Betrayal (11 page)

“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 Winnie, who somehow managed to eat the heads off two ghost cookies. “The biscuits are charming, Mrs. Kim. A traditional recipe, I imagine.”

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.”

Winnie patted her husband's slightly quivering knee to stop it from vibrating the deep red velvet camelback sofa. “Of course, Kim,” she said. “Sorry.”

The clock ticked some more.

“Edward used to have a TV show in the UK,” Winnie said. “You'd never know it right now, of course. He's let himself go, I'm afraid. And what's more, he's just so devastated by what's happened. I hope you will forgive him. He's normally not nearly this rude.”

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.

Winnie jangled the loose chain around her wrist and murmured a thank-you.

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 connect with them in the only way she thought she could. “It is beyond devastating. Years ago, I lost a daughter, too.”

Winnie looked up from her cup. “I'm very sorry to hear that,” she said. “At least you have another.”

Stunned into silence, Kim held her tongue. Without knowing exactly how much alike she and her daughter were at that very moment, she mentally picked up the teapot and dumped the hot liquid all over Winnie's matching travel outfit. Imagining her guest drenched and in pain, Kim churned an internal response:
Beth is not a spare for Christina!

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.

Beth returned the gaze of Edward Grant. “I packed all of Olivia's stuff for you. She might have some things at school,” Beth said. “I can check her locker tomorrow, if you like.”

Edward nodded. “That would be nice. Thank you, Beth.”

“Do you want to see where she was staying?” she asked.

“Please,” Winnie said.

They all got up and followed Beth down the hall to Christina's old bedroom—Olivia's during her stay. On the floor next to the crisply made, canopy bed—a sunny yellow and white affair that was too young for a teenager but certainly appropriate for a little girl—were Olivia's four Louis Vuitton suitcases. Stuck in the mirror frame above the dresser were magazine pictures of Hollywood stars, American singers, and a single photo of Olivia and Beth. It had been taken the day Olivia died, with Beth's Polaroid camera, her mom's latest garage-sale find. In the photo, the girls were smiling, carefree, and utterly unaware of what the next eight hours had in store.

At the time it was snapped, Beth and Olivia had just returned from costume shopping at Spookaporium, the former mega-bookstore turned Halloween superstore across the street from the decidedly unglamorous Kitsap Mall. Both had ruled out trampy and skimpy, including a naughty nurse and a slinky mermaid number with a clamshell bra and chiffon fins.

“How is one supposed to walk in that?” Olivia had asked, laughing at the ridiculous and impractical costume.

“I don't intend to walk. I'm going to just sit on the couch with a drink and flip my tail at cute boys,” Beth had joked back, feeling happy for the first time in a long, long time.

Olivia would never replace Christina, but living together, she provided Beth with a reminder of what it was like to have a sister.

In the end, Olivia had chosen a simple ghost costume, complete with cutout eye holes. Beth had just stuck a pair of chopsticks in her re-dyed black hair and snapped off an arm-length Polaroid of the two of them just as Drew arrived to whisk Olivia to the party early, ruining everything.

THE DOORBELL JANGLED BETH back to the present, and Kim Lee hurried off to answer it. A moment later, Hayley, Taylor, and Colton entered the now-exceedingly crowded bedroom. They introduced themselves, and Edward nodded. Winnie managed a smile as she studied the teens. Colton spoke up. “We're all really sorry for your loss.”

“I imagine you would be,” Olivia's father said. “I heard you were the one who took her to the party, didn't you?”

The tone was a tad more than accusatory. Indeed, right then it seemed Olivia's father had an interrogator's spotlight on Colton and he was doing his best to sweat out the truth.

Colton shook his head. “Actually, no,” he said. “She went to the party earlier with Drew, Brianna's boyfriend. Brianna asked her to come early to help set up. We got to the party later.”

“Oh, I see,” Edward said. “You were at the location of my daughter's murder later. All of you were there.”

Awkwardness permeated the sad little bedroom.

“Yes, Mr. Grant,” Hayley finally said.

Edward's face reddened and the veins in his neck thickened. “You were supposed to keep her safe. Treat her like she was part of the family. That's what the website promised, right, Winnie?”

Winnie didn't have a chance to respond.

“We really liked Olivia,” Taylor said, her face turning pink with anger. “We came over to tell you that what happened to Olivia was vile, worse than the worst thing that could happen, but if you think for one second that we are responsible in any way, then you are dead wrong.”

Bad choice of words
, Hayley thought, though she didn't say so. She liked it when Taylor was provoked into standing her ground. She needed to do more of that. Pushing the father of a dead girl into a corner probably wasn't the best practice of a needed skill, though.

Like a bantam hen, Kim Lee, the shortest person in the room, huddled the teens together. They were good kids and there was no way, even in the depths of their grief, that the Grants should be unkind to them. Not in her house, anyway.

“I don't know what more we can tell you,” Kim added. “I'm sure the police can tell you more.”

Winnie spoke up. “Our first stop was the constable's office in Port Orchard.”

“Anything encouraging in the investigation?” Kim asked.

“Nothing yet,” Winnie said, letting her words hang in the air. “Nothing we can really say. We don't want to impede their efforts by disclosing any details of the investigation.”

