Good Girls Lie(96)

She looks at me like I’m the insane one. “How could you want to stay here? They treat you terribly. That girl, Becca, she isn’t your friend. She’s going to hurt you, hurt you worse than you could ever imagine.”

Oh, what little you know, sister. She’s already torn me apart.

“No, she’s not. It’s a game. I’ve been tapped for a secret society, that’s all. It’s all in good fun.”

“You can’t possibly believe that.”

Becca is the least of my worries.

But Ashlyn’s sagging now—the beaten, cowed, unloved girl is back. These sparks of fury that make her lose her mind are frightening, yes, but they’re usually over as quickly as they start. It’s like she’s possessed. I’ve seen the worst her anger can do, lying on the floor of the parlor, pale, waxy, lifeless.

And on the headstone that sits atop a tiny coffin, buried on the estate.

And the blood on the parlor floor, leaking from Sylvia’s body.

And in my flat, the guileless, endless sleep of my mum, Gertrude, the needle still dangling from the crook of her elbow. I’ll never know if she did it on her own or if Ashlyn helped her along to make my part of the plan easier to stomach. I was too afraid to ask, too desperate to get out.

Ashlyn will do anything when her demon rises. I need to keep that part of her at bay for as long as possible until I figure out what to do.

She wasn’t supposed to come here, ever. She was supposed to be in Tahiti, or Bora Bora, wherever she decided to go.

Though it sounds like she’s been parked in Oxford, in my old flat, listening to the gossips and getting high with Kevin. Waiting for me to get the degrees in her name so she can inherit the estate and drown herself in whatever marsh she’s picked. What a fucking idiot. I got her out. I handed her a new life, one she begged for. And I got hers in return, the one she hated.

It was a fair trade.

Daddy dearest wasn’t supposed to name me an heir. When Nickerson told me about my phantom sister, so apologetic, so worried, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All of the plans, all of the machinations, the hacks, the identity theft, being an impostor—none of it was necessary. If I’d waited, had a little faith, I would have had enough money to pay for any education I could desire.

Mum always told me to watch out for a woman scorned. She said Sylvia would kill me if she ever found out.

Yes, Mum told me about their affair. It’s why she ended up taking pills, to forget the dynamic, exciting Damien Carr when he threw her over and married simpering Sylvia.

Damien killed my mother. No one else.

But little did she know it was Ashlyn who was the real danger, all along.

Think. Think!

None of the plans I’ve been working include the real Ashlyn ever showing up in Marchburg. Now that she’s here and dancing on the edge, I have to reboot everything. Everything.

“You have to give me some time. I can work this, but it’s going to be tricky.”

The fever light gleams in her eyes. “You have twenty-four hours. I need to get out of this shit town. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“You have to give me more than a day. I have to—”

She has a hand ripping my hair back and the knife at my throat so fast I don’t even have time to blink.

“Listen to me, you stupid, hapless twat. Twenty-four hours, or I will blow up your entire world and dance on the ashes. You’ll have the distraction you need.”

She lets me go and disappears into the forest, leaving me alone with the graves and trembling hands. I sink to my knees, the past few months parading through my brain. I should have known better.

What am I going to do?

I’m going to run.



72

THE CONVINCING

I’ve convinced her. I can see it in her eyes. Even as she scurries away, back through the tunnel into the school, she is already plotting.

She’s going to find a way, she always does. Alexandria is the brains of the family. She is going to find us a path out like she found us a path in, and I will have my fortunes restored. Once that happens, she can go on living whatever life she wants. I have no reason to kill her.

Well, none good enough. Not yet.

She is the one who most resembles Damien. She has his face and brains, yes, but she’s been gifted with his ability to manipulate, too.

I make my way back to the abandoned cabin I’ve been sleeping in. It has a tunnel directly into the school, like most I’ve managed to sneak into, which makes it so easy to enter after dark, once everyone is asleep, and creep, creep, creep around. Did you know the dean leaves her safe unlocked? What an idiot. Probably can’t remember her combination.

I’m telling you, while the school itself is okay, Marchburg is a shit of a town. Who would want to live here? There’s nothing to do. The only thing it has going for it is a view, but hell, you can get a view off a cliff in Italy. Why would you saddle yourself to a stupid little nothing town in the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Alex wanted this. She wanted it so badly I couldn’t resist trying to make her dreams come true. But she’s changed. She’s no longer the sweet, adorable little Lexie who would do anything for me growing up. Now she’s my sister, my flesh and blood. She’s complicit. She knows the truth, all of it. And she has a power that I don’t—the power of altering records. That changes everything.