Read Hell Week for Free Online Page B

and Dad's study. I called a greeting, got goodnights in return, and climbed the stairs to what we jokingly call my suite. There's a study area on one side, and French doors, which I almost never close, mark the bedroom.

    My phone rang as I was dropping my satchel by my desk; warily, I dug it out of my pocket. The caller ID flashed a number with the university's prefix, and I flipped open the phone and tried to inject some perky into my "Hi. This is Maggie."

    "Hi, Maggie. This is Cole Bauer."

    "Hi, Cole." I sat on the edge of the desk chair. "Sorry about the phone tag."

    "It's all right, as long as you're working on round two."

    The words went in, but my spent neurons failed to process them. "What?"

    "I want a report for each round. We'll carry it through the week, with a blacked-out photo. You don't mind a pseudo- nym, do you? You need to preserve your anonymity."

    Slowly, my brain translated. "I guess you liked the piece?"

    "The way the Greeks dominate this campus, they de- serve to be skewered a bit. Plus, it'll sell papers. Well, the Report is free, but you know what I mean."

    "Yeah." Beyond my agreement, comment was unneces- sary. With contagious excitement, Cole outlined a scheme of James Bond complexity for keeping my identity a secret.

    "So what's my code name?" I asked, when he gave me the chance. "Can I be Secret Squirrel?"

    I'd been joking, but he answered, "Morocco Mole would be more appropriate." "But too obvious." I used the same serious tone. We agreed on the details of the rest of the week, and said good-bye.

    I hung up the phone, numb and fatigued, as if the ping- pong bounce of my emotions all day had burnt out my cir- cuits. But I wasn't quite done yet. As I dug in my dresser for a pair of pajamas, the cell rang again.

    I flipped it open without checking the caller ID. "Hello?"

    "Maggie?" Lisa. I must have at least one emotional cir- cuit left, because my throat closed up at hearing her voice precisely when I needed her.

    "Hey," I managed.

    "What's wrong?" Her tone, always brusque, was tinged tonight with concern. "You sound weird."

    I flung myself onto the ancient love seat in the corner of my study. "I've had a very weird day."

    "Uh-huh." She didn't sound particularly surprised.

    "How did you know?" I asked, unable to keep the wari- ness from my voice.

    "I looked in my crystal ball, what do you think?"

    That was the thing with Lisa. She joked about things like taking over the world or raising an army of zombie minions to do her bidding. Things that, in retrospect of the last year, weren't funny at all.

    "Seriously, Lisa. You didn't do a spell or something, did you? Because you know I'm ethically opposed . . ."

    "Look, I didn't call for a lecture, all right?"

    Silence, while I weighed how much I desperately wanted to talk to her versus my conviction that her dabbling in-- jeez, "sorcery" sounded so melodramatic. Let's say, my fear that her arcane studies would do nothing to obliterate the enormous blot already on her karmic account book. Lisa broke the silence first. "I just called to chat. I didn't know you were upset until I heard your voice."

    "Oh."

    "I'm an evil genius, Maggie Quinn. I can add two and two without the benefit of a magic wand."

    I sighed and slumped deeper into the cushions. "You're not evil, Lisa. Just . . . goal oriented."

    She gave a bitter laugh, and redirected the conversation. "So what's up?"

    "First I had a piece rejected by the city paper and my journalism professor is kind of a dick. Then the editor of the school paper liked my story, but it means I have to keep going through this Rush business, which is wearing on my nerves. And I finally saw Justin, but I think he might have an Irish girlfriend."

    "Did you ask him if he had an Irish girlfriend?"

    "No."

    "Maggie, you idiot." She'd said that so many times over the years, I could picture the roll of her eyes, the shake of her head. "You know those books, where the only thing keeping the moronic