If At First (Crimson Cove Mysteries Book 1)

  If At First

  Crimson Cove Mysteries

  Book One

  A Novel by Tara Brown

  Copyright 2015 Tara Brown

  http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com

  Amazon Edition

  This ebook is a work of fiction and is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please 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 YA books by Tara Brown

  The Crimson Cove Mysteries

  If At First

  The Born Trilogy

  Born

  Born to Fight

  Reborn

  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

  Once upon a time, in a crappy little town ruled by deceit and treachery, there were six girls—six princesses. Each one more spoiled and entitled than the next.

  For nearly two decades they dominated the seaside land with parties and indulgences galore.

  Unbeknownst to them, they each represented something—a season of my life.

  But it isn’t my turn to talk.

  As much as the story is mine, this isn’t my version of it.

  This is theirs.

  But don’t worry, I will be heard.

  No matter what.

  Anonymous

  Chapter One

  Mission Impossible

  August 3rd

  The maple trees lining the streets always made me feel like I was home, no matter which part of town I was in. They were our calling card and namesake, Crimson Cove. A cove of red maples.

  The East Coast had maples everywhere, but only Crimson Cove had the red ones exclusively. We were famous for the drive into town along the shores from Stamford, Connecticut. We were the small cove just between Stamford and Darien, a red splotch on any aerial map. It was small with only 18,733 people and even that number was dependent upon who you asked. I know my father didn't count the laborers or the service workers as residents of our town. Even if their families had lived here longer than ours.

  I leaned my head out the window, wondering what kind of treasures I would find in Vincent’s bedroom today.

  Maybe I should feel guilty for snooping in people’s things but I didn’t, and Vincent’s room was my favorite.

  I considered it boot camp-style training for being an investigative journalist. There was nothing like the real thing to teach you how to do it, and I was in the perfect place to learn. There was no town with secrets as good as ours, or scandals that ran as deep in all of the United States, including Hawaii.

  Andrew, my partner in grime, gave me a look from the driver’s seat of our work truck as he drove down the highway. “Lindsey, earth to Lindsey!”

  A scowl crept along my face as I stared at him, realizing he was talking. “Did you say something?”

  “A few somethings. You wanna grab lunch first or after Vince’s house?” He chuckled.

  I sighed and turned to look out the window at the downtown core passing by me. “Whatever. I don't care. What are you in the mood for?”

  “Well, to be honest, I really want some sushi.”

  I turned back and laughed with him. “We don't have time to stop for sushi. We still have the country club to do.”

  He nodded as he offered up his adorable dark stare. “I know, but I was thinking maybe we could be too long at sushi and Vince’s house and the other team could do the clubhouse.”

  “I like where you’re going with this.” Neither of us said it, but we both were ashamed of the fact we worked for my father. It was so far beneath us we didn't really know how to protest it. Andrew had been hired on because of a drunk driving incident two months ago. I had been forced into it with a “learn some work ethics” spiel from my father, most likely spurned on when I rolled my eyes and told him I planned to be a journalist and didn't need his money.

  Andrew’s dad had insisted he work for my dad to learn what happens when you behave like a commoner—you get to work like one. My dad wanted me to see how bad it was being poor.

  It sucked that we had both landed ourselves here, working for the summer for the first time ever. But we tried to make the best of it by slacking off and doing the bare minimum. Every house belonged to someone we knew, and usually they felt sorry for us. So we swam and ate and napped, a lot. A lot more than my dad knew about.

  The part that pissed me off the most was that my father had never done any physical work at his own company, not a day in his life. He had never gotten his hands dirty before, whereas mine were covered with dirt marks and cuts.

  “So which first, sushi or Vince’s house?”

  “Vince’s,” I answered him, certain I could clean up there before we went to eat. The dirt under my nails and the bruises and scrapes on my arms weren’t going to come clean, but at least I could get the majority of the mess I was scrubbed off. And I did plan on heading inside to snoop, just a little.

  Andrew Henning wasn't a big talker. He wasn't a big anything, except pothead. He was a huge pothead. We didn't have that in common. Being a fan of control made pot low on my list of things I enjoyed. But Andrew clearly didn't mind being constantly in space.

  As we pulled up to the largest house in the cove I growled inwardly. I had known Vincent Banks my entire life, and I wasn't big on him either. His father was easily the richest man any of us knew, and therefore a friend of my father’s, to whom the importance of wealth and breeding outweighed every other aspect of a person’s character.

  Vincent’s mother had left when he was eight. She remarried some European dude and never came back. He visited her in the South of France every summer, usually around this time.

  I crossed my fingers, hoping he was in France and not at the house to torment me the way he always did. He liked to pretend he found me attractive and teased me about us hooking up. I was a safe person to bug; his girlfriend was one of my best friends and she was better looking than me by a lot.

