by Tracey Ward
“Jesus,” Makena mutters.
“In what world is Kyle sloppy?” I chuckle quietly, telling my heart to calm down as I stow my phone.
“I have no idea. I thought he looked great.”
“Me too.”
“We’re not experts, though.”
“We’re barely casual observers,” I mutter, checking the clock. We’ve only been here for twenty minutes. Tryouts last an hour. “Do we have to stay for the whole thing?”
“I don’t think we had to before, but we definitely do now.”
“Why?”
She nods surreptitiously in the direction of the door. “Because Marcy just showed up.”
Makena’s right. At the door, walking casually into the room like she’s surprised to have stumbled onto the tryouts, is Marcy in perfect form. Her hair is gorgeous and straight. Her makeup heavy but flawless. She’s wearing a Colts hoodie unzipped and open over a tight, blue tank top that hugs her every curve enticingly. Effortlessly perfect and runway ready, she slowly climbs the bleachers without a glance at the court.
“Crap,” I groan. “I guess he invited her too.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she just showed up.”
“Mrs. Rixton?” Marcy says sweetly behind us.
Kyle’s mom is slow to answer. “Yes?”
“Hi! I thought that must be you. Kyle’s number one fan, right?” Marcy laughs. I hear her sit down. It sounds like she’s parking herself right next to Mrs. Rixton. “I’m Marcy. I have a few classes with Kyle.”
“Nice to meet you, Marcy.”
“How’s he doing so far?”
“Good. Really well.” She clears her throat gently. “He’s lost a little focus, though.”
“I saw that. He’s distracted. That’s too bad.”
“It really is.”
“It’s not his fault,” Marcy commiserates quietly, but still just loud enough for me to hear. That’s not an accident. “Not everyone takes this as seriously as they should. They think it’s just a game.”
“It’s absolutely not.”
“I know. Definitely. It’s his future.”
“Exactly.” Kyle’s mom shifts. Papers flutter faintly. “Are you a big basketball fan, Marcy?”
“Die hard. But I like pretty much all sports. I play Varsity soccer.”
“Good for you.”
“Thanks. It’s good to be involved in team sports. It makes you driven. That’s what my mom says. She pushes me to be the best when I play. It’s rough but it’s good for me, you know?”
“I do,” she agrees emphatically.
“It’s hard to keep up on school work and practice and workouts, but you have to. You just cut out all the crap and make it work.”
“It’s the only way to succeed.”
Makena leans into me, whispering in my ear, “Are you hearing this?”
“Every word.”
“Marcy is Miss Focus. I did not know that about her.”
“I could have sworn that Miss Focus almost got an F in English last year and was threatened with being kicked off the team for it.”
“I thought she was almost kicked off the team for getting drunk at Colby’s birthday party and trying to shoplift a jerky stick at the Two4Two on Elm.”
“I think she did that too.”
“Focused, though. So focused.”
“Laser sharp. On jerky.”
Makena snickers quietly. I notice that the bleachers have gone quiet behind us. I worry about how loud we were. Did Marcy hear us? Did Mrs. Rixton?
Kyle steals the ball, breaking away to run down the court.
I jump up onto my feet with my hands cupped around my mouth. “Yeah, Kyle! Woo!”
He leaps with an elegance that should only be reserved for ballet dancers. It’s beautiful to watch how easily he lofts into the air to deftly roll the ball into the basket. It drops down inside, barely stirring the net.
“Yeah!”
Makena gets to her feet with me. “Go, Kyle!”
He smiles at us roguishly. He’s loving the attention. He drinks it up like a king on his throne. Quickly, he darts to our side of the court to slap a high five with both Makena and me.
When he’s gone, when we’re settling back into our seats, I hear Marcy mutter, “Seriously. So many distractions.”
Mrs. Rixton grunts in grim agreement.
chapter twenty-seven
Alter-Ego Ashley shakes her head in frustration. “That didn’t help. She never spoke to us that day. She glared at us for sure, but if everyone who glared at us was a murder suspect we’d need a lot more seven minutes to get through them all.”
“I know,” I admit unwillingly.
“It was a bust.”
“Not a total bust.”
She looks at me in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Seriously? The text message!”
“From Nate? What about it. It was weird. He’s always weird.”
“But sometimes he’s creepy weird, and those messages were definitely creepy. What collection is he talking about?”
“The collection of photos Mom sends him of Ashley and us every single year. He’s been Dad’s best friend since high school. He was there when we were born. We go skiing with him all the time. He has pictures of us. A lot of them.”
“Still, saying we’re beautiful like mom?” I remind her pointedly. “He has said stuff like that before, about us looking like Mom and how pretty we are. And what was the thing about we make him feel like a kid again? That’s not a normal thing to say to the seventeen-year-old daughter of your closest friend.”
She sighs, shaking her head. “He’s not a normal guy, but—”
“But what?” I demand. “He’s less likely to have killed us than Kyle? Are you kidding me?”
“He wasn’t there on the cliff. He couldn’t have known we would be there.”
“He could have followed us. He could have been hiding in the woods, watching. And if he’s got some weird crush on us, he’d freak out if he saw us getting engaged to Kyle.”