“Of course not,” Kim said.

Edward scooped up the two largest suitcases. “I'd like to meet Brianna.”

“I could take you to her,” Colton said.

“No need. We have a rental car with GPS,” Winnie said, picking up the rest of Olivia's luggage. “I'm sure we can manage. We managed the long drive from Seattle to this,” she paused, “—this charming outpost.” Her words, of course, didn't match her sentiments. Without saying so, it was clear that she'd thought very little of Port Gamble.

Taylor wondered what Olivia's mom would have really liked to have said just then.

“We found our way to your insufferable little hamlet in the middle of nowhere.”

Or, maybe:

“I would have rather had my daughter die in Seattle than here. In Seattle, at least, they have some decent hotels.”

“I think we'll be going,” Hayley said, looking at her sister and Colton.

“Thanks for coming,” Beth said.

Kim put her hand on her daughter's shoulder. “We've had a very long, sad day.”

“You haven't the slightest idea what long and sad is,” Edward replied, in his clipped British accent.

Kim did, of course. She let it slide, however. There was no point in arm wrestling to see whose loss was greater. Things like that could never really be measured. There's no getting over it. No setting it aside. She knew that Olivia's father's bitter affect was all about his deep, unabated grief.

As a final parting shot, Winnie turned to Kim and commented, “I told that girl to take a different set of luggage. But she didn't listen. She never did. I warned her that American people get killed every single day for wearing status shoes. I told her she'd be a target walking around the airport with her Louis Vuitton. I saw on the news that a couple from Germany was killed outside of Disneyland for the husband's Rolex. America is a very dangerous place.”

Kim wanted to defend her country and point out that no one killed Olivia for her designer luggage.

The truth was that no one, not Kim or the police, knew why Olivia had been savagely murdered Halloween night.

And only one person, maybe two, knew who the killer was.

BRANDY CONNORS BAKER FANNED OUT the bills that had piled up on the copper-topped dining table of her Seattle condominium. All around her, boxes of her belongings sat in three neat piles: Sell, give away, and keep. The Sell boxes had dwindled over the past few months. She'd put everything of true value up on Craigslist and watched as her assets dwindled. She had nothing left. No second husband. Though she hadn't told a soul—especially her daughter and ex-husband—Robby had left her months ago. No youthful face and not enough money for Botox.

In the place of what used to be her perfect life was a stack of bills and a kind of emptiness that she'd never imagined. Her emotions swung back to something more familiar: disappointment and unbridled anger.

How could things have turned out the way they had? It was so unfair.

She surveyed the mess all around her and then picked up her phone. Brianna had put her photo on the contact button, and Brandy pushed it with her glossy red fingernail.

There was no answer. The call went to voice mail.

“Hey! This is Bree. Leave a message. But make it short. I get bored easily. Bye!”

Brandy left a message. “I hope you are all right, Honey. . . . I love you so much.”

It was a brief message. But it was also as long as it needed to be.

Brandy got up and passed by the mirror as she went to the bedroom. She barely glanced at herself. Seeing her reflection in the afternoon light was so unforgiving, and it made her feel even more bitter.

The bedroom was in complete disarray. The bed was unmade; the nightstands were littered with the obvious remnants of a party for two. A pair of Diesel jeans, a black T-shirt, and Armani Exchange underwear were scattered by the door to the bathroom. Brandy wasn't alone, but it dawned on her that being with someone didn't mean an end to loneliness.

Chapter 12

DESPITE THE LATE AFTERNOON DOLDRUMS and a protein energy bar that was doing flip-flops in her knotted stomach—like the tasteless snacks always did—Annie Garnett offered a sincere smile when she looked up from her desk and saw Mindee Larsen shoehorned into dark-green razor-cut jeans and a black leather top with four buckles that was part motorcycle chick and part purse. Mindee, with her shock of too-too-blond hair and exaggerated slash of red lipsticked pouty-mouth, definitely knew how to dress for attention. No doubt about it. Mindee succeeded in being a halogen light among a world of incandescent bulbs. No one ever looked away from her without blinking.

Or gawking.

Annie believed in redemption and giving people second chances. She even continued to go to Mindee at the salon when many of the other women of Port Gamble dropped her for another stylist. Mindee never made Annie feel self-conscious about her size or her not-so-great hair. Annie was never sure if it was because Mindee embraced all people, or if it was that she was so completely self-absorbed she didn't care about anyone else's backstory.

Only her own.

“How's Teagan doing?” Annie asked, caring but really more interested in the murder case at hand than the accidental electrocution that had shocked everyone in Port Gamble. It was a death for which Mindee's son, Teagan, took responsibility.

“Fine,” Mindee said, applying lipstick and blotting with a tissue from the chief's desktop dispenser. “He's learning how to manage his disappointment and anger. Most of it, if not all, is caused by his absent father.”

Annie resisted saying something about the boy's mother and her role in the boy's situation.

“That's good,” Annie said. “I'm happy to hear that. Teagan will come out of this all right.”

“I know,” Mindee said, fishing a Tic Tac from the depths of her purse, a wet-look leather satchel that was so shiny, she occasionally used its glossy surface as mirror. “He and I are a lot alike. We're both deep. We care so much about everyone and everything.”