Guilty Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

upturned houses in the wake of a disaster. For a moment, from his glass office, J.C. stared through me and at Penny. Then, aware of her gaze over her horn rims he yanked the cord of his window blinds, near tearing down the ceiling as they rolled down, imprisoning him in his tower of isolation.
    "Tell me there isn't a Mrs. Thruster hiding in the shadows?"
    Penny looked away, blushed and spilt her coffee. She mumbled, "He's devoted to his work. He sleeps in his office half the time."
    "You and J.C?" I tried not to sound too surprised. But she could do so much better.
    "I'm married," she said as if in explanation of her loyalty to J.C. or her husband, but I wasn't sure which of them she meant. Maybe she wasn't either.
    Her vulnerability vanished in an instant and once again she was hard faced and like ice.
    "Don't you have something to be getting on with, like, I'm guessing... a career?"
    I took the hint and left. But not before covertly slipping a small thumb drive into the desktop computer and uploading a program I was certain couldn't be detected by any firewall.
    I ran back to Mai's apartment. I let myself in with the key she gave me. I called out, but there was no answer.
    I went to my room and kicked off my shoes. I opened my laptop and entered my password.
    A small box popped up on my screen:
    Connecting to private network.
    Connected... Kimberley Times network.
    Status: Invisible.
    I had hacked into the Kimberley Times.
    It was time to learn their secrets.

CHAPTER FIVE
    A tap at my bedroom door meant Mai was home. She called out. "I thought we'd celebrate. I brought takeaway. You hungry?"
    I suddenly realized I was starving. I joined Mai in the kitchen. I say kitchen, but really it was big enough to run a cookery school. Everything was chrome or marble. No expense spared. And clean in a way that suggested it was until now, completely unused.
    She sat at the table injecting herself with a syringe. She glanced up at me and smiled.
    "I'm diabetic. I'm always forgetting to take my shots."
    "I'll remind you."
    We chatted over Chinese food and a glass of dry white that Mai retrieved from a wine rack that appeared at the snap of her fingers: literally.
    "So tell me about your new job."
    "How'd you know I got it?"
    She laughed. "The jungle gossip drums have been pounding since you got here."
    I couldn't believe it. "People are talking about me?"
    "Kimberley talks about everyone... even the mysterious new fresher that went one to one with the Queen of Mean."
    "Who?"
    "Charity."
    "Oh, the Plastic Princess."
    Mai laughed so hard she choked on her deep fried crispy wanton.
    Images of the wrecked Mercedes filled my head and suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore.
    "I never did discover the owner of the second Mercedes."
    Mai rolled her eyes and winked. "Why do you think I came looking for you?"
    It suddenly dawned on me. "Oh my God, no?"
    "Robyn, it's insured."
    "But I'm not, Mai."
    Her slender hand and impossibly long fingernails gently caressed my forearm.
    "When I found you sitting on an island of cases in that flood I forgot all about my silly car."
    Mai stifled a giggle.
    "Robyn, I'm not going to sue you for the damage. That is, if you promise me one thing."
    "What?"
    "Let me show you off to the rest of campus and I'll forget about the whole thing."
    My head was spinning with the shock of my roller coaster fortune. I could even contemplate picking at another wanton.
    I learned Mai was quite the social butterfly. On the one hand, I needed desperately to remain as low profile as possible. But I wondered how Mai's social life could benefit my investigation.
    "Show me off how?"
    She whispered, "There's a very special Christmas Ball. Tickets are white hot. People will kill for them."
    "A ball? As in dancing and ball gowns."
    She nodded. "And masks. And carriages. It's very fairy tale"
    "I'm not sure..."
    "Good, it's settled."
    I somehow got the sense that Mai was used to getting her own way. I felt a little guilty accepting once again her