Second Nature

Crimson Cove Mysteries

Book Two

A Novel by AE Watson

The YA Side of Tara Brown

Copyright 2015 Tara Brown

http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com

Amazon Edition

This ebook is a work of fiction and is licensed for your
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purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
No alteration or copying of content is permitted. This book is a work of the
author’s crazy mind—any similarities are coincidental. Any similarities
are by chance and not intentional.

Cover Art by Lori Follet at Wicked Book Covers

Edited by Andrea Burns

Other Books by Tara Brown Writing as AE Watson

The Born Trilogy

Born

Born to Fight

Reborn

Crimson Cove Mysteries

If At First

Second Nature

The Light Series

The Light of the World

The Four Horsemen

Imaginations

Imaginations

Duplicities

The Blood Trail Chronicles

Vengeance

Vanquished

First Kiss

Sunder

White Girl Problems

The Seventh Day

Long, long ago in a seaside hamlet overrun with fake smiles
and empty heads, there were five girls—five wickedly spoiled princesses.
Each one was more petulant and snobby than the next.

Thus far, they had spent their lives in charge, dominating
the world around them, and never thinking of others.

But as summer passed and one of the princesses fell, the
others started to see that a new era had come.

Gone
was
their comfort and their
ease.

It was time for a new leader, a new queen bee.

Anonymous

Halloween Scream

October 31, 2015

Sierra

The noise of the creaking
stairs, the ones I had just crept up, sounded like it echoed in my ears. Had
someone followed us there or was Jenson back with the champagne?

I almost laughed at
myself for being silly, but the past couple of months had been horrible and
laughing at noises in the dark was a foolish mistake I no longer made.

“Jenson,” I whispered,
hoping he was messing around. If he was, I would be angry. Taking a step I
cringed at the sound of my heel clicking on the floor.

I lifted one leg after
the other and slipped my high heels off, holding them both so I could tiptoe
through the half-constructed mansion without making noise.

Jenson didn't answer, but
the footsteps had stopped from the moment I whispered.

The scary movie marathon
we’d had before Rachel died flashed through my head, bringing ideas and
memories with it. I tiptoed around the corner, brushing my Frankenstein’s bride
dress on the rough edge where the unfinished walls met. The drywall scraped
against me, making me wince as I hurried along the corridor to the back deck.
Whoever was in the house with me was either moving silently too or they were
standing still, listening.

Either way, I had a
terrible feeling this wasn't a game.

That meant one of several
options was happening: Jenson was either injured, hiding, or he hadn’t come
back yet.

Which meant I was alone
with the killer.

My heart raced, my eyes
burned from not blinking—fearful I would miss something—and my
throat was as dry as a mouthful of popcorn.

The floor creaked.

I froze.

“Sierra,” someone
whispered into the dark.

My skin crawled when I
realized it wasn't Jenson. It wasn't his whisper. I’d heard that enough times, always
in the dark, to know it wasn't him.

“Sierra, don't be
scared.” It sounded like something it couldn't be, but I didn't believe in
ghosts.

I stayed perfectly still,
waiting for the moment I needed to run to the back deck and jump down onto the
sandy beach.

What had the girls in the
horror movies done wrong?

What could I avoid?

My mind raced,
remembering the runners always got caught. But that was because they were
stupid about running. They looked back, which everyone knows slows you down.
That was why they always got stabbed, usually in the back just as they looked
back to scream.

Dumb bitches.

The thought of it made my
skin burn where I imagined the knife would slice.

The hiders always got
caught too. They were the ones breathing too loudly or hiding in stupid places.

I could avoid both of
those outcomes.

Once my feet hit that
sand, I wasn't looking back.

“Sierra, I won’t hurt you
if you come to me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut
for half a second and waited for the answer, the right choice, to pop into my head.

A dog barked, making me
jump and open my eyes. The
sound was joined by the creaking
of the floorboards again
.

