The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Most of the journalists I met were pretty cool,” she answered guardedly. “I like talking to people and finding out about them, hearing their stories. I also like cutting through the bullshit and getting to the truth. Plus I enjoy writing. I keep a journal. So, what the hell? I thought I’d take a journalism class.”

  Roseann arrived with his Coke and his breakfast-for-dinner. She set the plate and the tumbler full of soda in front of him. Then she gave him a straw, a bottle of ketchup, and a bowl filled with packets of various jams.

  Nick smiled and thanked her.

  Eden kept studying him. He seemed to know he was good-looking. And he seemed to know how to pour on the charm, too. His sleeves were rolled up, and she noticed the scars on his arm. “So, what happened there?” she asked.

  He let out a surprised little laugh as he spread jam on his toast. “Most people stare, but they’re afraid to ask. Back when I was a teenager, I banged myself up in a motorcycle accident.”

  Eden narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what really happened? I get this vibe that you’re lying to me. If it’s none of my business, just tell me and we can drop it.”

  He laughed again and squirmed a bit on the barstool. “You really do cut through the bullshit, don’t you? Actually, the painful truth is, a few years back, I put too much charcoal starter in a hibachi while barbecuing some burgers, and the thing barbecued me instead.” He took a bite of his toast. “Pretty stupid of me. So I say I was in a motorcycle accident. It sounds so much cooler.”

  Eden just nodded. She still didn’t completely believe him. She’d only eaten half her stack of pancakes, but she crumpled up her napkin and tossed it on her plate.

  “You know, when I read about you,” he said, “I could really relate. I understood what it must have been like for you growing up. I was an only child, too—and adopted. I never knew who my real father was.”

  “I always knew who my father was,” Eden corrected him. “And it turned out I wasn’t an only child.”

  “Yeah, but you were raised like an only child,” he said, nibbling on a piece of bacon. “And—well, this afternoon, while I was swimming laps at the pool, I overheard your sister talking to Ellie Goodwin. Your sister said something about the woman who raised you hiring a private detective to find out more about your biological father.”

  Silent, Eden stared at him again. Yes, this guy was definitely working an angle. She drummed her fingers on the countertop. She’d just told Hannah on Wednesday night about the private investigator. She couldn’t imagine Hannah blabbing to Ellie Goodwin about it already—and so loudly that other people could hear. “Too bad for them you’re not one of those people who wear earplugs when they’re swimming,” she said finally.

  He sipped his Coke and shrugged. “I just happened to hear them talking, that’s all. It got me thinking about my father and how I never really knew him. Maybe I should hire a private detective, too. Did this detective come up with any useful information?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” Eden lied. She wasn’t going to tell this stranger her family secrets. “You’d have to ask the woman who raised me, and she’s dead. And if you want me to recommend the guy, I can’t, because I don’t know his name. Besides, I’m pretty sure he was in Portland, and that was years ago. What else did you happen to hear while you were swimming your laps?”

  Heaving a sigh, he set his fork down. It clanked against his plate. “God, now you’re making me feel like a jerk—like I’m this major snoop or something. I was just taking a break in the shallow end, and I heard them talking. There’s an echo in the pool area . . .”

  Eden tried not to frown at him. She wondered if, during this poolside chat, Hannah had told Ellie Goodwin about Rachel being their half-sister.

  “I’m curious about what else you overheard,” she said coolly.

  “Well, it sounds like Rachel Bonner is your roommate,” he said.

  Eden nodded. “That’s right.”

  “She gets written up in the papers a lot—and online.” He picked up his fork again. “Had you heard of her before you came here?”

  “I’d never heard of her—not until I found out she was going to be my roommate, and that was about a month ago. What else did you hear in the shallow end of that pool?”

  “That’s it, nothing else. And I swear I wasn’t eavesdropping.”

  Picking up her check, Eden looked at it. Then she put it down and reached for her purse. She gave him a wary smile. “Well, if you’re done with all your questions, the witness would like to be excused.”

