Third Time's a Charm (Crimson Cove Mysteries Book 3) Page 14

  “I love that you and Finn are together.” She smiled when she said it, I could tell. I guessed it was because she knew I was really over Vincent. She was probably the only person who knew I really had loved him.

  “Kay, chat later.”

  “Bye.”

  I hung up and opened the door to get the food. The smell of dim sum greeted me, mixed with warm air to counter the cold and my hungry stomach.

  When I got back to the apartment Finn hadn’t changed position. Not even slightly.

  I laid out the food and dished myself up and went and sat by him. Kevin jumped up, sniffing at my plate. I wanted to shoo him away, but decided it was fair since I sniffed him all the time.

  “I’m back,” I whispered as I ate a pork pot sticker.

  Finn turned, and seemed dazed for a moment. “Holy shit. I didn’t even hear you. I was really into it.” He took off his glasses, making my stomach tighten. I loved it when he took them off. They didn’t bother me, but I loved seeing his eyes on their own. They were vast oceans of dark blue. There was so much more beyond the surface than what you got.

  Except when he finished a heavy session on the computer, then they were tired.

  He didn’t get his own food. He ate off my plate next to his cat sniffing me and the food.

  “What are you doing?” I nodded at the computer.

  “Trying to find evidence of money laundering. This guy runs a couple of front operations, and he uses the losses from them to avoid taxes. It’s going to take a while, but I will have it all by the end of the week.”

  “Is there anything you can’t do on a computer?”

  He chewed my dim sum and contemplated for a moment. Watching him eat was sexy, but watching him eat and think was even better. “No. I think I can do most things I need to do.”

  “Can you do things like get me a meeting with Andrew in the jail where he’s being held before trial?”

  His jaw tightened and he paused.

  “Can you?”

  “Maybe.” He scowled, one of his few facial expressions. “Why would I?”

  “I want to see him. I want to ask him questions. I want to know who the girl is.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He took another of my dumplings.

  “I’m not asking. I’m telling you this is what I want. If you don’t help me I’ll find another way.”

  “Sierra.”

  “No. I have to see him.”

  “He’s crazy.” His voice rose slightly.

  “I’m not afraid of him, even though I should be. I’m not.”

  “All the more reason not to do this. You aren’t being cautious. You need to be. He killed twenty people.”

  “I know. And he helped torture Jake. I know.”

  He got up, giving me a look as he walked to the food and grabbed a plate. He opened a fortune cookie and smiled as he walked over to me while he chewed on it.

  He put the plate down and took my hand, wrapping the paper around one of my fingers like a ring. “If I say yes, will you go just once and never ask this of me again?”

  “One time. It’s all I need anyway. Sage is going to come with me. Andrew always kinda had a thing for her. He wasn’t the brightest though, so she never would have considered him. Plus, the whole chronic thing.” I lifted my hand and unwrapped the fortune, smiling when I saw what it said. “Love is like war, easy to begin but hard to stop.”

  His cheesy smile spread across his lips. “That’s the truest fortune I’ve ever had.” He leaned across the food on my lap and brushed his lips against mine. They tasted like cookie and dim sum and him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Doppelgänger

  “Her eyes were round, with like those good eyelid hoods where the eye shadow is super visible and the winged eyeliner is always flawless, like Adele’s. She had a scar on her lip, nose, and eyebrow like she had an old piercing in them all. Her eyebrows had those perfect arches.”

  “So almond-shaped eyes and eyebrows on fleek?”

  “Yeah. And she had pouty lips, sort of perfect. Rounded with a perfect bow on the top. Not too big though. And she had bangs, which I thought were heavy for her face. She wore so much dark makeup and then those intense bangs. It was too much.”

  “With a round face, yikes.” Sage scoffed.

  “And I got a hipster vibe from her, sort of granola and unsure about gender. It was random, but I saw her staring at my boobs.” I rolled my eyes. “Just my luck. Some sexually repressed sadist.”

