Dead Girls Don't Lie (21 page)

“That sucks,” Taylor says.

“You’re lucky you have us,” Claire says. “We’ll make sure you get the chance to see your boyfriend tonight, grounded or not.”

I look at the two of them. I’m still not sure if “boyfriend” fits my relationship with Skyler, but I kind of like the way it sounds.

“Not only that, we’re going to do the whole makeover fairy-godmother bit. I have your outfit all picked out.” Claire gets off the bed and goes to her closet. She comes back with a little white tank top and a pair of cutoff jeans—really short cutoff jeans.

“I can’t wear that.”

Taylor shakes her head at me. “You don’t honestly expect to hold Skyler’s attention with what you have on.”

I look down at what I’m wearing. When I picked it out I thought it was cute: a flowered yellow shirt, capris, and sandals.

“You look like you’re eight. That shirt does nothing for your”—Claire snickers—“boobs.” She throws the tank top at me. “This will help. We’re going to Evan’s party and there will be girls there who know how to catch a guy’s interest. Skyler’s gotten kind of cute. You need to make sure his attention doesn’t wander.”

“I can’t—” I try again.

“Look, hon.” Taylor recaps the nail polish and blows on my toes. “The sad thing is we’re kind of living through you this summer. You’re the only one who has anything interesting going on. This town is too small and it’s been too hot for anything exciting to happen.”

Except that my best friend was murdered, something they seem to have forgotten again.

“I really, really can’t I—” But as I’m trying to come up with the right words to plead my case, I get a text. Without thinking, I get my phone out of my pocket.

What r u doing 2night?

Before I can reply to Skyler, Taylor grabs my phone. “Where did you get this?”

I turn red and stumble through, “Dad got it for me to replace—”

“This is so cool.” She cradles the phone in her hands. “It has everything on it.” She strokes it with her hand, as if it were a kitten, and then starts texting something back to Skyler. I reach for my phone, but she holds it out of my reach and hits send.

“How did you ever afford that?” Claire sounds jealous. “Your dad selling drugs to the migrants on the side?”

“Maybe that’s why he took them to Spokane,” Taylor says. “To pick up his next shipment.”

I’m annoyed that I let them see the phone, annoyed that they’re implying my family is poor, and annoyed that Taylor is still texting on my phone. “Give me back my phone!” I reach for it, but she climbs up on the bed, and she’s a lot taller than I am. I climb up after her. She starts jumping on the bed, holding the phone out of my reach.

“Girls!” Claire’s mom is at the door. “I’m trying to get some sleep. I have to work tomorrow.”

I plunk down on the bed and so does Taylor. Claire’s mom
takes in the outfit her daughter is wearing, a low-cut red shirt and a short jean skirt. “Going somewhere, ladies?”

“Just doing makeovers and trying on each other’s clothes, Mom,” Claire says innocently.

Her mom doesn’t look like she buys it. “It’s time to call it a night. I promised Jaycee’s dad she’d get to bed early.”

“Sure, Mom.” Claire is all innocence. “But can we watch a movie while we fall asleep?”

Claire’s mom glances at me. “Nothing inappropriate.”

As soon as she closes the door Claire picks up the clothes she picked for me and sets them on the bed in front of me. “So what are you going to do?”

Taylor fluffs her hair. “I already told Skyler you were coming, but if you want me to take care of him tonight …”

I look at Taylor, with her perfect body and her perfect blond curls, and then picture her and Skyler together. It hurts just thinking about it. “Fine. I’ll come.” I take the clothes and go into Claire’s closet to change.

An hour and a half later, the movie, a steamy romantic comedy my dad would have never let me watch, is over. Claire’s mom is asleep, and I’m dozing on the bed, too many sleepless nights getting to me. Claire elbows me. “Time to go,” she hisses.

Guilt and fear hit me. “I don’t think I should—”

“Shut up.” Claire puts her finger to her lips. “Your man is waiting.”

Taylor yawns and stretches. “You’ve totally screwed up your hair,” she says. “And we don’t have time to fix it again.”

Claire creeps across the room and opens her bedroom
door, listens, and then motions for us to follow her. I hesitate, but I really do want to see Skyler. We take the same path we took the night of the last party, down the hall, through the back door, and toward Claire’s huge backyard, illuminated like daylight in the full moon. I look around, feeling exposed, because of the outfit or the moon, I can’t decide which. Taylor nudges me from behind.

