Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 119876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
By the end of the journey, I couldn’t help but smirk to myself. Edgar Astalis had put his girls in a castle by the ocean, with high, white-picket fences and drapes firmly shut.
Nice. Predictable. Safe.
Just like his useless little daughters.
I made a U-turn and drove back to school, where I found Poppy at a marching band rehearsal with her lame-ass accordion, her Prada bag hanging lazily on the back of her chair while her back was to me. I fished out her house key, went downtown, made a copy, and returned just in time to slip it back in before she scooped up her bag and went for milkshakes with the band.
The following day I shadowed Lenora, making a note to see if anyone else was there. Poppy took every extracurricular activity available, including band, peer tutoring, English club, and hiking. (She was exactly the kind of teenybopper to make a big fucking deal out of everything she did, including walking.) Edgar Astalis was busting his ass at that art institution he’d co-founded, sunrise till sundown, and was nowhere in sight.
The black sheep, the sweet lamb, was all alone in the afternoons, waiting to be eaten by the wolf.
On the third day—today—I went for the kill. I knew Lenora’s routine by now, and I allowed her forty minutes of basking in her own ignorance while I sat in my banged-up truck, my army boots crossed at the ankles on the dashboard, as she went about her afternoon. I sketched a sculpture on my sketchpad in long, round strokes, a half-smoked joint hanging from the side of my mouth.
When the clock hit four and my alarm buzzed, I got out of the truck and made my way onto the Astalis property, unlocking the door and waltzing in like I owned the place. I strolled through the entrance, past the living room with the marble-on-crème accents and antique furniture, and toward the double glass doors. Sliding them open, I glanced down at the kidney-shaped pool, spotting Good Girl.
She was doing laps underwater, moving in small, graceful strokes. I moved to the edge of the pool, lighting up the rest of my half-joint and squatting down in my torn, black skinny jeans and frayed, black-turned-gray shirt my mother hated so much. I loathed being rich by proxy, but that was another story Lenora was never going to hear, because today was where our communication would end.
Next time I had to make a point, it would be with actions, not words.
Sending a cloud of smoke upward, I watched as Lenora’s head popped out of the water, appearing in front of me for the first time since I walked in.
She hadn’t taken a breath the entire time, I realized.
She was no longer that kid in the South of France who didn’t know how to swim. She’d learned.
And she was completely naked.
Her lashes were curtained with fat water drops that cascaded down her cheeks. She parked her elbows on the edge of the pool, checking the time on her Polar watch. That’s when she noticed in her periphery that something—someone—was blocking the sun. She squinted up, using one hand as a visor.
“What in the bloody hell are you doing here, Spencer?” She pulled backward from the impact, like my existence had exploded in her face.
“I’ve been asking myself the very same question, Astalis, since I saw your Good Gone Bland ass in my domain and figured you lost your way to the nearest faerie world you’re engrossed with.”
It was peculiar how, although we hadn’t officially been reintroduced since she came here, we still remembered each other in all the ways that mattered. I knew she read fantasy books and listened to The Smiths and The Cure and thought Simon Pegg was a comic genius. She knew I was the type of asshole to break into her house and demand shit, and that I’d been watching her.
This confirmed my initial suspicion. She had noticed me at school, just as I’d noticed her. Neither of us found it wise to acknowledge the other. Not in public.
I puffed on my joint, taking a seat on the diving board and slowly lifting her towel robe with the tip of my finger, like it disgusted me.
“Tsk-tsk.” I shook my head, watching the reflection of my evil smirk through her shiny, blue-green-gold-whatever-the-fuck-they-were, hypnotizing, Drusilla eyes. “Swimming naked? Good girls don’t give a shit about tan lines. It’s not like you’re going to get dicked in this school. That’s something I’m afraid I won’t permit.”
“That’s something I won’t be asking your permission for,” she deadpanned, pretending to yawn.
“Doesn’t work that way, Good Girl. When I say jump, they ask how high. And come tomorrow, everybody’s gonna know you’re damaged goods, so stock up on those batteries, because real dick is not in the cards for you.”