  He laughed defensively. “Hey, I’m really sorry.” He swiped her check off the counter. “Listen, let me pay for your dinner. You’re right. Sometimes, I ask too many questions. It’s just that I read about you, and like I say, I kind of related to you. Can’t you stick around and talk some more? I swear I won’t pry. I think we started off on the wrong foot.”

  Eden stood up. “No, that’s how we’ve finished.” She grabbed her zip-up sweatshirt. “It was interesting talking to you. See you in class. Thanks for dinner.”

  She turned toward the waitress, and with her thumb, Eden pointed to Nick. “He’s buying my dinner. Thanks a lot, Rosie!” Then she headed toward the door.

  Stepping outside, Eden felt a chill. She put on the sweatshirt. As she passed by the restaurant, she stole a glance inside at her dinner companion.

  Frowning, he stared back at her.

  Eden kept walking. She decided not to take the shortcut back to St. Agnes Village, not just yet.

  She would hang out around town for a while—just to make sure Nick, the mystery man, didn’t follow her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Friday, 9:20 P.M.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Rachel wailed.

  She sat up on the living room sofa, almost knocking over the bowl of microwaved popcorn at her side. She wore a T-shirt and sweatpants, and still held the remote control in her hand. On TV, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint were frozen in the middle of a lip-lock while the pause symbol flashed in the upper corner of the big screen.

  Perched on the edge of the easy chair, Hannah still had on the cute skirt and blouse combo she’d worn to the boring sorority dinner. It had been build-your-own-tacos, followed by a bunch of awful recruitment speeches. All evening long, she’d felt a bit guilty for sharing their big family secret with Ellie Goodwin earlier at the pool. She’d returned home about ten minutes ago to find Rachel back early from her night out with Alden. Hannah had decided to tell her about the poolside chat with Ellie. She hadn’t even kicked off her shoes yet.

  “Seriously, are you crazy?” Rachel asked. “No one was supposed to know about this! And of all the people you could confide in, you picked that blabbermouth reporter? She’s the reason I had to tell you about us before I was ready. God, what in the world were you thinking?”

  Hannah shifted around on the chair. “I’m sorry. I just needed to tell somebody. And she’s the only person here I feel close to—besides you. She promised she wouldn’t tell anyone else—”

  “Oh, she promised? Did she pinky-swear? Because if that’s the case, I’ll feel a lot better.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “Christ, Hannah, at the risk of repeating myself, she’s a fucking reporter! How could you be so stupid—and reckless?”

  “Ellie told me she wouldn’t breathe a word about it to anyone,” Hannah said, suddenly feeling horrible. “I’m certain she won’t say anything.”

  “Shit,” Rachel muttered, plopping against the back of the couch. Some of the popcorn spilled out of the bowl. She started picking up the pieces and eating them. “Listen, I’m sorry. I know you like Ellie Goodwin. But this afternoon, you told a reporter a major news story. Dylan O’Rourke has another bastard child, and it’s the heiress to the Bonner fortune! Do you really expect your friend, Ellie, to keep that to herself?”

  Hannah hesitated before she nodded. “I—I trust her,” she said, now trying to convince herself as well as Rachel. “I really think it’
s going to be okay.”

  “I don’t mean to jump on your case, Hannah. It’s just that I’m not ready for the whole world to find out about this. I let my parents know that I’d told you and Eden about us being sisters, and they were pretty upset. I mean, they’ll live. But they don’t want it getting out. They’re in the news all the time, but they control everything. They have a whole public relations team handling stuff like that. They’re extremely guarded about their privacy. If they knew a reporter found out about this thing, they’d absolutely shit.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah murmured, getting to her feet. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I have Ellie’s email address. I’ll write and tell her again that our whole conversation at the pool today is off the record.”