  At first I had found it funny that he always hit on me, even if deep down I knew a guy like him would never be interested in a girl like me. Girls like me dated political science nerds or accountants. He was exciting and crazy and careless. But after a few years it got annoying, like the joke had ridden its course and I was done.

  In our group of girls in Crimson Cove, Rachel had me voted the least likely to ever get laid, which was fine with me. I didn't want some drunken teenaged boy conning me with insincere compliments and a bevy of drugs and alcohol, just so he could ply my pants away from me.

  I shuddered, imagining it. It wasn't hard to either—all my friends had lost their virginity that way. My actual best friend Lainey and I were the only virgins left and everyone knew it. She was worse off than I was. I could at least look like I fit in, but she always struggled. If she wasn't pushing her glasses up on her nose, she was squinting because her
mom had taken her glasses away. Her mom was the socialite of all socialites. Her getting Lainey as a daughter proved God had a sense of humor.

  Andrew pulled up to the massive gate that made everyone else’s gates seem paltry in comparison, sort of like the Banks’ family fortune. “Good afternoon, Master Henning. Master Banks is not home at the moment. Would you like to come in and wait for him?” the guard asked over the camera. “I am expecting him shortly.”

  I winced. Vincent would be home shortly?

  Andrew shook his head. “We are here with Crimson Cove Landscaping, Barry. I’m working for Mark Bueller this summer.”

  “Excellent.” He buzzed us in.

  “So excellent,” Andrew muttered.

  We both rolled our eyes, probably in perfect sync.

  “You wanna do the gardens and I’ll mow?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.” The gardens were the worst job but mowing was harder work. You had to check the oil in the mower and drive around in the hot sun and empty the clippings. The gardens just hurt the neck and back from bending over. But it was the better job for my true passion—creeping in people’s shit and sniffing out their secrets.

  I hopped out of the truck and strolled to the gardener’s greenhouse where the tools were for the weeding and clipping. Since it was done every week, the work never got to be anything beyond a few moments in every garden. It was the fact that there were over a hundred gardens. I grabbed the shears and the mini rake and threw them into the cart, pushing it out into the hot sun. I dragged my tee shirt off and walked around in my strapless bikini top. It was the only way to avoid the weird tan lines I had started to get. They infuriated Louisa, my stepmonster.

  After I had finished most of the gardens, I headed for the ones just outside Mr. Banks’ office. He wasn't there or he was being silent, maybe reading. I stood, peering in the window and sighing when I realized he clearly wasn’t there. I slipped around the side of the office, lifting my phone from my pocket and using my thumbprint to unlock it—the only option I used, rather than having a password. I sent a text to Vincent: You almost home?

  He responded right away: No. Do you need me to be home?

  I rolled my eyes. No.

  He sent his usual torment: Have dinner with me tonight and we can talk about all the places I was instead of home, and you can tell me why you fight this so hard.

  I grimaced and texted another one-word answer: Gross.

  He sent a winky face and I entered the office. The house was silent when I crept past the desk, walking like I had a reason to be there. I would say I had to use the bathroom or needed a drink. Mr. Banks knew me well enough that he wouldn’t care. And the house was so large I could live there and he might never notice me.

  His office was a series of sealed and locked chests, drawers, and cupboards. He never left anything unlocked. It was a waste of time trying to snoop in there; I’d learned that the hard way.

  He was a closed off man with a closed off office who was never really home much. I might have felt sorry for Vincent if he wasn't such a pervert.

  I slipped past the door and into the hallway where I made my way to the stairs. I hurried up them, knowing I was heading so deep within their house that I wouldn’t be able to explain why I was there if I got caught.

  My heart raced and my breath hitched as I crept up the stairs, making no noise. The rush of being in someone else’s house, touching their things, and seeing their secrets got me high. I never needed drugs or alcohol or petty theft. I needed to see things no one else knew about.

  It was wrong and I knew it, but I compared myself to the staff. It was no different than having a maid or butler.

  When I got to the top of the stairs, I knew where I was headed. It was the room I had been nearly busted in last time. I had managed to escape down another hallway before the maid found me snooping.

  With excited hands and a racing heart, I turned the knob, cracking the door and listening for a single stirring.

  The large suite was empty so I stepped in and closed the door behind me, resting my back against it and sighing.

  The room was beautiful but tidy in a weird way, like no one lived here amongst the white furniture and white walls. I knew Vincent slept here; all the living was done in the parlor downstairs or the games room, just like at my house.

  Out his window, the royal-blue sea swelled in the cove, complementing the stark room and adding some balance.

  I clicked the lock and crossed the hardwood floor to the computer and sat in Vincent’s white armchair. I was about to run the computer in safe mode when I smiled.

