The Survivor - Cristin Harber Page 0,11
inspected her fingernails, which she’d colored with a black Sharpie marker. He didn’t leave, and she planned to stare at her nails until he did or until someone else took his place, hovering by shelves of rare books. Time ticked slower than Mr. Driech’s chemistry class. Finally, she dared a quick glance. “What?”
He grinned. Not one of those professional, placating half-smiles taught to federal agents on their first day. No, this guy seemed amused.
“What?” she snapped again.
“You don’t look that scary.”
“Neither do you.”
“It wasn’t in the job description when I applied.” He tilted his head with a knowing look. “But I can see why you might think that.”
“Why?”
“Higgins’s mustache?” He pretended to recoil. “Looks like a swamp thing lives on his face.”
Exactly! Mandy had never been able to pinpoint why Higgins creeped her out, but this guy had nailed it. Not that she’d let him know.
“It’d help if he cut the thing back,” the agent continued. “It’d make him look more like a spook from the eighties and less like a monster.”
Mandy snickered. “Especially with that trench coat he likes to wear.”
“Yeah, where did he find that thing?”
She caught herself from laughing and stared into her lap until she could keep a straight face, then eyed the new agent. He was younger and far more casual than the standard security detail assigned to the second family’s detail, but she didn’t trust him or the charade.
The corners of his lips twitched. “I don’t recall your profile details including bleach blonde hair.”
Mandy scowled, irritated at how quickly the agent had pivoted to her latest scandal. “Call the NSA and Homeland Security. Someone’s slacking.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “They’re probably on it already.”
She almost smiled, caught herself, and scowled again. His lack of a stiff upper lip made her wary.
“Do you mind if I take a seat?” Without waiting for an answer, the agent rounded the coffee table and sat down next to her on the couch. His gaze dropped to the style section of yesterday’s newspaper folded between them. “They’re relentless, aren’t they?”
Relentless? That wasn’t a good enough description if he was referring to the adults who made a living off of her misery. She’d describe them more as obsessed, nosy liars, but that was too kind, or maybe the agent meant the students at her school. The so-called friends and the classmates she’d never spoken to who provided anonymous anecdotes about her high school life. Angry tears caught at the back of her throat. Mandy clamped her molars together until the well of emotion peaked, then she bitterly added, “What would you know about that?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “My family is the epitome of boring.”
“Must be nice.” Her family fascinated the world. Chatterboxes and rumormongers had rejoiced when a pretty-faced young couple and their gangly, awkward kid moved into the political limelight.
The agent picked up the newspaper, perused one side, flipped it over, then whistled. “This is brutal, Sparkler.”
She didn’t have to ask him which part, because she’d memorized every word before she walked into school yesterday. By the time Mandy had walked into homeroom, the few friends that she trusted had offered her pitying platitudes. The rest of her classmates had failed to hide their giggles.
With another breakout of teenage hormones, Mandy Hearst was seen at the pharmacy near school perusing zit creams. She left with a tube of Clearasil, a Hershey bar, and a high-end bottle of watermelon-flavored water.
The newly-minted Second Daughter wore a school uniform of a khaki skirt and polo shirt emblazoned with the high school’s coat of arms. Her typically unruly dark brown hair looked to be tangled more than usual and was secured into a low ponytail.
Ms. Hearst’s classmates reported that her hair debacle started in PE class while playing capture the flag when she tripped. Not known for her athletic prowess or gracefulness, the knobby-kneed teenager still managed to assist a classmate in a flag-capturing play.
As always, we have omitted the name of Ms. Hearst’s school and relevant locations to protect her privacy. In other style and entertainment news, celebrity chefs partnered with the A-List cast of …
Mandy didn’t waste her time guessing which classmates had developed relationships with reporters. “I guess they’ll have to take mention of my dark hair out of the newsroom rotation.”
He leaned back against the sofa, then tossed the newspaper onto the coffee table that was a priceless gift from the English Monarch. At least, that’s what her mother had said as if it had sat in Sir Isaac Newton’s personal