  “I’m not sure how much good that’ll do.” Rubbing her forehead, Rachel sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry, too. I was already in sort of a crappy mood tonight. Alden and I planned on a movie after dinner. But when we came out of Bellini’s, we ran into his roommate and a bunch of his stupid friends. They were all driving to Kenosha to get drunk, and I could tell that Alden really wanted to hang with them. I said it was okay. So off he went for his boys’ night out.”

  “That sucks” was all Hannah could think of to say. She was reminded once again of Riley. She’d hoped against hope that he’d call sometime tonight about their “date” tomorrow. Now, she knew it was never going to happen.

  “Anyway, it didn’t help my mood any to hear about your talk with Ellie,” Rachel muttered. She picked up the remote and switched channels. A wave of canned laughter from some sitcom came over the TV’s speakers.

  “Aren’t you going to watch your movie?” Hannah asked. “I could watch it with you. It’s one of my favorites.”

  “No, it’s spoiled now,” Rachel answered, staring at the screen.

  Hannah said nothing.

  She just nodded and retreated to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Friday, 9:44 P.M.

  Eden couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

  After leaving the Sunnyside Up Café, she hadn’t been in any hurry to get back to the bungalow—and loathed the notion that Nick What’s-His-Name might follow her through the woods on her shortcut home. So she’d killed time window-shopping around downtown Delmar, which had taken all of fifteen minutes. But it had been an uneventful, stress-free fifteen minutes.

  Then, wandering into the Jewel-Osco, Eden had glimpsed someone out of the corner of her eye: a tall man in a pale blue Oxford shirt—like the one Nick, the mystery man, had been wearing. She had no desire to talk with the guy again, so she just kept moving and tried to avoid making eye-contact with him.

  Eden picked up a spiral notebook, a granola bar, potato chips, and a liter of Diet Coke. At the end of each aisle, she checked the round security mirrors strategically located around the supermarket. In the mirrors’ slightly distorted reflection, she kept spotting the blue Oxford shirt guy—no shopping cart, no basket—at the end of the aisle.

  Now, at the U-scan checkout, she glanced around for him. But Eden didn’t see Nick anywhere. Nor did she see a man in a pale blue Oxford shirt. It was as if the blue-shirt man had been a phantom that existed only in the warped reflection of the security mirrors.

  She hurried outside with her grocery bag. As she backtracked toward the café, Eden realized a beat-up, white minivan was cruising down the street behind her. It was hard to miss. The street was practically deserted—except for some people coming out of Bellini’s, across the street. Laughing, they headed off in the opposite direction. Eden kept moving along the sidewalk, and she heard their laughter fade in the distance. She glanced over her shoulder.

  The minivan still hovered behind her.

  Eden picked up her pace a bit.

  The blare of a car horn made her stop in her tracks. She turned around in time to see a Volvo pass the minivan and continue up Delmar’s main drag.

  “Screw this,” she muttered, not moving. She defiantly stared at the minivan, which had stopped, too. She couldn’t see who was at the wheel. A streetlight reflected on the windshield.

  The minivan was still stationary. To Eden, it seemed like a standoff. Was the driver staring back at her? She was tempted to flip the person the bird.

  Then, with a screech of its tires, the vehicle peeled away and sped past her, up the street. Within moments, the minivan’s taillights and the sound of its revved motor disappeared in the night.

  “What the hell was that about?” Eden said under her breath.

  A bit shaky, she crossed the street. Passing the Sunnyside Up Café, she glanced in the window. The place had filled up with more customers. But Nick What’s-His-Name wasn’t in there—at least, she didn’t see him at the counter.

  Heading around the corner, Eden wondered what he was after. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that he just happened to be at the diner the same time that she was—after just happening to be at the swimming pool the same time as her sister. He had to be following one—or both—of them. She was pretty sure he’d lied to her about practically everything he’d said—from how he got the scars on his arm to where he was from. Eden had been here at Our Lady of the Cove for only eight days, but already she could pick out the native Chicagoans from the twang in their speech. He didn’t have one. She’d read that people in the Pacific North-west had no discernible accent. From the way he spoke, he fit into that category.

