Free Playing with Fire by Emily Blake Page A

spinning wildly away from her. Seeing her mom’s arraignment on TV in front of Tom and Zoey had pushed her over some new edge. Ever since her mom’s arrest, she’d felt like she was falling, and each time she thought she was about to hit the bottom it would move to some deeper, darker place and the fall would go on. Inside her pocket, Alison snapped the delicate figure in two.
    â€œWhy, Mom?” Alison asked. “Why would Grandmother Diamond do that?” She was not sure what to believe. There were so many lies going back so far she was not sure she could sort them out, or if she even needed to. She had been so dumb. Kelly’s ruthlessness should not have come as such a shock. Manipulation and betrayal were what she was born to do. Alison had been crazy to think her cousin would stand by her.
    Now it was all becoming clear. TheDiamonds stood by no one, especially not one another. Until now, Alison had managed to stay just outside the cruel games and conniving ways. Well, maybe not always, but she had managed to stay upright while her mother and grandmother slid her back and forth across the game board like a pawn. Now, suddenly, the stakes were higher.
    â€œIt’s complicated, Alison. All you need to know is that I’m counting on you to help. You’re my daughter,” Helen went on stating facts. It was what she did when she was afraid. You couldn’t argue with facts. Alison simply stared, rubbing her thumb along the jagged edge of the elephant trunk in her pocket. As she gazed upon the image of her face reflected in the glass, with her mother’s face ghostlike behind it, she felt something shift. For the first time Alison was more than a pawn. She was a player. Whether she was right about Grandmother Diamond or not, her mother needed her. And the next move was Alison’s.

Chapter Eighteen
    Slumping at the smallest table in Hardwired, Zoey scowled out at the world. Her nasty look was wasted on the coffee crowd. They were too wrapped up in their lattes and newspapers to notice, but she wanted to hone her evil stare before turning it on her dad’s tutor. As far as she was concerned, this guy was not her tutor. He belonged exclusively to her father, who had hired him.
    Studying with a tutor was the last thing Zoey wanted to do on a Thursday night. First of all, it wasn’t like the classes at Stafford were hard for her. The course load was a joke compared to thework she’d had to do at boarding school. And second, meeting a tutor was a waste of time. Time that could be spent on more important things—like taking down Alison Rose.
    Checking the door again for any sign of a professional nerd, Zoey flipped open her laptop and reread the latest e-mail from Alison.
    Zo—
    Greetings from study hall. It’s so boring here I can feel myself slipping into a coma. People are looking at me like I’m last week’s lunch special. Thank GOD you came home from boarding school when you did. I needed a friend. Don’t know what I’d do without you.
    Love,
    A
    P.S. Why did you come back, anyway?
    â€œTo repay a little debt,” Zoey muttered. Thanks to Kelly and Chad, and her mom’s arrest, Alison was in full free fall, and Zoey was the only person in the world she trusted. Ripping away her safety net was going to be easy. And fun. Finally she would know what it was like to be abandonedat the moment you needed someone the most. Zoey’s chest tightened and she took a gulp of her latte, forcing down the scalding-hot liquid along with the painful memory of the loneliest night of her life. The night she had lost so much more than her best friend. She took another, slower sip, letting the hot liquid cool on her tongue. Focus on the payback, she reminded herself.
    Her old friend was going to go up in flames…like so many other things in Zoey’s life. Zoey forced a laugh as images of her last school flickered in her mind. That disaster had been an