  “Focus,” Sage snapped. Her sweet-as-pie BS was over, thank the gods of all things holy. We didn’t have to endure the sickly sweet Sage anymore. She still brought it in front of strangers and parents, not hers, but the others.

  “She had a short neck and she was short. She was thin but not skinny. Like she definitely wouldn’t have fit comfortably in anything designer. Maybe a size six or eight. Not quite fat.”

  “Size eight is fat,” Sage murmured but Ashton rolled his eyes.

  “Neither are fat, Sage. Eight is curvy. Just because you girls are all thin as sticks—” He said it and stopped, staring directly at me.

  “It’s fine. I was thin before.” I lifted a hand to calm him down.

  “Sorry.” He leaned on the counter. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “I know, it’s fine. Really.”

  “Focus!” Sage continued drawing.

  Ashton made a face and I snickered. “She had heavy hair, long and thick. There was a subtle curl to it, like she might straighten it and if not, it was a hot mess of unruly curls. Her skin was pale and her eyes were dark blue with a stare in them. It wasn’t just cruelty but also hatred lingering there. She hated me, more than I could hate anything.” I closed my eyes and forced the image away.

  Sage drew, scratching at the paper. And then after a few moments she spoke, “Is this her?”

  I opened my eyes and flinched the moment I saw the spitting image of the girl with the dark hair.

  “Nice, Sis. Good job.”

  Sweat burst out of every pore all at once. “That’s her.”

  “I’ve seen her before.” Ashton tilted his head, frowning and thinking.

  “I haven’t.” Sage flipped the paper around and shook her head.

  Lainey and Lindsey walked into the room with a tray of mugs of cocoa for us all. Sage spun the paper around and everything slowed down.

  Lainey’s face fell first as obvious recognition of the girl hit hard.

  Linds paused and scowled. In perfect harmony her face dropped in confusion as the tray slipped from her hands. It plummeted forward with the hot brown liquid sloshing out in slow motion, or maybe I slowed it down in my mind.

  Either way, she lost the wave of cocoa and then fell to her knees, instantly shaking and breathing in heaves.

  Lainey looked the same.

  I didn’t know who this girl was, but I knew the expressions on my friends’ faces.

  They not only knew this girl, they cared for her. Linds was betrayed by her in some way.

  Sage screamed about the cocoa, calling for their maids to come. Ashton grabbed a towel and started cleaning up. The house was brand new. The Blacks had only lived in it for a small amount of time.

  Lain wrapped an arm around Linds who sobbed, shaking her head and muttering something. I couldn’t hear it. I was stuck in the chaos of the moment.

  Rita watched with me, clearly perplexed about who the dark-haired girl was. I shrugged.

  “Hailey,” Lainey spoke after several minutes. “Her name is Hailey.” She glanced at Linds as if to check on her after the name was said. “She worked at the Shack coffeehouse all summer.”

  “She’s the girl who came the night Rachel died. We were all in the hot tub and she came to hang out. She was right there.” Linds spoke softly, “Playing me all along.”

  Everything Lindsey didn’t say was shouted loud and clear in her obvious embarrassment and seeing the effect Hailey had on her. Linds had crushed on Hailey. She had be
en her first mark.

  The experience at the mental institute with her torturing me had held a certain dirty quality. But knowing she was friends with one of us made it worse. She was twisted, the same way Andrew was. Twisted and screwed up. The thought of them as two mentally insane sides of the same coin, one you flipped over and over trying to find the other side, only to be turned around in the madness of the mirror images, gave me an idea. “Was Andrew ever committed?”

  “To what?” Ashton gave me a look.

  “A mental institute.”

  “Only rehab, as far as I heard,” Sage snarled and then went back to shouting at the maids.

  “Yeah. He said it was rehab because his parents were pissed about the weed. But I heard my mother talking to Mrs. Henning. Andrew had been acting odd, going in and out of what she called a daze. He sat and stared at walls for well, days. I guess that's where the term daze came from.” Ashton nodded.

