Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Darcie is broken, Lunes,” a hollow-eyed Kaea had said to me at the time. “She’ll regret her decision down the road, but right now, she’s not all there.”
I tried to remind myself of his empathic comment, tried to push away the surge of old resentment and gnawing questions. And failed. Beatrice had deserved a proper funeral, deserved to have a service where her friends told funny stories and reminisced about her love of pickles and peanut butter.
She’d deserved bunches of flowers and a montage of photographs on a big screen. She’d had so many friends, been in so many photographs. But when the time came to say goodbye to her, Darcie had done it all on her own. Leaving out even a bewildered and heartbroken Ash.
She’d told us nothing.
Not even the address of the cabin where Bea had died, so we could go and lay flowers in the bush around it.
I’d never understood who she’d wanted to punish with her actions: Bea for leaving, or us for not stopping her? That was one of the questions I’d intended to shout at her this week, one of the questions I now swallowed down past bile hot and sour.
Reminding myself that she was pregnant, vulnerable, I rose and tried to wrap my arms around her—but she shook me off with a jerking movement, stumbling backward toward the windows. “It had to be one of you.” Fat tears rolled down her face as she spoke. “It had to be. How else . . . ?”
“What’s going on?” Ash demanded, his question followed by the rumble of Kaea’s voice in the background.
Darcie threw herself against his chest.
Jaw tight, he looked over at me.
“Someone put Creepy Bea in your bed.” I pointed to the doll. “Darcie thinks it had to be one of us, but I don’t know how it could’ve been. That doll disappeared with Bea.” I knew because I’d looked.
Darcie had told us when the authorities finally returned Bea’s belongings three months later, said she couldn’t bear to look at any of it. Knowing what she’d done with Bea’s body, I hadn’t trusted her not to destroy the doll in a fit of rage.
So, one day, while she was hanging out in our flat with Ash and Aaron, I’d snuck into her house using the spare key Bea had given me for emergencies and I’d searched with a clinical attention to detail. I’d even unscrewed the cover off a heating vent to ensure Bea hadn’t stashed the doll in the wide tubing beyond.
I hadn’t found the doll.
But I had found something else.
9
Ilifted my hand to my chest, my finger touching the aquamarine pendant hidden below the fine gray wool of my sweater.
Bea’s birthstone.
And her first gift from Ash. She’d had a habit of taking it off when she showered, but otherwise, it was around her neck. It would’ve made sense if I’d found it in the bathroom—but I hadn’t. I’d located it in a lime-green handbag stuffed in the back of Darcie’s closet.
Only Bea could’ve pulled off a handbag of that shade—and she had.
Live a little, Nae-nae. I dare you to choose any color but black, brown, or gray.
She was the only one who’d ever called me Nae-nae, as I’d called her Bee-bee. Silly girlhood nicknames that we’d allowed only each other. Hugging the handbag close in that house empty of the person who’d filled it with life, I’d sobbed, knowing the bag for what it was: part of Bea’s property.
Returned to Darcie on Bea’s suicide.
It had still contained the faint smell of summer sunshine and peach blossoms. Bea’s signature scent. She’d happily worn inexpensive jewelry and carried fun but low-priced handbags, but she’d refused to wear any scent but the luxury one she’d first been given by her mother.
Later, after I’d recovered from my shock and the last lingering notes of her scent were only a memory, I’d searched inside and found her wallet—complete with her driver’s license, credit cards, all of it. Also in the handbag had been a crisp white envelope, within it this necklace as well as a couple of pretty dress rings.
I’d taken the necklace.
I’d planned to steal her phone and journal, too. So many hours I’d spent reading while she wrote in the journal beside me. I hadn’t wanted her secrets—I’d already known them. No, I’d wanted them out of Darcie’s hands.
But I’d never found either.
Perhaps she’d given away or destroyed those items in her suicidal state, but one thing I knew—the necklace should’ve never been in the handbag. Darcie should’ve at least given Bea that when she died, cremating her with this treasured token of Ash’s love.
I’d taken it without any sense of guilt.
I felt none to this day.
It gave me a feral pleasure that Darcie couldn’t steal this from Bea.
Ash’s eyes went to the bed, his skin paling and a tic in his jaw. “It’s a fucking awful joke. I don’t care which one of you the fuck did it. Just get rid of the thing.”