Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(31)

Her head was spinning and her attention flagging.

Izzy. She appeared in Stevie’s mind. The point of her chin, her long hands, her fuzzy coat, her masses of hair that looked adorably perfect piled on her head like a glamorous owl sanctuary. Izzy and David spent so much time together here. He hadn’t mentioned her on their calls. Or had he? Maybe once he mentioned an Iz. Stevie probably thought he said “is” or something. Why not mention her? He planned things with her. Like that ride last night. Of course, it was a good surprise. He got her a trip on the London Eye and a murder story.

And yet.

So much time together. So many London nights like the one last night. So many long evenings and drizzling rain, and talking at the pub, and walking these streets . . . the streets she didn’t know.

My aunt saw a murder. She was there.

She looked down at her phone and did some searching. She had only a few points of reference for her search. Two murders. 1995. A country house. A burglar.

Google didn’t turn up much. She only found one or two articles, and they all repeated the basic facts that Izzy had told her. Nine students, recently graduated from Cambridge, went to a house called Merryweather on June 23, 1995. That night, during a storm, they played an outdoor game of hide-and-seek. Two members of the party never came back inside and were discovered in the morning in the woodshed, murdered with an axe. The matter was thought to be connected to several local burglaries. And that was it. Nothing more.

The two cases she had worked on before—the Ellingham case and the Box in the Woods murders—both had substantial coverage. The lack of information out in the world was both disappointing and intriguing. This was fresh ground, undisturbed.

“We’re here,” Nate said, tapping her on the arm.

They had returned to their starting point. Stevie hadn’t even noticed. She hurriedly grabbed her bag and followed Nate down the steps to the lower level and off the bus. Janelle and Vi had already disembarked.

The dark was gathering over Craven House as they stepped into the greenish light of the lobby. The tree looked slightly sadder today. It was leaning to the left and someone had put googly eyes on a few of the ornaments. Two balls had fallen off the tree and were lolling underneath.

“Harsh,” Nate said, noting it as he passed. “You know, the best fanfic I ever read was an erotic story about Thor and Tony Stark living together on a Christmas tree sex farm.”

“What?” Vi said. “Was it a sex farm or a Christmas tree farm?”

“Both,” Nate replied as they pushed open the doors into the common room. “Mostly sex, some tree. I don’t think they were taking the business seriously, because that was no way to handle a wreath.”

The common room was a large space with a shocking purple carpet, several wood-framed sofas and large worktables, with a small bar in the corner that didn’t appear to be open. David and Izzy were already there, sitting together on a sofa working on their individual laptops. Izzy was wearing an oversized white blouse with large sleeves. On Stevie, it would have been a confused mess, and it sort of was on Izzy as well, but it was also charming.

Something funny hit Stevie. A little sizzle of something unpleasant.

“Oh!” Izzy cried, getting up. “You’re back! Ready to go?”

Izzy’s aunt lived in a place called Islington, which was several Tube stops to the north, on something called the Northern Line—a black line on the orderly squiggles of the Tube map. This meant they had to walk to the Embankment stop, which was down along the path they had taken before, by the river.

The Tube. The famous Tube. It was nothing to David now. He’d been here for months and tapped his card lightly on the reader while Stevie and the others fumbled with their tickets. He and Izzy chatted and joked as they rode down the incredibly long escalator into the depths below London. The walls were paneled in screens that repeated the same rotation of advertisements as they went down, trying desperately to get her to buy a new thriller called Blood at Dawn, attend a production of Richard III, and buy dessert for Christmas at a place called M&S. There was a light, minerally smell, somewhere between fuel and the sweet, unused smell that basements sometimes had.

Another little sizzle as Izzy showed David something on her phone.

There was nothing to be jealous about, was what she told herself as they stood on the platform, looking across at the massive advertisements that were plastered along the curved walls of the Tube. If anything, Izzy seemed more excited about Stevie.

But what if that was what you did when you were trying to hide something?

“Hey.”

David was whispering against her ear. The feeling of his warm breath made her tingle, and the entire right side of her body seemed to go into a liquid state.

“Guess what?” he whispered.

“What?”

“Chicken. Butt.”

He flicked her ear with his tongue.

There was a rush of wind and the train appeared. There was a polite bong sound, and then the recorded voice said MIND THE GAP in a staid English accent.

“It really does that?” Nate said.

The train was utterly rammed with people. There were no seats to be had, and very little standing room. They all crushed together in a forest of arms, wobbling as the train sped along. Janelle and Vi squished together by a pole. David had looped an arm around Stevie. It was warm on the train and the gentle rocking motion made Stevie start to drift off. She wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t as awake as she wanted to be. There was no time to sleep on this trip—this was all she had. Every day was valuable. Every night.