Betrayal

A

One thing A

And she had had no chance.

BRIAN AND SHELLEY CONNORS LOOKED WORSE for the wear, despite the golden tans they’d acquired while sipping rum drinks from coconut shells in Acapulco. Brian, in his late fifties, had a deeply etched face and alert blue eyes. Shelley, his second wife, was a good ten years younger, a brunette with a short, sassy bob that made her look even more youthful than her years. They met A

It was easy to see where they were headed.

“I’m sure you must be exhausted,” A

She pointed to a pair of chairs, but neither took her up on the offer to sit.

Brian folded his arms across his barrel chest. “Here’s the deal. We’re here to tell you that we understand the dire circumstances of Sunday night’s tragedy and the importance of interviewing Bria

“I appreciate that,” A

“And we are not going to make any complaints about the county’s handling of the matter, nor your role in it.”

Shelley looked down at the floor and said nothing.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” A

“I’ll get to the point. No more interviews with our daughter. She’s done.”

A

“I seriously doubt that, Chief Garnett,” Brian Co

Outside in the 7 series BMW that was Brian Co

DAD AND DUMB-DUMB ARE TELLING THE GIGANTOR COP TO TAKE A HIKE. THEY ARE SO LAME. GLAD I RUINED THEIR VACAY.

Chapter 11

OLIVIA GRANT’S PARENTS HAD TRAVELED ALL night and yet the dark circles under their bloodshot eyes owed more to too many Bloody Marys on the flight from London to Seattle than to actual jetlag. Edward Grant, normally an effusive man in his fifties with a suspiciously perfect head of sandy hair and blindingly white teeth—a kind of perfection that suggested veneers—crumpled in the sofa in the Lee’s living room. The fireplace crackled, and Kim Lee had set out tea, milk, sugar, and some cookies, but everything went untouched. Edward Grant could barely get a word out.

Winifred Grant looked a good twenty years younger than her husband. While she had a lovely figure, her face, Beth thought, was indeed as Olivia had once described her mother—a little horsey. Her hair was thick and black and could only be termed by any reasonable person as a mane. Her teeth, also impossibly white, looked a bit large for her mouth, like a row of old-school refrigerators in the Bremerton appliance dealership that Beth and her mom shopped at when their dryer’s element had burned out in July.

Olivia had called her mother Wi

“My husband adored our daughter,” Wi

Beth highly doubted that. Olivia hadn’t exactly been a fountain of information about her family life, but she’d never indicated a deep devotion to her mother. Nor did she mention her with even the slightest trace of affection. The way Olivia saw it, everything Winifred Grant did was for herself and the advancement of whatever her agenda was at the moment. She’d been nurturing to Olivia when she was a toddler, but after a time it appeared that Wi

“We are so sorry for what happened,” Kim said, holding up a plate of orange jack-o’-lantern and white ghost-shaped cookies that had been left over from the mill office’s Halloween potluck.

As the four of them sat in the living room, the Lees on one side, the Grants on the other, the mantel clock over the fireplace ticked like a bomb. The air could not have been any heavier. Heartbreak and grief had returned to house number 25. Indeed, it had returned with a vengeance.

“Liv was everything to me,” Edward finally said. “I didn’t want her to come here. America is dangerous. There are shootings and sex scandals all the time. This was no place for our daughter. Perugia would have been so much safer.”

“She wanted to go, darling,” said Wi

Kim nodded, but didn’t say that the cookies were traditional only if one shopped at Safeway’s bakery department. “Thank you. Lee is my last name. Kim is my first name. Please call me Kim.”

Wi

The clock ticked some more.

“Edward used to have a TV show in the UK,” Wi

Beth, who had remained mostly silent while the adults struggled to make polite conversation, didn’t know what to say. But in her mind, she hurled insult after insult at the stuck-up woman.

YOU are the one who’s rude, Mrs. Grant. Your daughter has been brutally murdered. You expect him to be a charmer right now? I can see why Olivia never said a freaking nice word about you, she thought.

“I love your bracelet,” Beth said, just to fill the gap in the conversation. She thought it was hideous.

Wi

Kim pointed to the teapot, but there were no takers for a refill. She tried to give her guests the benefit of the doubt and co

Wi

Stu

Beth watched her mother for a reaction but saw none and chalked another notch on her belt of disappointment. The sixteen-year-old was certain that Christina had been her mother’s favorite daughter. It wasn’t that Beth didn’t think her mother loved her. She knew she did. Her mom showed her love every single minute of the day. Deep down, however, Beth was sure that if given the choice and the biggest do-over in the history of the world, her mom would have put her, not Christina, on that bus for the Girl Scout Daisies picnic that ill-fated day.