Whitney and Angie Meehan, numero unos on the Capital Girls' shit list.
Before she could make nice the way she was supposed to, Laura Beth saw her mama coming at her with the hairbrush again.
"It is not adorable, Frances. It's unruly and she can't walk around looking like she got tossed about in a windstorm."
Nice Southern girls don't sass their mamas, Laura Beth reminded herself.
"Of course not, Mama, thank you," Laura Beth said, flinching as her auburn curls got painfully tangled in the bristles.
She noticed her mother was wearing an antique sapphire instead of her dropdead-fabulous eight-carat diamond engagement ring.
Surely she couldn't have lost it?
"Mama, where's your ring?" Laura Beth panicked.
"Right here," she said, patting her heart. "Jeffrey says it's so extravagant it sends the wrong message, so I decided to keep it on a chain under my clothes, at least until he wins the nomination."
She held her left hand in front of Laura Beth's face. "This little bitty bauble belonged to his grandmamma. Its value is of the sentimental variety."
Okay. But what kind of message does that four-thousand-dollar Bergdorf Goodman handbag send to the voters? Especially if it also turns out to be made from an endangered species.
Her mother dropped the brush into her crocodile-skin handbag. "Now you look adorable.
"Mercy, I could use a drink right now." She sighed. "Even if it had to be in a paper cup. Just a teeny bourbon and branch would do the trick."
Me, too.
Laura Beth remembered the last time Taylor had made them cocktails. All four girls were sprawled on the deep-pile white rug in front of the Italian marble fireplace in the Ballous' family room.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Truth Or Dare"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Marilyn Rauber and Amy Reingold.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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