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Kim shook her head. “Something else I didn’t know about, Beth. You should have asked.”
“You would have said no,” Beth said.
Kim didn’t answer. Her daughter was right.
“Pretty,” A
“It was a gift from my father when he went to Japan,” Kim said.
A
Beth glanced at her mother, and then turned to face A
“You what?” Kim asked, trying to keep her cool. While Beth’s mom could conjure a poker face when needed, this was not one of those times. She was mad.
Beth knew what was coming, but she didn’t feel like backing down. Her mom treated the remnants of her sister’s and father’s lives like they were precious artifacts. She didn’t see it that way. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t use Christina’s Holiday Barbie for an art project or why her mother hung onto her dad’s clothes as if he were going to come back one day and wear them.
“It isn’t like Dad needs them,” she said. “They were ski
“Can you get those for me, too?” A
Beth left the living room and returned with two silk ties. Her eyes were downcast, and her hands were shaking a little. She stood there, not saying anything.
“What is it? What happened?” Kim asked, rejecting the urge to add “now” to punctuate the litany of disappointments hurled at her daughter since A
“I can’t find the third one,” Beth admitted. “I used three.”
“What color was the third one?” A
“Pomegranate,” Beth said.
A
“Deep red.” Beth reached over and pressed a fingertip to a frilly chrysanthemum painted on the bottom of the right sleeve. “This color right here.”
A
Oh no, Beth, not you.
Trying to maintain her composure, A
Kim Lee’s anger dissipated. Something bigger was afoot, and she knew it. “Why do you want them?” she asked.
“We need to examine all the evidence,” A
“What kind of evidence?” Kim stopped and waited, but A
A
“I can’t really say,” she said.
Beth wondered if she was in trouble. If so, it had to be big trouble. The police chief didn’t come around collecting evidence because she had nothing better to do.
Beth stood up. “You didn’t answer my mother. Am I a suspect here or something?” she asked with both force and fear in her voice. “I admit that I drank. I admit that I had a fight. But that’s it.”
Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, A
“I wasn’t even there when Olivia died,” Beth said. “I got sick, and we left the party early. Hayley, Taylor, Colton, and me. She was alive when we left. She was having a blowout with Bree.”
“Just procedure,” A
A
“I hope you’re not one of the layoffs I heard about,” she said.
Kim, her worried expression undiminished by the casual tone of the conversation, stood and strode decisively toward the door. Turning her hand on the knob, she said, “No. Not me. At least, not yet. But housing starts are down, and if things don’t get better, they won’t need an accountant.”
A
Three rooms away, two worried twins waited for their friend. The walls were thin in Port Gamble’s historic homes. As a breeze blew the Doritos bag into the neighboring yard and darkness shuttered the sky over the bay, Hayley and Taylor heard every word.
What had Beth Lee done?
Chapter 8
LIKE ALL VICTORIA’S SECRET STORES in the world, the one at the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale, a few miles south of Port Gamble, was an eruption of pink, a tidal wave of lace, and a ginormous Slip ‘N Slide of satin. Amid the thongs, French-cut panties, lacey bras, and whatever else a girl thinks she needs or a boy hopes she wears, Drew escorted Bria
“You’d look so hot in that,” he said, indicating the microscopic panties and sheer bra.
“I look hot in whatever I wear—or don’t wear, for that matter,” Bria
“I had a slingshot like that once,” he said.
“If you did, then you’re a total dork,” Bria
“Do you like carnation or rose?” she asked.
Drew raised his brow. “They look the same to me,” he said.
“Don’t be dumb,” Bria
“I guess so,” he said, checking her attitude. “Whatever you say, Bree.”
Bria
Watching the young couple from across the store was classmate Starla Larsen’s mom, Mindee. Like everyone, she’d heard what had happened at the Co
A bad decision just like those thongs Bria
Bria
Bria