Kiss of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

possible her way. Then she steps over to him like a runway model, narrow hips swinging, legs stepping high, hair tumbling around her shoulders. “You were fabulous !”
    “Yes, thanks, I’ve done that bit already, Nadia,” Plum snaps.
    “Hey, Plum,” Sophia von und zu Something says blithely, following Nadia over. Sophia, bless her, is an Austrian countess. Very titled, very rich, and very thick. I honestly don’t think she would have been accepted at St. Tabby’s if it hadn’t been for the first two factors; St. Tabby’s is a much snobbier school than Wakefield Hall. My grandmother, who’s the headmistress of Wakefield, would never have dreamed of taking Sophia, who has the mental capacity of a newt that just got hit by a car.
    While Plum’s distracted by Nadia, Callum manages to slip his arm free and swivel toward me.
    “Callum, you remember Taylor,” I say, and he nods.
    “Hey,” he says. “Nice to see you.”
    “You too,” she says, smiling at him, and I realize instantly that she means it; she’s not just being polite.
    Phew, I think, Taylor likes Callum. For some reason, that seems to be important to me.
    “Goodness, Scarlett, was one McAndrew brother not enough for you?” Plum says nastily, swinging round on us. “What are you trying to do—collect the set?”
    My mouth drops open at the sheer unpleasantness of this, and Callum must be similarly stunned, because he doesn’t say anything either. It’s Taylor who snaps at her:
    “Hey! You’re out of line!”
    “Oh, Callum, have you met Scarlett’s bodyguard yet?” Plum asks, narrowing her eyes at Taylor. “Careful—you don’t want to get on her wrong side! She’s very butch.”
    I’m not putting up with this kind of thing from Plum.
    “Oh, you’re just jealous because Taylor’s so photogenic,” I retort. “You wish you looked as good in photos as Taylor does.”
    This hits squarely home; I actually see Plum swallow. She’s got very used to taunting Taylor, secure in the confidence that she knows a juicy secret of Taylor’s that means her victim won’t answer back. But Plum’s forgotten that I now have something as equally juicy on her as she does on my best friend.
    “Right,” she manages feebly, tossing her hair in front of her eyes so that she doesn’t have to look at me. “As if. ”
    And Nadia’s glossy blue-black head turns from me to Plum, her dark eyes alert. Nadia’s shown herself to be a smart operator; she’s managed to use me and Taylor in the past to get something she wanted, playing us as smoothly as Callum played his violin. Now she’s picked up on an odd vibe between me and Plum, and, knowing Nadia, she won’t rest till she finds out what’s at the bottom of it.
    Which is by no means what I want to happen.
    Maybe I shouldn’t have taken Plum on in front of Nadia, I reflect. The trouble is, I’m not brilliant at these girl-on-girl politics, the guerrilla warfare games, that Plum, Nadia, and their set are so expert at playing. I made a basic mistake: I didn’t think before I opened my mouth.
    And then I relax. After all, meeting here is just a freaky coincidence. It’s not like our path and that of the St. Tabby’s girls are going to cross at all in the future. God knows what they’re doing here, anyway; Scottish folk music is much too earnest for St. Tabby’s supersmart image.
    “Well, hello!” says a voice with an odd accent, and when we swing round to see who it is, I find myself staring right at the skinny chest of the lead violinist from Hürti Slärtbärten. He’s changed—mercifully—out of his bright red silk blouse, but the faded grayish-white T-shirt with the Rolling Stones logo that he’s wearing instead isn’t much of an improvement. Especially as I think we can all tell, by his cloud of body odor, that he got pretty sweaty during his gig.
    Thank God, he’s not talking to me; he’s looking straight at Nadia.
    “You are a very pretty girl!” he says.
    As if this is going to be