I grip my phone through the pocket of Claire’s shorts and look behind me. As I do, something moves behind the slats in the fence. I can’t see what it is, maybe just a cat. Maybe I’m getting paranoid because of the note and Eduardo’s warning, but I’m positive something or someone is moving with us on the opposite side of the fence. I freeze.

“What are you stopping for?” Claire hisses.

“I think someone might be over there.” I say it as quietly as I can, gesturing toward the fence.

Claire huddles closer to me, but Taylor says, “Where?”

“Through the fence,” I say.

Claire moves behind me, but Taylor creeps over to check it out. She’s almost to the fence when she lets out a scream and jumps back. Claire screams too, turns toward the house, and runs. I’m frozen in place.

Then Taylor laughs. “Peyton Harris, what the hell are you doing hiding behind that fence? What are you, like, some creepy peeping tom?” Claire stops running and turns around. Taylor walks closer to the fence and peers through. “And Mitch Thompson, what are you guys doing?”

Peyton peers over the fence sheepishly. “Hi.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Taylor stands with her hand on her hip, which is thrust out so it makes her skimpy shorts look even skimpier.

“We were just wondering if you girls needed a ride to Evan’s house,” Mitch says.

“Hells, yeah!” Taylor answers.

Claire walks up behind Taylor. “Quiet, all of you.” She glances back at her house, but the windows are still dark. “Perfect. Now I don’t have to borrow my mom’s car.”

“Jaycee’s with me.” The voice that comes back through the fence is Evan’s. I didn’t know he was here too.

Claire and Taylor both look at me, eyebrows raised.

“I told you that outfit would work,” Taylor whispers.

“Whatever, just shut up, okay?” Claire hisses. She sounds annoyed, and I don’t think it’s just because we’re all talking too loud. “Look, we have to get out of here now, before my mom wakes up.” Claire and Taylor pile into Mitch’s car, I follow Evan to his dad’s truck.

“Where’s your motorcycle?” I say as he holds the door open for me.

“It might rain,” he says.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain to me,” I answer. “Why were you guys really hiding behind the fence?” Maybe Evan didn’t bring the motorcycle because it was too loud for sneaking around.

He smiles. “Okay, you caught me. I came looking for you. I wanted to make sure you were coming to the party. You didn’t answer the text I sent.”

I touch the bulge in my pocket and then I realize he must mean my old phone. I haven’t even turned it on since I got it back.

He pats the seat beside him. “Why are you sitting clear over there?”

“I like to look out the window.” I’m trying to figure out his game. Evan is all charm again, obviously he wants something from me. I’m just not sure what.

“I don’t bite,” he says, putting the truck into reverse.

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“Ouch,” he says, but he smiles like it’s a compliment. As we drive toward the house he drums his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio. “I like what you’re wearing, Jaycee. You look really good.”

“Thanks.” I tug my shorts down so they cover more of my thighs.

“You should have worn that necklace, the one you left in the fireplace. That cross would have been really sexy with that outfit.” More finger drumming, not so in time with the music. “So what was so important in that bag of beads? Why did you hide it in the fireplace all this time?” He’s fishing again, trying to find out if there was anything else by the fireplace. It occurs to me that two can play at that game.

I turn around and face him, staring pointedly at his arm. “Why do you have a tattoo of the number 18?”

He shrugs, like it’s casual. “It’s my lucky number, my football number.”

“But why eighteen?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “It’s a family number. Dad wore it, and then Eric, and then me.”

“Skyler?”

“No, Skyler always has to do things bassackward.” He laughs. “His number was 81.”

“Oh.” I lean back. He’s so casual about it, I don’t think it could mean what I was suspecting, that Evan was part of a gang. Still, there are a couple of answers I need, answers that I think only Evan can give me. The warning from the note goes through my head, but I push it away. I just have to make sure I don’t sound like I’m trying to get information. I keep my voice casual, conversational. “You said you took digital arts last year, didn’t you?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, why?”

“I’m taking it next year, and I was wondering what kind of things you did in that class.”

