The Revenge Artist - Philip Siegel Page 0,45

Some have time stamps, others don’t. But eventually, I Frankenstein them all together to create a time line of the party.

Here’s what I know so far:

• 8:20 p.m. The mystery girl surfaces at the party. She seemed to come alone.

• 8:45 p.m. She’s talking to Steve, but by nine-ish he’s gone to take a shot with Greg Baylor.

• 9:15 p.m. The girl is back talking to Steve. She is not wasting any time.

• 9:17 p.m. She is flirting hardcore. Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He seems out of it by the look of his dopey smile.

• 9:30ish p.m. They’re still talking but have moved closer to a back room.

• 10ish p.m. Greg is probably looking for Steve again for their hourly shot.

• 10:10 p.m. Huxley finds them. Here’s where I get lots of detail. Huxley pulls the girl out of the back room by her shirt. She knocks the girl’s purse out of her hands, sending its contents spilling onto the floor. The girl pushes back, grabs her stuff, and runs out the door. She wasn’t looking for a fight at all. My heart pounds in my chest just watching the fight. Huxley can barely contain her animalistic rage. It’s too much to watch, too real.

I keep searching for visual evidence of this girl for the next hour with no luck. I’ve observed nearly every minute of party time from every conceivable angle. I could close my eyes and paint a detailed portrait of the night. My eyes struggle to stay open. The house has gone quiet with my family passed out from tryptophan. Did she really just seduce a drunken Steve? It seems so anticlimactic. That’s when I realize there’s one person’s profile I haven’t checked yet.

Huxley.

Luckily, she doesn’t keep it private. How can you be worshipped if the people can’t have a public view into your life? I find the photo album from the party, and most of these are shots from the beginning half of the party, when things were going swell. She made a video with her friend Reagan from the top of the staircase giving a bird’s-eye (well, second floor) view of the festivities. It’s a quick scan of the living room, but something jumps out at me.

I pause and rewind. I do this three times because it happens so fast I can’t be sure what I’m looking at. Steve and the mystery girl are talking for the first time, during the 8:45 stretch. He’s glancing over his shoulder at a football friend. I pause and rewind, getting a clearer view of what the mystery girl is doing. My mouth hangs open in shock. I stare until the image is burned into my brain.

The mystery girl drops two pills into Steve’s drink.

“I got you,” I whisper to her.

Hey, can you chat? I text Steve.

Fifteen minutes later, Steve’s mind is being blown via Skype.

“I was roofied?” He has the same shocked expression I’m sure I wore when I saw the video. Nausea takes over my stomach when I picture those pills slipping into his drink. Yes, I broke up couples, but I never drugged them. Drugged? Who does that? That’s miles away from the lines I ever crossed.

“That’s why you felt about ten times drunker than you actually were. And why you don’t remember any of it.”

“I feel so used, so dirty.”

I actually feel a little bad for Steve. That goes way beyond break-up schemes and into bodily harm. Nobody deserves to have control taken away like that. The Revenge Artist isn’t just meddlesome or vindictive. She’s officially dangerous.

“We need to find out this girl,” I tell him.

“We tried. Nobody knows her.” He leans back in his chair, and I make out a vintage Phil Simms poster adorning his dorm room wall. His Chandler T-shirt is wrinkled from sleep.

“She hasn’t just worked her magic on you. She’s forged a destructive path.” I take a breath. It pains me to say this. “She’s trying to be the new Break-Up Artist.”

That makes Steve smile. Not the reaction I was expecting. “I don’t think so.” He thinks it over and shakes his head, doubling down on his opinion.

“What do you mean?”

“Becca, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re irreplaceable.”

That perks me up. “Why, thank you.”

“I said don’t take it the wrong way. I didn’t mean that as a compliment. I’m just saying that you owned being the Break-Up Artist because you know everything about everyone at Ashland ever.”

Steve’s right. I was great at being the Break-Up Artist not