  I couldn’t help but shake my head, seeing that he had his password on auto save so I could just log in as him. His password was a sad four digits—no doubt a date. It was probably something lame like the moment he lost his virginity. If I had to guess, I would say he was likely about eleven years old when it happened, and it was definitely to an older woman.

  He was depraved and obsessed with sex. My mother’s voice in my head reminded me he was also a seventeen-year-old boy so it fit him well.

  Andrew driving past the window on the mower below made me recall when Vincent had slept with his mom. Andrew had laughed it off when he found out, thinking it was nasty but still funny. Maybe having a dead mother made me a bit sensitive, but I wouldn't have laughed if Vincent had seduced my mom. I might have stabbed him in the eye and then the balls. Or vice versa. But maybe that was an overreaction. I did seem to overreact when he was around.

  Although Andrew’s mom wasn't exactly a pillar or virtue like my mother had been.

  I looked back at the computer, scanning the emails but was disappointed at the lack of awesomeness in there. It was mostly stuff his dad might have forced on him like response letters from the Yale Club in New York welcoming him as a legacy.

  In my heart of hearts I didn't see him as the sort of guy who wrote any of the letters in the outbox. They were all polite and professional, and he hadn’t even added innuendos or obscene jokes as colorful flavor.

  Not in those ones. The ones he generally sent me were fairly dirty. I opened an email he had sent me a week before, and nodded at the repellent humor and filthy images. I had laughed when I opened it the first time but only a little, and I was offended, even if I didn't look it.

  Okay, not offended but aware that a joke of that nature was inappropriate to send to a girl you weren’t dating. Or just any girl in general.

  I scrolled a little lower, about to give up when I saw it: an email from a girl named Sasha. We went to school with her but had never hung out together. For lack of a better term, she was a giant ho.

  Her father had landed himself in hot water with insider trading and was doing five hard years at the cushiest of prisons—a place my dad called Club Fed. Its real name was the Otisville Corrections Facility. Her mother hadn’t divorced him, but she was actively seeking a replacement. And as far as I was concerned, Sasha was actively seeking her future Mr. S. Daddy by hitting up every rich guy in the cove.

  I clicked on the email, sitting back with my jaw on the floor when I saw the nasty photos and dirty requests being made on her part. “Asshole,” I whispered.

  I deleted it, noting he hadn’t even opened it yet. Sage, his girlfriend, would thank me later for that. I searched Sasha’s name in his account, wrinkling my nose when I saw there were plenty of emails he had opened. It had been going on for weeks.

  “Gross.” I closed the email app and walked away from the computer to check out the other things in his large suite. His walls were bare; not even artwork graced them. But on the wall opposite his bed, he had a large white case of shiny silver and gold football trophies. He was the running back for the Crimson Cove Cruisers. Not because he wanted it, but because he was told he would be.

  I ran my finger over the glass case, streaking it with a wide smudge. It gave me a sick amount of pleasure to do it. Everything about him was always immaculate, especially the way his room was. I knew the smudge would torment him.

/>   I bit my lip and turned around, narrowing my gaze on his extra large king-sized bed. A wrinkle crossed my nose as my lips lifted into a sneer.

  It was akin to walking into Hugh Hefner’s house and seeing the den of sin he called a bedroom.

  Certainly that was the iconic symbol Vincent strived to pattern his life after and imagined himself most similar to.

  Well, maybe not on all levels. He did have impeccable manners and was always dressed like he was meeting someone of importance. Even his casual clothes were overly dressy. He suited Sage in that respect perfectly. They looked like a couple from a Hugo ad.

  When I got to the bed, I sat but I didn't look down, for fear I would catch a glimpse of something unholy that one only bought at a filthy shop on the bad side of town. I hoped that was the only thing I caught. The thought made me stand and shudder as I bent forward to look in the drawers instead of sitting. God only knew if crabs could jump that high.

  One couldn't be too sure with a guy like Vincent.

  I rifled through his drawers, noting how tidy they were. A sign of a very sick individual. In my drawers you could lose a hand. You could hardly walk in my room most mornings, until Lori got there. Then it was eerily clean.

  The bottom drawer seemed shallower than the top one. I pushed them both in and paused, seeing that from the front of the bedside table they were the same size. I opened the bottom one again and pushed on the wooden base. It pressed down like it was connected to a spring and then lifted.

  A slow grin crossed my lips as I slipped my fingers in the sides and pulled the bottom out with the few items still sitting perfectly on the board.

  Below was a gold mine of things I desperately wanted to unsee the moment I saw them.

  Naked Polaroids of girls I recognized either from TV or school, lubes, condoms, two burner phones, and one gold key. I slipped the key into my pocket and picked up the phones. I turned them both on and sent myself a text from each, and then deleted the text I’d sent and turned them back off. I put them back and checked the numbers on my cell phone. I didn't know either number.