“That sucks. At least it showed up, though.” I gesture to the suitcase. “You need help with that?”
“No thanks. It’s easy to roll. And my grandmother’s house is right there.”
A breeze stirs, sending stray tendrils of hair across Ellery’s face. She’s so pale, with sharp cheekbones and a stubborn chin, that she’d look severe if it weren’t for her eyes. They’re inky black, huge and a little bit tilted at the edges, with eyelashes so long they look fake. I don’t realize I’m staring until she says, “What?”
I shove my hands into my pockets. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been meaning to thank you for the other night. At the fund-raiser? For not, you know, assuming I was the … perpetrator.”
A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know a lot of vandals, but I have to imagine most of them don’t look quite so horrified by their own handiwork.”
“Yeah. Well. It would be easy to assume. Most people here do. And that would’ve been … not great for me.”
“Because your brother was a suspect in Lacey’s murder,” she says. Matter-of-factly, like we’re talking about the weather.
“Right.” We start walking again, and I have this weird impulse to tell her about my meeting with Declan. I’ve been out of sorts about it since I left Bukowski’s Tavern. But that would be oversharing, to say the least. Instead, I clear my throat and say, “I, um, met your mother. When she came back for Lacey’s funeral. She was … really nice.”
Nice isn’t the right word. Sadie Corcoran was like this bolt of energy that swept through town and electrified everybody, even in the middle of mourning. I got the sense that she considered Echo Ridge one big stage, but I didn’t mind watching the performance. We all needed the distraction.
Ellery squints into the distance. “It’s funny how everyone remembers Sadie here. I’m pretty sure I could visit every town I’ve ever lived in and nobody would notice.”
“I doubt that.” I shoot her a sideways glance. “You call your mom by her first name?”
“Yeah. She used to have us pretend she was our older sister when she went on auditions, and it stuck,” Ellery says in that same matter-of-fact tone. She shrugs when I raise my brows. “Mothers of preschoolers aren’t considered particularly sexy in Hollywood.”
An engine roars behind us—faintly at first, then so loud that we both turn. Headlights flash, coming way too fast, and I grab Ellery’s arm to yank her out of the road. She loses her grip on the suitcase and yelps as it topples into the path of the oncoming car. Brakes squeal, and the bright-red BMW’s wheels stop inches in front of the handle.
The driver’s side window lowers, and Katrin pokes her head out. She’s in her purple Echo Ridge cheerleading jacket; Brooke is in the passenger seat. Katrin’s eyes drop to the suitcase as I grab it off the ground and haul it back to safety. “Are you going somewhere?” she asks.
“Christ, Katrin. You almost ran us over!”
“I did not,” she scoffs. She arches a brow as Ellery takes the suitcase handle from me. “Is that yours, Ellery? You’re not moving again, are you?”
“No. Long story.” Ellery starts rolling the oversized suitcase toward the grassy knoll in front of her grandmother’s house. “I’m almost home, so … I’ll catch you guys later.”
“See you tomorrow,” I say, as Katrin waves and utters a lazy “Byeeeee.” Then she raps her palm against the car door and narrows her eyes at me. “You’ve been keeping secrets. You didn’t tell me Declan was back in town.”
“I had no idea until today,” I say.
Katrin shoots me a look of pure skepticism. Brooke leans forward in her seat, pulling the sleeves of her purple cheerleading jacket over her hands as if she’s cold. Her eyes dart between Katrin and me as Katrin asks, “You expect me to believe that?”
I feel my temper flare. “I don’t care if you believe it or not. It’s the truth.”
My stepsister and my brother have nothing to do with one another. Declan didn’t come to our mom’s wedding to Peter and doesn’t visit. Katrin hasn’t mentioned his name once in the entire four months we’ve been living together.
She looks unconvinced, but jerks her head toward the backseat. “Come on, we’ll give you a ride.” She turns toward Brooke and adds, just loud enough for me to hear, “You’re welcome.”
Brooke lets out an irritated little huff. I don’t know what that’s about, and I’m not tempted to ask. Katrin’s in peak pain-in-the-ass mode right now, but I’m tired of walking. I climb into the backseat, and barely have a chance to close the door before Katrin floors the gas again. “So what’s Declan doing here, anyway?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, and then I realize what’s been bothering me about my half-hour conversation with Declan ever since I left Bukowski’s. It’s not just that I didn’t know he was here.
It’s that he avoided every single one of my questions.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ellery
Monday, September 9
As soon as I close the door behind me in Nana’s hallway, I drop to my knees beside my suitcase and fumble for the zipper. Inside is a jumbled mess of clothes and toiletries, but it’s all so beautifully familiar that I gather as much as I can hold in my arms and hug it to my chest for a few seconds.
Nana appears in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. “I take it everything’s there?” she asks.
“Looks like it,” I say, holding up my favorite sweater like a trophy.
Nana heads upstairs without another word, and I spy a flash of red against my dark clothes: the small velvet pouch that holds my jewelry. I scatter its contents on the floor, picking a necklace out of the pile. The thin chain holds an intricate silver charm that looks like a flower until you examine it closely enough to realize it’s a dagger. “For my favorite murder addict,” Sadie said when she gave it to me for my birthday two years ago.
I used to wish she’d ask me why I was so drawn to stuff like that, and then maybe we could have a real conversation about Sarah. But I guess it was easier to just accessorize.
I’m fastening the dagger around my neck when Nana comes down the stairs with a shopping tote dangling from one arm. “You can bring your things upstairs later. I want to make a trip to Dalton’s before dinnertime.” At my questioning look, she lifts the bag on her arm. “We may as well return the clothes I bought you last week. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’ve been borrowing from your brother instead of wearing them.”