Chapter 2 - Reunion

Great. There was no way Kenzie would be able to stay undercover for long. The secret would have to come out eventually. This girl had to recognize her, no matter how long it had been since they’d seen each other.

Her looks were the first giveaway. She was older now, her face caked in heavy makeup, but the lovely blue eyes still stared out at her with her dark hair framing her face. She looked as beautiful as her older sister, but in a darker way.

Savannah Swansen. The youngest child of the Swansen household, who was now eighteen years old and attending college.

Apparently the very college Kenzie had been called to for her first undercover case.

“Who are you?” Savannah demanded. Her tone wasn’t entirely friendly, but not downright loathsome, either. Maybe she really wouldn’t recognize Kenzie. She was, after all, in disguise.

“I’m Mindy,” she managed to say, almost blurting out her real name to a familiar face. “I’m your new roommate.”

“New roommate? I thought I was living solo in this room.”

“I just transferred from Aurora Skies, and this was the only dorm with an available room.”

“You sound like you have a little bit of a southern accent…like what people said I had when I first came here. Like Appaloosa Plains or something.”

Damn! Of course, Savannah might recognize Kenzie’s voice. She’d have to be extra vigilant. This was going to be much more difficult than she’d anticipated; she hadn’t counted on running into someone she knew so closely, even if it was almost four years ago, when she and Jillian had graduated from Twinbrook University.

Kenzie had to think of a quick recovery to account for her apparent accent. “Yeah, I wasn’t born there in Aurora Skies. I was just living there...with my dad. Until I graduated high school.”

“Why did you wait until now to come here? The first semester is already halfway over.”

Kenzie gave Savannah Mindy’s story. She seemed to accept it, with a noncommittal shrug as she sauntered toward the easel.

Jillian had briefly painted as a child and in college, but her true passion was always designing clothes. Savannah, it seemed, followed in her oldest sister’s footsteps where painting was concerned.

“Are you here for a fine arts degree?” Kenzie asked her as she gently moved the brush across the canvass.

“Yeah. So what? Are you going to be another one of those dicks that tells me I can’t possibly make a career out of it?”

“Nothing of the sort. I was just going to say that you’re really good at it. I can see all the paintings hanging on the wall, and they look good.”

“Thanks.”

“People have actually said that to you?”

“Yeah. Because being an artist isn’t a ‘real’ career. Whatever. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I’m sure you’re good at a lot of things.”

Savannah lowered the brush and turned to face Kenzie, a look of annoyance in her eyes.

“Look,” she sniped, “you don’t have to try to be my friend, okay? I’m not staying in this dorm much longer anyway. I’m moving in with a friend as soon as I can get it arranged. This good girl thing you’ve got going on? It doesn’t work. It won’t work on me.”

“I’m not trying to...”

“Whatever. I’ve heard enough about how I live my life and what I choose to do with it. I don’t need a pity party.”

“This isn’t a pity party, Savannah.”

“How did you know my name? I didn’t tell you.”

Shit! Another misstep! Kenzie was cursing herself inwardly. This was going to be a nightmare. Maybe she should back out.

But no, she had an obligation to fulfill. So she settled for something simple and believable.

“One of the guys downstairs told me, since I’d be your roommate.”

Savannah seemed to accept this as she shrugged once again and returned to her painting. Kenzie longed to ask her about her expulsion from the sorority, and if she knew of anything else amiss on campus, but it was way too early for that. So she tried a more subtle approach.

“I’ve been thinking of joining the sorority on campus. What do you think?”

“I think you should have your head examined. That sorority is full of a bunch of goody-two-shoes bitches who are all hypocrites.”

“Hypocrites?”

“Don’t get me started.”

Kenzie figured she should listen to Savannah and not get her started. She only just arrived. Surely her interrogations could wait.

But when she started working a case, she wanted to dive right into it. Procrastinating wasn’t her strong point.

Treading carefully, Kenzie thought she’d ask something a little more astute.

“So, what types of things do you like to paint?”

“All kinds of things. Whatever strikes me.”

“I like what I see so far.”

“Thanks. I’m glad someone appreciates art around here.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“You seriously want to talk life stories?”

“Why not? We’re gonna be living together, so we might as well get to know each other.”

Kenzie sat down on the bed as Savannah continued to paint, not making eye contact.

“If you must know,” Savannah stated as she finally whirled around, “my parents weren’t too keen on the idea of me going to college majoring in fine arts. I’m the youngest kid in the family, so they think I’ll end up a failure like my three older siblings.”

“Failure?” Kenzie couldn’t hide her shock. Jillian was hardly a failure, since her own line of fashion was beginning to take off, and Alexis was a successful author and historian in Barnacle Bay. She hadn’t heard much out of Hunter lately, but she thought she briefly saw a photo of him starting a band in Bridgeport, though his original plan had been to go solo.

“Yes,” Savannah answered with a hint of bitterness in her voice as she walked closer to the bed Kenzie was perched upon. “My brother had this big dream of being the next hot rock star, and he ended up getting some girl knocked up. He doesn’t admit it, of course, and swears it isn’t his, but whatever. The damage is done and he’s in the middle of a paternity suit. My oldest sister, she’s off somewhere in Sunset Valley screwing a vampire. That’s messed up on so many levels. Plus, her big career choice? Designing clothes. Like there aren’t enough different kinds of clothes on the planet already.”

“Screwing a vampire?” Kenzie hadn’t realized that Jillian’s parents knew about her best friend’s romance with a creature of the night.

“That’s what I said. And my other sister, she’s in Barnacle Bay, and I swear she’s a lesbian.”

“What?”

“Yeah, don’t they have lesbians where you come from? She says she isn’t, but she’s always been a huge tomboy. It wouldn’t surprise me, even though my parents aren’t quite ready to think about that possibility. But yeah, with all that shit going on, I was my parents’ last chance at raising a ‘successful’ kid. And when I said I wanted to be an artist, they thought that was a pipe dream, so they were all, ‘Oh, no, don’t do that, you can do so much more with your life, and be something more important.’”

Kenzie was baffled. She never expected Oliver and Liza to be so unsupportive of their four children. Her own parents hated the fact that her job sent her into a lot of perilous situations, but they still supported her wishes and dreams.

“Wow,” Kenzie said at last. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. I’ll show them all. I’ll prove them wrong, and I’ll prove that I can make it as an artist. Not a starving artist. A real artist.”

“Well, I’m sure you will.”

Savannah furrowed her brow. “You know, you remind me of someone.”

Kenzie tried not to react too noticeably. “I do? Who?”

Savannah continued to scrutinize Kenzie, making her feel slightly uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s driving me crazy.”

Kenzie just shrugged indifferently. She really hoped this undercover thing worked.

And the way things were going, if her cover was blown, her career might be, too.

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