“Freaked out enough to kill us?” she challenges.
“You think Kyle snapped up there. You’re saying Nate couldn’t?”
She pauses, chewing on that slowly. “True.”
“He’s a suspect for sure,” I tell her firmly.
“Fine. Yes. He’s a suspect, but Kyle is still the prime one. He had motive and opportunity.”
“Opportunity, yes. Saying he had a motive is pretty weak.”
She twirls her finger through the air impatiently. “We can go around and around about this until our time runs out if you want to, but if you have any other memories you want to dive into, we should probably get to them. The clock is running out.”
“Those are big woods around that cabin, that’s all I’m saying. There could have been anyone out there with us. Just because we didn’t see them doesn’t mean they weren’t there. It might have been Nate, but I still think it was Mrs. Rixton.”
“Prove it. What’s next?”
“The first night we met Mrs. Rixton. That’s where we’ll find the smoking gun. I know it.”
chapter twenty-eight
Dinner is delicious but uncomfortable. Me, Kyle, and Mr. Rixton do most of the talking. Mrs. Rixton does a lot of scowling. She frowns at me over the pot roast like I disrespected her entire house just by being here. It’s fun. Soooo fun.
“How is school going, Grace?” Mr. Rixton asks politely.
“It’s good. I’m doing okay.”
“Are you taking any advanced classes?” Mrs. Rixton asks.
“Uh, no. I’m not.”
“You’re doing the minimum.”
I frown. “I guess so.”
“Mom,” Kyle mutters in warning.
She ignores him. “Are you doing any college prep work?”
“I took the PSATs last year.” I smile weakly at Mr. Rixton. “I did alright.”
“They’re not easy,” he says consolingly.
“They’re not meant to be,”
Mrs. Rixton counters sharply.
Kyle grins at me. “I haven’t taken them so you’re a step ahead of me.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I disagree gratefully.
“It is. I’m not taking them. I’ll take the SATs when I have to and that’s it.”
“It won’t matter for you,” Mrs. Rixton argues. “It will matter for Grace. She needs to be prepared. It takes a lot of studying. A lot of time. You both think you’re exempt because you’re only Juniors now but you’ll be Seniors sooner than you think. You’d be glad to find yourself prepared when that happens, and to be prepared, you need to commit yourselves to studying now.”
“That’s good advice, Mrs. Rixton,” I tell her quietly.
She looks at me for a long time before nodding. “Good. I’m glad you agree.”
“My mom does too. She’s very focused on my future.”
“Not like mine,” Kyle mutters.
Mrs. Rixton scowls at him silently.
I take a deep breath, smiling as big as I can. “This roast is delicious. Thank you for making it.”
She doesn’t respond. She only glares at Kyle before turning back to her own plate.
I look to Mr. Rixton helplessly. He casts me a small smile in apology.
Unfortunately, the dinner drags on for another half hour. By then, I’m about ready to break up with Kyle to get out of there. I like him, a lot, but holy crow is his mom a pill! She barely says three more words to me the rest of the dinner and all of them are curt.
“Can I help with the dishes?” I ask when it’s finally over.
She shakes her head. “No.”
Four words! I think triumphantly. What a night!
Kyle is fuming as he walks me to the door. Mr. Rixton has disappeared somewhere in the back of the house. He didn’t even say goodbye. That hurts more than his wife’s hostility toward me for some reason. Maybe because I actually thought he liked me a little.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle tells me once we’re outside. He doesn’t have a jacket on. He has to be freezing but he doesn’t show it. His body is rigid with anger, not cold. His hands are stuffed in his pockets as we walk across the street, his shoulders high around his neck. “I can’t believe she acted like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not. She was—” His lips pull together tightly like he’s keeping something ugly inside. “I can’t believe her,” he repeats roughly.
I don’t know what to say to make it better because I’m not the one who made it awful. I can’t solve someone else’s problem. Kyle and his mom will have it out after this. I can’t stop that. All I can do is not make the problem worse by talking ugly about her the way she will undoubtedly talk about me later tonight.
I put my hand on Kyle’s chest to stop him on the sidewalk just short of my house. “Go home,” I tell him gently. “It’s cold and you want to talk to her. Just . . . be patient. Okay? I don’t know why she hates me so much, but try to be the calm one if you can.”
He shakes his head in disgust. “I don’t know if I can. I’m pissed, Grace.”
“I know. Honestly, I am too.”
“You should be. She was so rude to you.”
“And she had her reasons. Find out what they are. And then try to explain it to me because I don’t get it. I’m awesome. There is nothing to hate here.”
He smiles, making me sigh with relief. “You’re damn right there’s not.”
I step up onto my toes to kiss him goodnight. It’s short but sweet. It leaves me glowing inside like a lantern in the dark. He tells me to have sweet dreams. He says he’ll see me in the morning.
I watch him walk away with a lighter step than he had before, but I feel bad for him just the same. His mom is no picnic. He’ll have to fight to be with me, and I hate that she’s doing that to him. It makes me worry that I’m doing it to him too. Should I bow out? Is his mom wrong about me or is it true?