With gentle breaths and
controlled movements I crept along the hallway, entering the spot where the
kitchen or master bedroom would likely go. The house was freshly sealed with
windows and doors, but it was still in the drywall stage with plywood floors.

The massive back deck was
through the white French doors, facing the beach and open ocean. The full moon
offered light, enough to make shadows move with me.

I hurried to an alcove I
assumed would one day be a nook for a breakfast bar or maybe the ensuite soaker
tub. I pressed my back against the wall and stared at the bright white French
doors. If I could make it to them, I was free.

If only I had my cell
phone, I could call the police or Jake or Vincent or the girls. Someone would
come and help me. Even Ashton might come if Rita wasn't sucking his face off
somewhere.

But none of that was an
option. I’d left my phone on the counter at Rita’s by accident.

I scolded myself for my
weakness and forced my focus to be on the doors. They were my answer. They were
my hope.

As I exhaled and plotted
my moment to run and everything I would do from that point on, the floor
creaked in the hallway behind me.

It was now or never.

Live or die.

Filthy mudblood

Friday, September 4, 2015, two months earlier

Lainey

- We had started getting
ready at about 7 pm, at Lindsey’s house. Yes, it was just after 7. Lindsey was complaining
about even going and hadn’t been ready when we arrived to pick her up.

- Of course Sage helped
me do my contacts and makeup, and then we left around 7:30. Maybe it was closer
to 8?

I tapped my lip
absentmindedly and filed each memory of the night one of my best friends,
Rachel, had died into the catalogue my brain always made. It was hard because I
didn't see clocks much that night—I didn't check the time. Everything was
now a guesstimate. I knew we were late, that was all.

- I liked firm timelines,
but I had to live with the fact it was roughly between 7:30 and 8 pm when we
left Lindsey’s house.

- That was when we saw
Ashton. He was leaving his house for Rachel’s party.

Sighing, I remembered the
way his dark-blue eyes had jetted toward mine, flashing a kind look for a
moment before Sage started being a complete ass to him. That look was the food
I lived on. I had a separate memory file in my mind of all the times our eyes
had met.

I glanced back at the
corkboard, forcing my brain to focus and stay on track. Ashton wasn't the
murderer so he wasn't pertinent information just yet. I had to focus if I was
ever going to take the suspicion off him though.

- After we saw Ash, we
went inside Sage’s house, and that was when Sierra showed up. She made a
lesbian
joke which
was totally off side, as usual.

- We rode in her dad’s
limo around 8:30 pm. We arrived late to the party.
Closer to
9?
Yeah, we all assumed it was about 9.

- We had been told to be
there by 7.

- But the driver changed
the route—why hadn’t I found that suspicious at the time? It had taken
forever to get there.

- When we got out of the
limo the wind was warm like there was a hint of a storm that was still brewing,
a heaviness
in the air.

- I believed the driver’s
story about the tree coming down because of the wind. If we felt a breeze at
Rachel’s it was blowing hard everywhere else.

- We were late.

- My stomach was a bit
tense. I was worried Rachel would yell at us and make us feel bad for being
late.

- But Rachel didn’t even
really acknowledge the rest of us, which had made me relax a little. She was
too busy fighting with Ashton. He had looked so angry when he left.

- It was the last time I
saw him.

Shaking off the sadness
of his absence, I recalled the next detail that was important.

- It was the moment that
a hand reached to Lindsey and I, offering a drink. It belonged to someone
dressed similarly to Sierra. No, not similarly. Identically. That made sense
now, whereas in the moment it had happened, it was nothing. I hadn’t even
really noticed the dress matched Sierra’s. I hadn’t cared. Now I could see it
clear as a bell. The dresses were identical. Obviously planned that way.

The only oddities of that
night were the dress and the driver so they had to be clues. Pausing, I bit my
lip, not sure where that fit into the puzzle I was building from each piece.

I stepped back from the
corkboard that I had hung inside my dressing room and pondered the spider web
of details before me. Hand-drawn pictures and likenesses lined the wall with
notes detailing each moment of the day Rachel died.