He rolls his eyes. “You should get out of it. I took it because it was supposed to be an easy class, but it was actually a lot of work.”

I nod like I understand. “I hate it when elective classes give too much homework.”

“Yeah, me too.” He shakes his head. “The final project was a huge pain in the butt. We had to put a bunch of pictures together, and they couldn’t just be random pictures, they had to represent something significant from our lives. Ms. Reeves called it a journey map.”

“What?” The word catches in my throat. That was the title Rachel put at the top of the page of pictures.

“Yeah. Stupid, right? And it took forever to do. To top it off, after I thought I was finished, she said we had to pull a picture from someone else’s project and add it to ours to show how all our journeys are connected or some sh—” He looks at me. “Crap like that.” He grins. “Your friend Rachel took one from me. She stuck a picture of my football jersey smack in the middle of her collage. That’s what made me decide to ask her out for New Year’s Eve.”

I try to think what reason Rachel would have for putting Evan’s jersey on her picture, but I can’t think of anything. We’re almost to his house. I can see lights and hear music blaring. I clench my toes in my borrowed sandals because it reminds me of the night Skyler kissed me, the night Rachel died.

I’m almost out of time, but he brought it up, so I ask, “What happened just before Rachel left the New Year’s Eve party? Don’t tell me you really don’t know why she left.” The conversational tone is gone. I want him to take this question seriously.

He puts the truck in park and kills the engine. For a minute I think he’s going to get out without answering. Instead he starts drumming his fingers on the steering wheel again, even though there isn’t music coming from the radio anymore. He shakes his head. “I think Peyton must have said something to her. I went in the kitchen to get a drink for us and when I came back he was standing in front of her in the living room. She flipped out, ran in the bathroom, and started puking. He had his shirt off, and I know that Peyton could stand to hit the gym once in a while, but no girl has ever reacted like that before.”

I ignore his stupid attempt at humor. “Didn’t you ask her what happened?”

Evan shrugs. “She wouldn’t talk to me after that at all. I told you, she had someone else take her home. Peyton said he was coming in from the hot tub and she freaked out when she saw him.”

“And you believed him? You don’t think he tried something?”

Evan looks annoyed at me, like I’m questioning his authority or something. “It was my house, and she was my date. Peyton’s not that big of a jerk or that stupid. She probably just had too much to drink and she was so embarrassed that she hurled that she wouldn’t let me take her home. Anyway, she went out with him a couple of times after that. If he had tried something she didn’t like, do you really think she would have gone out with him?” He opens the door, clearly done with the questions from me. “Are you coming in or what?”

“Yeah. Give me a second.” I’m trying to think. What would Peyton have done that made Rachel so upset she threw up? Maybe Evan’s right, maybe she drank too much and got sick, but I think it was something else. I never saw Rachel drink, not even once.

Evan stands with his hand on top of the door, waiting for me. “By the way, Skyler won’t be here tonight. He’s got to get the hay baled before it rains or Dad will kill him.”

I drag myself out of the truck, miserable already. I’m stuck at a party I’m not supposed to be at, that I don’t want to be at, and now with no hope of seeing Skyler.

Evan hangs back, walking in with me. “We don’t have to go in. We could just hang out here.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Talk or … something.” I push his hand away and give him what I hope comes off as a death glare, but he just looks confused. “What’s up with you, Jaycee? I’m just trying to be nice.”

“I’m with your brother. Don’t you get that?” I snap at him.

He pauses on the front porch. “Okay, not to sound like a jerk, but why?”

I’m suddenly flustered, not sure how to explain my relationship with Skyler to Evan. “I don’t know. He’s cute and he’s sweet, and …” I gather up my confidence. “Not full of himself, and not fake. Not like some guys I know.”

Evan looks a little shocked at my honesty, but he laughs. “Okay then. So since Skyler isn’t here what are you going to do tonight?”

“I’ll probably hang out in his room, text him or something.”

“Seriously? The party’s out here. You should give us a chance, we aren’t as bad—”

“I’m positive.”

He shakes his head. “You’re a hard one to figure out, Jaycee, but I like a challenge.”

I get out of the truck and slam the door behind me. Talking to Evan is starting to make me feel dirty. He follows me to the front porch. “You’re seriously just going to hang out in Skyler’s room alone?”