Will I ruin Kyle Rixton?
chapter twenty-nine
I pace the living room floor, feeling frustrated. My Ashley/me sidekick watches like a hawk. “Well, that didn’t help.”
“We didn’t really talk to her,” Ashley points out.
“Because she never acknowledges us. I barely remember the rest of that dinner, but I know what we just saw was the bulk of what she said to us. And it was all rude.”
“You’re right. She was making a point by ignoring us.”
“So, that’s not the smoking gun I thought it was. Sorry.”
“No, but there’s something else that happened that night,” Ashley points out. “Someone else that we haven’t talked about yet.”
I pause to look down at her sitting on the edge of Dad’s chair. “Karina.”
“Exactly,” she replies heavily. “Earlier that night, Mrs. Rixton talked about the empty coffin they buried. That was the first time we heard about Karina going missing.”
“Kyle told us they thought she ran away.”
“Then why bury a casket?”
“I don’t know. Maybe her parents needed closure.”
“Or they suspected she was dead. Maybe they thought Kyle killed her.”
I glower at her, feeling my temper flare. “You’re reaching.”
“Am I? We’ve only heard Kyle’s side of that story and there’s no way he would tell us if people thought he killed someone. Who’s to say he told us the whole truth?”
“Me. Because I trust him. He wouldn’t lie to us about that.”
“You don’t think he’d kill us either, but . . . “
“Stop,” I warn her.
“Look at the facts. He had a girlfriend he was really intense with, same way he’s been intense with us. Then suddenly she disappears. Her family is so distraught and so sure she’s dead, they go to the effort of purchasing and burying a coffin. Now Kyle’s new girlfriend has disappeared too. Right into the bottom of the lake.”
“Stop persecuting him. He didn’t do this.”
“He didn’t tell us everything and you know it. We have always thought there was more to that story than he let on. We had a blind spot to him then and you’ve still got one to him now. You’re ignoring pretty damning evidence against him just because you love him.”
“And because he loves me. If there was a mountain of evidence saying that Dad killed us, would you believe it?”
“No,” she admits quietly. “Not a chance.”
“That’s where I’m at with this. There’s no way he did it. So let’s put the Karina thing aside because we don’t know exactly what happened there. It’s circumstantial evidence and it’s only going to confuse things. But we should ask Kyle about it when we see him.”
“Grace,” she moans, fed up.
I refuse to fold. “We’re dead, I know. I’ve heard you.”
“You obviously haven’t.”
“And you’re obviously not remembering Kyle the way I do or you wouldn’t be so worried about being dead.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“Easy with the blowtorch, sis,” I warn her. “You’re burning us both with it, remember?”
She ignores me, rising to her feet to offer me her hands. “I know where we’re going next.”
“Where?”
“To the last day of summer. The night we picked up the pizza.”
My eyes go wide as I remember. “Oh my God, how did I forget about that?”
“I don’t know, but that was rough. If Mrs. Rixton ever threatened us, she did it that night.”
chapter thirty
Summer is ending tomorrow. Kyle just got back this morning. I haven’t seen him yet but he called. He said he’ll come over tonight for dessert just as soon as he can ditch his mom and dad. I’m dying to see him. It’s been torture with him gone. It gave me a taste of what it will be like when he’s gone for good. I don’t like it.
“What about this one?” I ask Ashley.
I’m holding up a lavender shirt with the words Fakin’ It ‘ti
ll I Make It! across the chest.
She glances at it briefly. “I don’t get it.”
I read it again, scowling deeply. “Yeah, me either.”
“What would I fake?”
“A British accent?” I suggest, returning the shirt to the rack.
“I don’t know how.”
“Good. You shouldn’t do it. I was joking.”
“Okay.”
Ashley looks at the shelves and racks of shirts without touching them. She rarely does. If something doesn’t grab her right away, it never will. First impressions are everything with her. It’s why I’m shopping for new clothes with her the night before school starts and Mom is home having a big glass of wine. She tried taking Ashley shopping four times this month, but they always came home empty handed. She couldn’t take it again. She slipped me a twenty for myself and her credit card for the clothes, and sent us out into the wild to fend for ourselves. I’m supposed to bring home dinner too because she just can’t even tonight.
“Do you want to try a different store?” I ask Ashley.
“No.”
“Are you going to pick anything here?”
“I don’t know.”
“When will you know?”
“Are you setting a timer?”
“Not unless you want me to. Would that help?”
“Maybe.”
“Let’s try it.” I pull out my phone to set a timer for ten minutes. I show it to Ashley. “This is your countdown. You have ten minutes to pick five shirts and two pairs of jeans. Go!”
She smiles faintly, her eyes darting around the store. The situation has changed. We just went from clothes shopping (something she hates) to playing a game (something she loves). She darts past me to look at a fresh table of t-shirts.
I go to the front corner where I’m out of her way and I can watch people passing by the windows. I see a lot of people from school. Everyone is out enjoying their last night of summer.
“What colors do I have to get?” Ashley asks, her voice becoming unusually animated. She sounds excited.
“Purple, white, blue, yellow, and . . . pink.”
“No pink!”