Read The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove for Free Online Page B

and done with,” I said quickly. “And if being in cahoots with your mother gets you the crown, I guess I can suffer it for a week.”
    But I didn’t feel in cahoots with Diana at all. In fact, my pride was still stinging from her little “family affair” quip. Why didn’t Mike seem to think anything of it? He was already busy untethering the boat. As I watched his arms flex while he worked, my whole body started buzzing. Really buzzing. Oh, wait—that was my phone buzzing in my purse.
    I grimaced, thinking it was probably my mom, wanting me to pick up another bottle of wine for her on my way home. No mother has ever been so excited when her kid got her first fake ID.
    But this text was no standard liquor-run call from Mom:
    Guess who’s back from the proverbial dead? I’m a free man again and want to celebrate with my favorite daughter. Could we meet for a drink?
    The cool facade I’d managed all through dinner suddenly disappeared into the night. A thick black water moccasin slithered by my feet, and I gripped the wooden buttress of the marina for support.
    “Nat?” Mike called from the boat. “The boat motor’s running. Get down here so I can work on yours.”
    “Be right there,” I said hoarsely.
    Back from the dead indeed.
    Dad.

CHAPTER Four
    THRIFTLESS AMBITION
    “ E xplain to me how it is that you’re so calm,” Kate asked me at brunch the next morning. We were seated along the palmetto-lined boardwalk of Catfish Row, finishing up our second round of cappuccinos on the patio of the famous MacLeer’s Biscuit Café.
    Anyone from Palmetto would tell you MacB’s was the only place to brunch—not just for their buttermilk biscuits and homemade peach preserves, but also for the chance to scope out who showed up with whom. Since the rain clouds had finally given way to sun, the weather was in the high 60s, and it seemed like our entire school was trolling the historic wooden boardwalk outside MacB’s.
    At the round eight-top table closest to the cobblestone street, the student council kids—who never took a break— struggled to make room for their bagels amid all their bulging Ball-planning binders. Near the water, Tracy Lampert and her junior-class coterie formed an amorphous cluster, swinging their bare feet over the boardwalk and tying dogwood blossoms in one another’s hair. And at my usual table in the back corner of the patio, a crew of senior girls sat side by side in one long row, looking out at the ocean as they finished their egg-white quiches.
    “Facials at five, Nat?” Jenny Inman asked as the girls filed past me toward the parking lot.
    “I’ll call you,” I smiled, trying to assuage the hint of confusion as to why I hadn’t filled in my usual MacB’s seat next to her this morning.
    The girls knew Kate was one of my favorite pet projects. This morning, I’d agreed to offer her a second opinion picking out a Mardi Gras costume from the thrift store down the street. But as I watched her simultaneously slurp up her cappuccino, check the tail of her long ponytail for split ends, and try to flag down our slip of a waitress for the bill, I wondered whether Kate needed help with more than just her costume. So much unnecessary multitasking—and Kate was usually really composed. When I realized she was still waiting for an answer to her question, I decided not to mention the fact that frantic people had a strangely mellowing effect on my mood.
    “I’m calm,” I suggested instead, “because I’ve already got a costume for tonight. You’re panicking,” I said, taking in the throngs of Mardi Gras-crazed Palmetto kids all around us, “because you’re just giving into the vibe.”
    Just then, a table of Bambies brushed past our table, wailing over the limited stock of size-one fishnets at the costume store around the corner.
    “You’re right,” Kate met my eyes and laughed. She flipped her amber hair over her shoulder. “Screw the vibe!”
    I offered her a stick of gum and cocked