Page 71 of Deadly Little Scandals

Victoria was undaunted. “They must have brought out the scissors.”

That was not the most comforting thing I’d ever heard.

“Scissors,” I repeated. “Why would we need scissors?”

In answer, Victoria led me to a small—or at least, smaller, relative to the main house—living room. White Gloves and Candidates sat scattered around the room wearing nothing but their bras and panties.

As promised, one of the White Gloves held a pair of gleaming metal scissors.

“I may be off base here,” I said, “but I was under the impression thatgetting readyinvolved clothing.”

Victoria shrugged and shed her own dress. “This way, none of us will get hair on our clothes.”

Popular culture had led me to believe that “trust exercises” generally involved falling backward and allowing another person to catch you. But for the White Gloves,trustseemed to involve two key things: underwear and scissors.

“I’ll go first.” Campbell was awfully blasé for someone whose auburn tresses were practically trademarked. She shook out her hair. “It’s getting a little unruly anyway.”

Campbell’s hair was many things, but unruly wasn’t one of them. She was wearing it wavy, not straight—this was the lake, after all—but the waves were salon-perfect, unlike my own hair, which had a habit of waving itself right into knots.

“Who wants to do the honors?” Campbell asked. Hope raised her hand and gave a wiggle of her fingertips. The scissors were passed to her.

“Any requests?” she asked Campbell, giving a snip or two of the blades.

Campbell smiled, undaunted. “Surprise me.”

The room held its collective breath as Hope began finger-combing Campbell’s hair, and then—snip.

A lock of auburn hair, an inch or so long, fell to the floor. More followed. The result brought the hair next to Campbell’s face up in a subtle frame.

“Not bad,” Hope commented before passing the scissors on to Nessa.

Nessa stared at them for a moment, running a finger along the edge.

“Do me next!” Sadie-Grace said, with the cheer of someone who had clearly never had a bad haircut in her life.

I wondered if it waspossibleto give Sadie-Grace a bad haircut. That question remained unanswered, because Nessa seemed unable to talk herself into doing more than cutting off a fraction.

My turn rolled around, and the topic turned to what should be done with my bangs, which had grown out just enough that they no longer quite merited the term.

“It’s not that your bangs are horrible per se,” Victoria told me. “It’s that whoever cut them did it too bluntly.”

Five minutes later, I was the proud (read: somewhat apathetic) possessor of a new side bang.

One by one, the Candidates let the White Gloves take their scissors to our hair, though two refused and a third burst into tears the second the scissors bit into her hair. None of the changes were major. Most weren’t even readily visible.

This wasn’t about hair or having the right look. This was abouttrust.

Lily went last. Victoria ended up with the scissors. I shot her a warning look. I had no idea what Victoria’s deal was with Walker—if she liked him, or if her father had ordered her to get close to him, or what—but regardless, she wasn’t exactly a person I trusted with Lily, especially in Lily’s current fragile state.

Victoria circled Lily, examining her. “Your hair is long,” she commented.

“It always has been,” Lily replied.

There was a pause, and then Victoria tilted her head to the side. “Is that what you want?”

I don’t know what I want anymore,I could hear Lily confessing.Or who.

Victoria stopped her pacing, standing directly in front of Lily. The two of them stared at each other, caught up in some kind of silent standoff.