There, in the
particulars—the pictures in my mind that I would always recall in perfect
imagery—was the truth. I just didn't see it yet. The puzzle was still
sitting on the floor, not put together.

But I would figure it
out.

Nothing could hide from
me, not for long anyway.

I slumped and leaned
against the wall, constantly reliving that night. It had been my bane for a
month since it had happened.

My ability to recall
details so clearly meant that I would remember it all my life, but it didn't
mean I could solve the murder, not yet. As events were unfolding the night it
happened, all the separate particulars had felt sort of random.

But adding them
altogether and stepping back from them now, made the randomness vanish. The
pieces were starting to take shape.

- The late arrival due to
the driver, Sierra’s dress, and the drinks. None of which was a coincidence.

Which meant I needed to
start at the very beginning—I needed to find whoever had tried to give
Lindsey and me that drink. That person had known what Sierra was going to
wear—which was nearly impossible. Sierra was so spastic there was no way
she could have predicted what she herself was going to wear that night. Sierra
was big on planning her outfits but even bigger on changing her mind.

That was the one clue I
had to go on. It was rough, but there had to be an answer in the dress.

- The chauffeur and the
person who offered Lindsey and me a drink were either the killers or an
integral part of the killer’s plan.

- There was also the
shape of Rachel’s body; the broken bones positioned to create something that
was later reproduced exactly with Mr. Henning’s body. Whatever that shape was,
it was the calling card of the killer.

My eyes darted to the
place where I had drawn the contorted shape in which Rachel and Mr. Henning’s
bodies were found.

At least it was a
starting place. It was better than nothing.

“Lainey!”

My eyes darted to the
doorway as my mother’s impatient voice called for me. Turning the corkboard back
against the wall, I grabbed a sweater and walked out. “Yeah?”

“It’s yes, not yeah.” She
sighed when she saw me, squeezing her lips together tightly as her eyes roamed
my outfit with an unimpressed glare.

It was the one thing I
hated most about having an eidetic memory—my mother’s face. So regularly
that face wore a disgusted or disappointed look when it glanced my way. And
there was no way I could forget any of the faces she made. For me, they were
now a sea of low self-esteem that made me second-guess myself constantly.

“What are you wearing?
It’s the first day of school—the only day you don't have to wear a
uniform until the dances. Why can’t you just try to look nice?” She brushed
past me, no longer talking to me but now discussing me with whomever it was she
spoke to that the rest of us couldn't see. I imagined it was an angry spirit
animal, like a weasel, that agreed that the rest of us were nothing more than
inconvenient soul suckers. “I don't understand why she thinks it’s acceptable
to go out of the house dressed like she’s suffering through an eternity of
laundry days like some sort of low-income slob.” Her muttered tone dragged on,
reminding me of the suffering I had caused her.

All of that might have
stung before, but nothing she said pricked me anymore. For as long as I could
remember, her words had set a bar of abuse I could tolerate, always upped by
the next day’s cruelty. My tolerance was remarkable.

Adding to all that, my
father was having an affair with my mother’s best friend, Judith, and had a son
with her. It made me feel sorry for my mom more than anything else. Even if it
was her misery that drove him to it, no one deserved that fate.

And I had a brother I
shouldn't know about, meaning I knew her marriage was a sham. In the moments of
her cruelty, that felt like powerful information. My mother’s meanness was
nothing, compared to the realization that she was terribly unhappy.

The knowledge was
something I had yet to actually accept. It was tucked away like socks I didn't
want to wear, rolled into a ball and shoved to the back of the drawer that was
my mind.

I tried to focus on the
positive part of the story—she was
mean
because
she was miserable, which meant it wasn't my fault. That too was powerful
information.

In my mother’s mind, she
was the victim of this story.

