We drive in silence for a minute until we near a corner store, and Declan suddenly swerves into the parking lot. “Hang on a sec,” he says, before shifting into park and disappearing inside. When he comes out a couple of minutes later, he’s holding something square and white in one hand. He tosses it to me as he opens the door. “Put those on your face.”
Frozen peas. I do as he says, almost groaning in relief as the cool seeps into my burning skin. “Thanks. For these and … you know. Saving my ass.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head. “Can’t believe you got out of the car. Amateur.”
I’d laugh, but it hurts too much. I sit still, with the peas on my face as we leave Echo Ridge for Solsbury, tracing the path I took to his apartment last week. Declan must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “You’re a little bitch for following Daisy.” He looks like he’s seriously considering turning the car around and leaving me in the parking lot with Kyle.
“I tried asking you what you were doing in town,” I remind him. “Didn’t work.” He doesn’t answer, just sort of grunts, which I decide means point taken. “When did you move here?”
“Last month,” he says. “Daisy needs to be around her parents. And me. So … here I am.”
“You could’ve told me about her, you know.”
Declan snorts. “Really, little brother?” He turns into Pine Crest Estates and pulls into the parking spot in front of number 9. “You couldn’t wait to get me out of Echo Ridge. The last thing you’d want to hear is that I’d moved one town over. No, wait, that’s the second-last. The last thing is me being with Lacey’s best friend. I mean, hell, what would the Nilssons say, right?”
“I hate the Nilssons.” It slips out without thinking.
Declan raises his brows as he opens his door. “Trouble in paradise?”
I hesitate, trying to figure out how to explain, when my stomach seizes. I barely make it out of the car before I bend in half and vomit my breakfast all over the asphalt. Thank God it’s quick, because the movement makes my ribs feel like someone just ripped them out. My eyes water as I clutch the side of the car for support, gasping.
“Delayed reaction,” Declan says, reaching into the car for the discarded peas. “Happens sometimes.” He lets me limp to the apartment on my own, unlocks the door, and points me toward the couch. “Lie down. I’ll find an ice pack for your hand.”
Declan’s apartment is the most cliché bachelor pad ever. There’s nothing in it except the couch and two armchairs, a giant television, and a bunch of milk crates for shelves. The couch is comfortable, though, and I sink into it while Declan roots around in his freezer. Something plastic digs into my back, and I pull out a remote. I aim it at the television and press the power button. A golf green with the ESPN logo in one corner fills the screen, and I click away, scrolling mindlessly through channels until the word Huntsburg catches my eye. I stop surfing as a man in a police uniform standing in front of a lectern says, “… have been able to make a positive identification.”
“Declan.” My throat hurts and my voice cracks, but when he doesn’t answer, I rasp louder. “Declan.”
His head emerges from the kitchen. “What? I can’t find the—” He stops at the sight of my face, and comes into the living room just as the officer on-screen takes a deep breath.
“The body is that of a young woman who’s been missing from Echo Ridge since last Saturday: seventeen-year-old Brooke Bennett. The Huntsburg police department would like to extend our condolences to Miss Bennett’s family and friends, and our support to her hometown police department. At this time, the investigation into cause of death is ongoing and no further details will be released.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ellery
Monday, October 7
I know the script. I’ve read it in countless books, and seen it play out dozens of times on television. All week, in the back of my mind, I knew how it would probably end.
What I didn’t understand was how mind-numbingly awful it would feel.
At least I’m not alone. Ezra and Malcolm are in the living room with me Monday afternoon, six hours after the Huntsburg police found Brooke. None of us went to school today, although Malcolm’s day was more eventful than ours. He showed up an hour ago, bruised and battered, and Nana has been handing him fresh ice packs every fifteen minutes.
We’re arranged stiffly on her uncomfortable furniture, watching Channel 5 news coverage scroll across the screen. Meli Dinglasa is standing on Echo Ridge Common, her dark hair whipping across her face as the leafy branches behind her rattle in the wind.
She’s been talking nonstop since we turned the TV on, but only a few phrases sink in: … dead for more than a week … foul play suspected but not confirmed … yet another taunting message found this morning near Echo Ridge High School …
“Great timing, Katrin,” Ezra mutters.
Malcolm’s sitting next to me on the couch. One side of his jaw is bruised and swollen, the knuckles on his right hand are scraped raw, and he winces every time he moves. “Someone needs to pay this time,” he says in a low, angry voice. His right hand is resting on the couch between us. I take it in mine, being careful to avoid the cuts. His skin is warm, and his fingers wrap around mine without hesitation. For a couple of seconds I feel better, until I remember that Brooke is dead and everything is horrible.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her. Working the shooting range at Fright Farm, trying to stand up to Vance. Wandering the halls at Echo Ridge High looking sad and worried. Swaying and rambling her way out of the Fright Farm office on the night she disappeared. I should have pushed her harder to tell us what was wrong. I had a chance to change the course of that night, and I blew it.
When my phone rings with the familiar California number, I almost don’t answer it. Then I figure, what the hell. The day can’t possibly get any worse.
“Hi, Sadie,” I say tonelessly.
“Oh, Ellery. I saw the news. I’m so, so sorry about your friend. And I saw—” She pauses, her voice wavering. “I saw your email. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until I zoomed in on the uniform and saw … his name.”
“Did you think it was Ezra at first? Because I sure did.” I’m surprised to find that beneath the heavy misery of Brooke’s death, I can still manage to spare an undercurrent of anger for my mother. “How could you not tell us? How could you let us live a lie for seventeen years and think our father was José the freaking stuntman?” I don’t bother keeping my voice down. It’s not like anyone in the room doesn’t know what’s going on.