Turning Angel Read Online Free PDF

Elliott?”
    “Hell, yes. They won the state open in city league tennis.”
    “What do you think about Ellen?”
    Mia’s eyes flicker with interest. “Are you asking for the official line, or what I really think?”
    “What you really think.”
    “She’s a cast-iron bitch.”
    “Really?”
    “Definitely. Very cold, very manipulative. How she treats you depends totally on who your parents are.”
    “How did she treat Kate?”
    “Are you kidding? Like her personal protégée. Ellen was number one in Georgia when she played in high school. I think she’s reliving her youth through Kate.”
    “How did Kate treat Ellen?”
    Mia shrugs. “Okay, I guess. She was nice to her, but…”
    “What?”
    “I don’t think Kate respected her. I heard her say things behind Ellen’s back. But then everybody does that.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The women Ellen trains with for her marathons talk all kinds of shit about her when she’s not around. They say she’ll stab you in the back without thinking twice.”
    “So why do they hang around with her?”
    “Fear. Envy. Ellen Elliott is hot, rich, and married to Dr. Perfect. She’s the social arbiter of this place, in the under-forty crowd anyway. She has the life all the rest of them want.”
    “That’s what they think.”
    Mia looks expectantly at me, but I don’t elaborate.
    “I think I know what you mean,” she says. “I don’t know what Dr. Elliott is doing married to her. No one does. He’s so nice—not to mention hot—and she’s so…I don’t know. Maybe she fooled him, too.”
    “Maybe.” Mia is too bright for me to question like this for long. “You probably need to get going, huh?”
    She nods without enthusiasm. “I guess. I feel sort of weird, you know?”
    “Because of Kate?”
    “Yeah. But not the way you’d think. Her dying changes a lot of things for me. I’ll be making the valedictory speech now, for one thing. And I wanted to do that. I have some things I want to say to our class, and to the parents. I didn’t want to take any spotlight off of Kate by saying them in my salutatorian speech. Now I can say them, I guess. But I didn’t want it like this.”
    “Well, you certainly earned it. Kate only beat you out by…what?”
    “A sixteenth of a point on the cumulative.” Mia smiles wryly. “She wasn’t as smart as people think. She acted like she never studied, but she did. Big-time. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I guess I have some anger toward her. I’m not even sure why.”
    “Try to tell me.”
    Mia sighs and looks at the sidewalk. “Kate knew how to make you feel like shit when she wanted to. She would tear out your heart with a few words, then act like it was an innocent comment. She got Star Student because she outscored me by one point on the ACT, and she always made sure people knew that. But I outscored her by forty points on the SAT. You think she ever said one word about that?”
    “What did you make?”
    “Fifteen-forty.”
    “Wow. So you two were basically rivals, not friends.”
    Mia nods thoughtfully. “I’m more competitive than I should be, but for Kate, winning was an obsession. We were always the top contenders for everything. She was homecoming queen, I’m head cheerleader.” A strange look crosses Mia’s face. “I guess some people might say I had a motive for killing her, like that cheerleader-mom thing in Texas.”
    “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about you.”
    An ironic laugh escapes her lips. “Oh, plenty gets said about me. But that’s another story. And don’t get me wrong about Kate. She had a tough family life. Her dad was a real asshole. When she showed her vulnerable side, it was hard not to feel for her. Especially for me. But I had to deal with the same shit, and I don’t use my intelligence to hurt people.”
    Mia gazes down Washington Street, one of the most beautiful in the city, and shakes her head as