Wanting Sheila Dead by Jane Haddam

just as clueless as Janice was herself.
    She stepped out into the hall. The girls were mostly sitting on the floor, except for the black one, that Andra Gayle. She was leaning against one of the walls and looking murderous.
    â€œI don’t think she can actually get away with touching you,” one of the seated girls was saying.
    Janice wracked her brains and came up with a name: Linda Kowalski. Linda Kowalski was Catholic and had a rosary she kept on her bedside table. Her roommate was a girl named Shari Bernstein, who was Jewish and came from somewhere in New York that was not New York City. Janice felt rather proud of herself for remembering all of that.
    She worked her way down the row to her own roommate, who wasnot hard to find. This was a girl named Ivy Demari, and she had white-blond hair with an electric green streak in it. Janice thought you could probably have found Ivy on the moon.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Janice whispered.
    â€œI don’t know what’s going on,” Grace said. Her face was still red. “Miss Dahl was just telling me not to go anywhere, and then she left herself, and now I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m supposed to do. I’m not giving that vile little bitch another chance to kick me.”
    â€œOh, Grace,” Coraline said.
    â€œShe’s a bitch and worse,” Grace said. “And I’m not going to watch my language about it, either.”
    â€œThis is what’s going on,” Ivy whispered.
    Then she grabbed Janice’s hand and squeezed it. Janice had been a little worried about Ivy at first, but it had turned out that Ivy was actually Very Nice, even though she had tattoos.
    â€œI meant it about not being allowed to touch you physically,” Linda said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on this show, or on any reality show—”
    â€œThe contestants do it,” Shari said. “They get into fights sometimes.”
    â€œThe contestants, yes, well,” Linda said. “But Sheila Dunham isn’t a contestant. You could sue her.”
    â€œYou could if you aren’t really a spy,” Shari said. “I mean, if you’re really a spy, you could sue her, but you might not win. If you see what I mean.”
    â€œOf course I’m not really a spy,” Grace said.
    â€œIs your father really that guy she was talking about?” another girl said. Janice had to work at it a little, but she came up with a name: Mary-Louise Verdt.
    Grace shifted a little on the floor. She was sitting down with her left leg stretched out across the hall carpet. Janice could see bruises starting to emerge on her thigh.
    â€œYes,” she said finally. “My father really is who she said he was. But I’m not a spy. I haven’t talked to the man for six years, for God’s sake.I barely talked to him when I was still living at home. And Wellesley, my foot. I did go to Wellesley. I even graduated.”
    â€œThey can throw you off the show for lying about things, I think,” Coraline said. “We all had to sign that form, do you remember, promising that everything we said was true and we promised it on pain of perjury and that kind of thing.”
    â€œWe did sign such a paper,” Alida Akido said. “I remember.”
    â€œWe signed a lot of papers, but I didn’t read them,” another girl said—that was Marcia Lee Baldwin.
    â€œThere are so many of us,” Janice whispered to Ivy. “I have trouble keeping them apart.”
    â€œThere are only fourteen of us now,” Ivy said. “There were thirty, four days ago. More.”
    â€œI know. But I still get confused.”
    â€œHalf of them have changed their names, you watch,” Ivy said. “Or worse. It happens every season.”
    â€œI didn’t change anything,” Janice said.
    It was true, too. She hadn’t changed anything. She had just left some things out, like how she