Zee shrugged. “Brooke decided I should stay here and work on profiling Heath Shannon. She took April with her instead.”
It just figured—I was here listening to audio clips with Chloe, and April got to go on a stakeout at the evil law firm.
Zee put her hand lightly on my shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “I’ve got some stuff you should probably see.”
I didn’t move.
“Seriously, Toby. I swear that it has nothing whatsoever to do with lipstick, pore-reducing cleanser, or whatever else has your panties in a twist.”
“Panties in a twist,”I said. “Is that a technical term?”
Zee rolled her eyes. “So what? Just because I have a PhD, I have to be smart all the time? A person can be more than one thing, Toby. I can be smart and a cheerleader and incredibly knowledgeable about celebrity marriages, all at the same time.”
“A girl of many talents,” I said.
Zee grinned. “Damn straight. Now, are you coming or aren’t you?”
She turned around and started walking off. Since I had exactly two options, Chloe or Zee, I chose Zee. Chloe was predictable (or, at least, predictably witchy). Zee was something of an enigma.
I followed her up a staircase, and after two security checkpoints (one that scanned our fingerprints, and one that scanned our retinas), found myself in a small room with a desk, a large filing cabinet, a computer, and a television.
“Your office?” I guessed. Zee nodded. It occurred to me that I should probably demand my own computer lab/office setup—Lucy and Chloe had labs; the twins had the salon; Zee had an office. Judging from her demeanor, I could only guess that Brooke probably ruled over a small country somewhere in the Quad. The least they could give me was an office with the world’s fastest computer.
“I’m sure it can be arranged,” Zee said, making me wonder if she was psychic. “But give it a few weeks. The rest of the girls are still adjusting to the new group dynamics.”
The way Zee switched from one mode to another, sounding like one ofthose girlsone minute and full of psychobabble the next, freaked me out. Then again, wasn’t that what the Squad was all about?
“So what did you want to show me?”
The sooner she showed it to me, the sooner I could go home, eat, shower, and pass out. In that order.
“Have a seat.” Zee gestured, and I sat. Post–herkie torture, my body was fundamentally opposed to standing for any extended period of time.
When Zee sat down behind her desk, her eyes watched me carefully, and I frowned. “I am so not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed,” I told her.
Zee flipped her glossy black ponytail over her shoulder. “Been there,” she said. “Done that. You’re not that interesting.”
I folded my arms across my chest and waited.
“Actually, I thought you might want the rundown on everyone else.”
“Say what?”
“Let’s face it. You’re not exactly Miss Sociable. You didn’t know any of the girls this time last week, and I’m pretty sure you hated all of us anyway. Now you’re a part of the Squad, and, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve decided that Tara is tolerable, and you’re trying awfully hard not to like Lucy. You still haven’t forgiven the twins for the Stage Six, you’re mildly threatened by April, you think Bubbles has the IQ of a doorstop, you’ve already created a mental list of dictators whose personalities resemble Brooke’s, you can’t understand what Chloe’s problem is, and my PhD freaks the hell out of you.”
It was like she had me in some kind of freaky cheerleading mind meld!
With another hair flip, Zee crossed her arms over her chest, matching her posture to my own. “How’d I do?”
I didn’t answer.
“I take it that means I did well? Know you better than you know yourself, et cetera, et cetera?”
“Didn’t you have something to show me?” I asked.
“Sure,” Zee said. She pushed a folder across the desk, and I picked it up. Not sure what to expect, I opened it.
The first thing I saw was the numbers. I got numbers. They were comfort food for my brain. I read the labels, examined the axes of the graphs, and flipped through the pages.
