Linda Howard: To Die For

The first book in the Blair Mallory series

Most people don’t take cheerleading seriously. If they only knew…

All-American girl, that’s me. If you look at the pictures in my high school yearbooks, you’ll see a girl with long blond hair, a tan, and a wide grin that shows off her perfect white teeth, courtesy of thousands of dollars spent on braces and fluoride washes. The teeth, that is, not the hair and the tan. I had the effortless confidence of the upper-middle-class American teenage princess; nothing bad could happen to me. After all, I was a cheerleader.

I admit it. Actually, I’m proud of it. A lot of people think cheerleaders are both brainless and snooty, but that’s only people who have never been a cheerleader. I forgive them their ignorance. Cheerleading is hard work, a demanding blend of skill and strength, and it’s dangerous. People frequently get injured, sometimes even killed, doing the cheers. Usually it’s girls getting injured: guys are the tossers; girls are the tossees. Technically we’re called “flyers,” which is really silly because of course we can’t fly. We’re tossed. The tossees are the ones who fall on their heads and break their necks.

Well, I never broke my neck, but I did break my left arm, and my collarbone, and dislocated my right knee once. I can’t count the sprains and bruises. But I’ve got great balance, strong legs, and I can still do a backflip and the splits. Plus, I went to college on a cheerleading scholarship. Is this a cool country, or what?

So, anyway, my name is Blair Mallory. Yes, I know: It’s a fluff name. It goes with the cheerleading and the blond hair. I can’t help it; it’s what my parents named me. My father’s name is Blair, so I guess I’m just glad they didn’t tag me as a junior. I don’t think I would have been Homecoming Queen if my name had been Blair Henry Mallory, Jr. I’m happy enough with Blair Elizabeth, thank you. I mean, show-business people are naming their kids things like Homer, for God’s sake. When those kids grow up and kill their parents, I think all the cases should be ruled justifiable homicide.

Which brings up the murder I saw.

Actually it doesn’t, but at least it’s kind of logical. The connection, I mean.

And bad things do too happen to all-American princess cheerleaders. I got married, didn’t I?

That kind of ties in to the murder, too. I married Jason Carson right out of college, so for four years my name was Blair Carson. I should have known better than to marry someone whose first and last name rhymed, but some things you learn only from experience. Jason was big into politics: the student council, campaigning for his dad the state congressman, his uncle the mayor, blah blah blah. Jason was so good-looking he could literally make girls stutter. Too bad he knew it. He had thick, sun-kissed hair (that’s poetic for blond ), chiseled features, dark blue eyes, and a body kept in excellent shape. Think John Kennedy, Jr. The body, I mean.

So there we were, the poster couple for blond hair and white teeth. And my body was pretty fine, too, if I do say so myself. What else could we do but get married?

Four years later, we got unmarried, to our mutual great relief. After all, we had nothing in common but our looks, and I really don’t think that’s a good basis for marriage, do you? Jason wanted to have a baby so we’d look like the all-American couple while he campaigned to become the youngest state congressman, which really, if you want to know, irritated the hell out of me because he’d refused to have a baby before and now all of a sudden it was a campaign plus? I told him to kiss my ass. Not that he hadn’t kissed it before, but the context was different, you know?

I made out like a bandit in the divorce settlement. Maybe I should feel guilty; I mean, it isn’t exactly a feminist thing to do. Stand on your own two feet, make it with your own accomplishments, that kind of stuff. And actually I do believe in all that; I just wanted to make Jason suffer. I wanted to punish him. Why? Because I caught him kissing my youngest sister, Jennifer, on New Year’s Day while the rest of the family was in the den totally zonking out on bowl games. Jenni was seventeen at the time.

Well, being furious doesn’t slow me down any. When I saw them in the dining room, I tiptoed away and found one of the disposable cameras we’d been using that day to record the occasion for Jason’s campaign album-family stuff, celebrating a holiday, pigging out around a table loaded with all sorts of artery-clogging goodies, watching football. He liked to have pictures of my family get-togethers because my family is so much better looking than his. Jason used any edge he could get in a campaign.

Anyway, I snapped a really good picture of Jason and Jenni, with flash and all, so he knew I had him by the short hairs. What was he going to do, chase me down and tackle me in front of my father, and wrestle the camera away from me? Not likely. For one thing, he’d have to explain, and he knew he couldn’t count on me to go along with his story. For another, my father would have drop-kicked him over the televison for daring to harm a hair on his namesake’s head. Did I also mention that I’m Daddy’s girl?

So I filed for divorce, and Jason gave me everything I asked for, on one condition: that I give him the photograph and negative of him and Jenni. Well, sure, why not? It isn’t as if I hadn’t had more than one copy made.

Maybe Jason thought I was too stupid to do that. It never pays to underestimate how dirty your competition will play. For that reason, I really don’t think Jason will do well in politics.

I also told Mom that Jenni had let Jason kiss her. You didn’t think I’d let the backstabbing little hussy get away with it, did you? Not that I don’t love Jenni, but she’s the baby of the family, and she thinks she should get anything and everything she wants. Occasionally she has to be shown differently. I’ve also noticed that her name rhymes, too: Jenni Mallory. It’s really Jennifer, but she’s never been called that, so it doesn’t count. I don’t know what it is about rhyming names, but they’re bad news for me. The difference is, I forgave Jenni, because she’s blood. No way in hell was I forgiving Jason.

So Mom took care of Jenni, who tearfully apologized and promised to be a good girl or at least show better taste, and my middle sister, Siana, who was in law school, handled the negotiations with Jason. The name “Siana” is supposedly the Welsh form of “Jane,” but take it from me, the name really means “man-eating shark with dimples.” That’s Siana.

With the Mallory women in action, the divorce went through in record time without Daddy ever finding out exactly why we were all mad at Jason. Not that he cared; if we were mad, then he was mad, too, on our behalf. Wasn’t that sweet of him?

What I got from Jason in the divorce settlement was a very nice little chunk of change, thank you. I also got the red Mercedes convertible, of course, but the money was the most important because of what I did with it. I bought a gym. A fitness center. After all, you go with your strength, and I know all about staying in shape. Siana suggested calling it “Blair’s Beautiful Butts,” but I thought that would limit the clientele and maybe give people the impression I also did liposuction. Mom came up with “Great Bods” and we all liked it, so that’s what the former Halloran’s Gym became.