  At the dry cleaners on the corner, Eden turned right and paused for a moment to stare at the dark woods across the street. She could see the start of the shortcut trail. She’d be home in five to ten minutes—instead of at least twenty minutes the long way. This way was creepier and muddier—and yes, maybe it felt like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales or The Blair Witch Project. But the trail was quite well traveled. The other afternoon, she’d passed three different people taking the shortcut, and one of them was a priest. Eden told herself that she’d be fine.

  Crossing the street, she didn’t see the minivan in either direction. At the mouth of the trail, she could smell the dead leaves and wet earth. She headed down the crude, winding pathway and the darkness of the woods gradually swallowed her up. It got harder and harder for her to distinguish the path. Slowing down, Eden took her grocery bag in her left hand and then searched through her purse for her phone. All around her, she could hear leaves rustling. With each step, the ground beneath her feet became more slick and muddy.

  Eden thought about turning back. But then she glanced over her shoulder and couldn’t see the lights from town anymore. All she saw were trees, their branches swaying slightly in the wind.

  She finally found her phone and switched on the flashlight. She aimed it at the pathway in front of her. A man’s shoe prints were in the mud headed in the same direction as she was. They looked fresh.

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  She told herself to calm down. After all, wasn’t she just thinking about how a lot of people used this trail? Just because some man had recently taken this route, it didn’t mean the footprints belonged to that Nick guy or some psycho-killer.

  Eden kept walking. The temperature seemed to drop, and she figured she’d reached the middle of the woods—the cold heart center. She hoisted up the grocery bag so she was hugging it to her chest. Her bulky purse dangled from the strap around her arm. It bounced against her thigh as she walked. She heard her keys jangling in the bag.

  She heard twigs snapping behind her, too.

  God, please let it be another student, she thought. Maybe it was one of the girls from St. Agnes Village. Then they could walk together.

  Eden turned around and directed the flashlight’s beam on the snaky pathway behind her. She imagined a big, lumbering man with a stocking mask over his face coming at her. But there was no one. There wasn’t a sound either. Had he stopped moving when she’d stopped?

  “Fucking stop it,” she said aloud.

  Why was she doing this to herself? This wasn’
t like her at all. She didn’t scare easily. She enjoyed adventures—and pushing the envelope. Getting an adrenaline rush was usually fun for her.

  But talking to Nick What’s-His-Name had unnerved her. And now she was a hostage to these dark, sinister woods. She felt like a frightened little girl.

  Breathless, she pressed on. In her shaky hand, the phone light’s beam wavered on the trail ahead. Eden zigzagged around tree roots and divots along the way. She stumbled a few times, but she didn’t slow down. Brushing against a low tree branch, she scratched her neck. Still, she kept moving. She didn’t even check to see if she was bleeding. She heard the keys rattling, twigs snapping, and her own hard breathing. The grocery bag felt so heavy and cumbersome. She was tempted to just dump it.

  Then she saw something ahead that made her slow down.

  Over the treetops, Eden noticed the lights from the campus. The pathway in front of her widened. It looked like a straight shot to the road behind St. Agnes Village. She would be there in only a minute or two.

  Eden caught her breath and pushed forward. Clammy and sweaty, she thought about taking a long, hot shower when she reached the bungalow.

  She could see the end of the trail up ahead—and even some of the road. She also noticed a vehicle parked on the other side of the street, close to the fence that ran along the back of the bungalows. For a few awful seconds, Eden thought it was the white minivan again.

  But it was a gray SUV.

  Eden pressed on—until she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. It came from around the bushes and blocked out the light at the end of the trail.

  Eden gasped and stopped in her tracks. Then she noticed the nun’s habit—the tunic and veil. The nun’s face was in the shadows. For a moment, it seemed absurd to see a nun in these woods. But Eden had seen them in their old-fashioned garb around the campus. And earlier in the week, she’d noticed a priest using this trail.

  She let out a tiny laugh. “My God, Sister, you scared me...”