Her kids were
disappointments, and her husband was never there for her. That was without
adding to the fact that he was having an affair, which I had to assume she knew
about. But I didn't think she knew about Mike, and I was glad about that.
Adding him would have fed the self-pitying monster, creating something far
worse than she was. It would have been obvious if she knew.
Obvious
to us anyway.
The rest of the world would have been oblivious. Out of
this house she was all sorts of pleasant, but only if you were the right sort
of people. She was the inventor of resting bitch face and the queen of the mean
girls, the
Desperate Housewives
edition.
The queen bee.
Her family was the oldest
money on the East Coast, the Cabots. My incredibly wealthy father and his
family were considered new money. Marrying him had been a step down for her,
but she had done her duty as a daughter.

Apart from the miserable
existence she suffered through, she was also enduring the inconvenience of our
home currently being under construction. The workers had finished fixing the
house, but the back deck and yard were still being mended. The sound of the
workers—no, the very breath they labored with as they strained to do
their physical jobs—drove her to near insanity. Which was a feat. Our
house was so massive I could hardly make out the fact there were workers in the
yard.

But not
her.

Every time she looked
through the window, down on them, she sighed and wrinkled her nose, disgusted
at the inconvenience they represented in her perfect world. Or maybe it was the
dead body they reminded her of.

My friend Andrew
Henning’s dad had died. His family was torn and devastated by the murder, but
the true victim in all of it was my mother.

His cold dead body and
thickening blood had touched her lawn and shrubberies. It was tainted forever,
and she was already discussing selling the house, though building another would
take a year or two.

She hadn’t even asked me
how I was coping with it, knowing that I couldn't get the image of finding his
dead body out of my head. I wouldn't get it out. I would recall it in perfect
detail for the rest of my life.

No, all of this was her
soldiering on with a brave face.

“I suppose this will have
to do. But she is going to meet up with Vivienne in New York next week for a
shop. This is ridiculous. Her closet is bare.” She flicked a dress at me and
sauntered from my room, still muttering insults like she was Kreacher off of
Harry Potter. She might as well have called me a mudblood and gotten it over
with.

Staring down at my
leggings and extra long baggy tunic, I sighed and silently wished I could be
anywhere but here. Of course though that would mean bringing Mazy and Jewels,
my little sister and our cat. We had already stayed at Lindsey’s house for two
weeks during the major part of the renovation and when we arrived home Mommy
Dearest had been in rare form. She still looked like at any given moment she
might grab a martini while donning a white silk negligée and tell us all the
woes of her life in a perfect Katharine Hepburn accent. All these dramatics
would be the start of her ranting over the inconvenience of a man dying in our
yard, somehow making us the victims of an attack. Forget the poor Henning
family—we had a burn mark in our yard and his blood has soaked into our
earth.

Maybe if we really pushed
her over the edge she might take a potato into the yard and give a speech
before biting it.

I would have rolled my
eyes at her, had the fight been worth it.

Even my dad was avoiding
the house except to sleep, which was saying a lot. Before this all happened he
was only ever home on Sundays. He even slept at the “office” most weekdays.

Cutting that
one day
a week was really taking a toll on Mom, like she was
parenting so much more.

Which was a joke.

She was the alpha parent.
She parented us whether he was here or not. Which in her world meant she
parented the staff, and they parented us through her leadership. She ran a
tight ship and we all towed the line.

Mazy gave me a look as she
entered my room, holding her cat like Dr. Evil held Mr. Bigglesworth. “Why is
Mom so grumpy this week? Normally, back to school gets her excited. She didn't
even pick out my outfit. It’s the one day a year we don't have to wear a
uniform and she walked right by me.”
She flumped onto my bed,
annoying the fluffy orange tabby in her arms.
“She was doing that creepy
Kreacher muttering again too. I think she’s losing it.”

“Mom’s just upset about
the house and the yard. As soon as the workers are gone she’ll be back to
normal.”

“Oh, so only slightly
crabby instead of heinously wicked.” Mazy rolled her eyes using words I didn't
realize she knew. “I feel like she’s the evil stepmom from Cinderella, only I’m
not adopted. God, wouldn't that be awesome, finding out we were adopted?”