Page 44 of Rastor

In a careful voice, I asked, "How awful?"

"Well, the first time, we went in with Joey and Paul." She glanced away. "You know, the two guys who uh…"

"Attacked Chloe?" My voice was hard. "Thosetwo guys?"

"Um, yeah," she said. "Well, it was the night of your birthday party, actually. Brittney thought it would be fun to go into that restaurant and–"

"Give Chloe a hard time?" I said. "Yeah, I got that."

After a long pause, Amber continued. "And then, we went in a few days after that. This time, it was just me and Brittney. We were pretty mad, you know, because you made us leave your birthday party…"

"Yeah, and you deserved it."

I'd been half-drunk at the time, but I remembered exactly why I'd kicked them out. That was the night I'd learned – fromthem, no less – that they'd been trying to get Chloe fired.

Amber's voice was almost a whisper. "I know."

"You knowwhat?"

"That we deserved it. I knew it then, too. But…" She wiped at her eyes. "I just got so caught up in everything. You know what I mean?"

"No. I don't."

It was true. Chloe hadn't done a damn thing to deserve all the grief they'd given her. If they wanted to givemegrief, fine. I could deal with it. But to gang up on a girl who'd done nothing wrong, especially a girl I loved, well, apology or not, I couldn't let that slide.

Amber was staring down at her hands. Other than the fact she was supposedly sorry, I hadn't learned anything new.

I stood. "Are we done?"

It was Bishop who answered. "Not yet." He turned to Amber. "Go on. Tell him the rest."

I didn't bother sitting back down. The way I saw it, we'd be done in a minute, maybe less.

Amber looked up and started talking again. "About the prank, it wasn't supposed to happen like that."

I made a sound of disgust. "It shouldn't have happened at all."

"But I was trying to be nice," she said. "You know, to make up for beingnotnice before." She gave me a shaky smile. "See?"

"No."

Bishop said, "Start at the beginning."

"Okay," Amber said. "You know at my sorority, we do these kidnapping things. Usually, it's just a mascot or something."

"Chloe's not a mascot," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but it was supposed to be fun. For her, I mean."

I stared at her. "Fun?"

"Yeah. You know, like we'd all show up and 'kidnap' her, like for a party or something." She smiled. "Or maybe a spa treatment. Like a girl's day out. Anyway, I was telling all of this to Brittney, and she said, 'Yeah, we should do that.'"

Amber's voice picked up steam. "And I said, 'Yeah, we totally should.' And I was totally planning something nice, but then before I knew it, Brittney set it up without me." Amber frowned. "Except she totally messed it up."

Amber looked to Bishop. "Yousee what I mean, right?"

He nodded. "Totally." He looked to me and said, "Eh, women. What are you gonna do?"