Two Can Keep a Secret(74)
“Is he gonna get up?” I ask, rubbing my aching jaw.
“Eventually,” Declan says. Theo doesn’t even check on Kyle, just sprints past him on his way to the back entrance. Viv is nowhere in sight. “Fucking cowards, going two on one.” Declan reaches for the Volvo’s door and pulls it open. “Come on, let’s get out of here. No point in you going to school today. I’ll drive.”
I slump in the passenger seat, nauseated and dizzy. I haven’t been punched since ninth grade, and it wasn’t anywhere near that hard. “Why are you here?” I ask.
Declan turns the keys I left in the ignition. “I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
His jaw sets in a hard line. “I remember the first day of school after … news like this.”
I suck in a breath and wince. I wonder if my ribs are cracked. “What, you knew something like this was gonna happen?”
“It happened to me,” he says.
“I didn’t know that.” I didn’t know much back then, I guess. Too busy trying to pretend none of it was going on.
We drive in silence for a minute until we near a corner store, and Declan suddenly swerves into the parking lot. “Hang on a sec,” he says, before shifting into park and disappearing inside. When he comes out a couple of minutes later, he’s holding something square and white in one hand. He tosses it to me as he opens the door. “Put those on your face.”
Frozen peas. I do as he says, almost groaning in relief as the cool seeps into my burning skin. “Thanks. For these and … you know. Saving my ass.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head. “Can’t believe you got out of the car. Amateur.”
I’d laugh, but it hurts too much. I sit still, with the peas on my face as we leave Echo Ridge for Solsbury, tracing the path I took to his apartment last week. Declan must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “You’re a little bitch for following Daisy.” He looks like he’s seriously considering turning the car around and leaving me in the parking lot with Kyle.
“I tried asking you what you were doing in town,” I remind him. “Didn’t work.” He doesn’t answer, just sort of grunts, which I decide means point taken. “When did you move here?”
“Last month,” he says. “Daisy needs to be around her parents. And me. So … here I am.”
“You could’ve told me about her, you know.”
Declan snorts. “Really, little brother?” He turns into Pine Crest Estates and pulls into the parking spot in front of number 9. “You couldn’t wait to get me out of Echo Ridge. The last thing you’d want to hear is that I’d moved one town over. No, wait, that’s the second-last. The last thing is me being with Lacey’s best friend. I mean, hell, what would the Nilssons say, right?”
“I hate the Nilssons.” It slips out without thinking.
Declan raises his brows as he opens his door. “Trouble in paradise?”
I hesitate, trying to figure out how to explain, when my stomach seizes. I barely make it out of the car before I bend in half and vomit my breakfast all over the asphalt. Thank God it’s quick, because the movement makes my ribs feel like someone just ripped them out. My eyes water as I clutch the side of the car for support, gasping.
“Delayed reaction,” Declan says, reaching into the car for the discarded peas. “Happens sometimes.” He lets me limp to the apartment on my own, unlocks the door, and points me toward the couch. “Lie down. I’ll find an ice pack for your hand.”
Declan’s apartment is the most cliché bachelor pad ever. There’s nothing in it except the couch and two armchairs, a giant television, and a bunch of milk crates for shelves. The couch is comfortable, though, and I sink into it while Declan roots around in his freezer. Something plastic digs into my back, and I pull out a remote. I aim it at the television and press the power button. A golf green with the ESPN logo in one corner fills the screen, and I click away, scrolling mindlessly through channels until the word Huntsburg catches my eye. I stop surfing as a man in a police uniform standing in front of a lectern says, “… have been able to make a positive identification.”
“Declan.” My throat hurts and my voice cracks, but when he doesn’t answer, I rasp louder. “Declan.”
His head emerges from the kitchen. “What? I can’t find the—” He stops at the sight of my face, and comes into the living room just as the officer on-screen takes a deep breath.
“The body is that of a young woman who’s been missing from Echo Ridge since last Saturday: seventeen-year-old Brooke Bennett. The Huntsburg police department would like to extend our condolences to Miss Bennett’s family and friends, and our support to her hometown police department. At this time, the investigation into cause of death is ongoing and no further details will be released.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ellery
Monday, October 7
I know the script. I’ve read it in countless books, and seen it play out dozens of times on television. All week, in the back of my mind, I knew how it would probably end.
What I didn’t understand was how mind-numbingly awful it would feel.
At least I’m not alone. Ezra and Malcolm are in the living room with me Monday afternoon, six hours after the Huntsburg police found Brooke. None of us went to school today, although Malcolm’s day was more eventful than ours. He showed up an hour ago, bruised and battered, and Nana has been handing him fresh ice packs every fifteen minutes.