  Lainey wrinkled her forehead in doubt but Linds looked like she recalled something. “Oh my God, I remember that. I found the admission form in his house. I have a screenshot of it in here.” She lifted her phone with her trembling hands and swiped and entered a seven-number access code. Then she pressed her fingertip down. Her screen came to life as a question popped up. She answered it but I couldn't read it. It was encrypted.

  “You’re a freak.” Sage rolled her eyes. “Who has that many locks on their phone?”

  “You would too if you had everyone’s sins catalogued.” She scrolled until she came up with his name. “Here it is. His mother said it was the weed making him fade out. She sent him to rehab in the city, but they sent him somewhere else. Not Silver Hills. Some place on the far side of the city, on Broad Street. It looks like a regular skyscraper but the upper ten floors are actually dedicated to an intense therapy center, Engelmann. That’s the name. I Googled it after I found the admission papers. It’s a weird place. The whole bottom of the building is used for research into mental illness. The patients can be given court-ordered treatments there, or in other cases, are sent there when isolation is important. But Andrew was like fifteen when he was admitted and he never went back. It was one time. His mom figured he was better. I assumed he had become better at hiding the side effects of being stoned.”

  “What if Hailey was there at the same time? What if she and Andrew met at Engelmann? What if this plan has been going on a lot longer than we think?”

  They stared at me, all of them, processing what I’d said. No one moved or spoke.

  The silence was awkward; it was frightening.

  We had assumed so many things and we knew nothing.

  My phone rang, interrupting us and making everyone jump, including Ashton. “Hey?” I breathed into the phone.

  “Hey. You okay?” Finn’s voice was a welcome sound.

  “Yeah, just trying to figure shit out. How’s it going there?” I’d left the city without him. He was madly trying to finish the job he had on the go.

  “Good. I just wanted to let you know you made it into the visitation schedule with Andrew. He will see you and Sage Wednesday at 6:30 in the high-risk section. He thinks he’s meeting a lawyer so dress fancy, and not Sierra and Sage fancy. Legal team fancy.”

  “You’re the best.” I grinned.

  “I know.”

  “Can you hack medical records from weird mental institutes?” I smiled wide, hating that I was asking, but it was the most logical use of his God-given talents, so why waste them?

  “Yeah.” He sounded skeptical.

  “Can you find a name and some information if I give it to you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Please. I would be exceptionally grateful.” I tilted my head down and muttered the second part.

  “Text me the deets and I’ll contemplate my gratuity.” He was smiling while speaking, something he didn't do often.

  “Okay, I will. Thanks.”

  “I miss you and the way my apartment feels with you in it.” He dropped the sentence, just like a bomb. No emotion but tons of meaning.

  “I miss you too. The apartment is probably something we will have to revisit with a Sotheby’s agent, but the cats can come.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “I’ll see you as soon as you’re done.” I didn't want to say anything in front of my friends. I didn't want to be mushy. I hated mushy. Love sucked . . . I suspected any day we would be sitting on the same side of the booth, holding hands underneath it. I was becoming a monster.

  “You will see me the moment I am done.” He hung up without goodbye. He hated goodbye. He just hung up. It was weird.

  I put my phone down and grinned. “Text me the dates and names of the place Andrew was. Finn will find what we're looking for.”

  “How will he find the girl?” Sage stared at the photo. “Hailey.”

  “Cross-checking the female patients.” Lainey rolled her eyes. “If she was there, Finn will find her.”

  I gave Sage a look. “We’re in to see Andrew on Wednesday, with the high-risk group. He thinks we’re lawyers so we have to dress office style. You and me.”

  Her eyes widened. “We have that history test.”

  “After school. It’s at 6:30.”

  “And we’ll be in the parking lot, waiting to hear what he said.” Rita nodded, rubbing Sage’s arm. “You’ll be fine. I swear. Those meetings are super protected.”

  Lindsey nodded. “She’s right. They’re guarded. If they think he’s psychotic. Your conversation might be recorded so you’ll have to be careful.”

  My insides were still crawling from the news that the girl with the dark hair was a friend of ours. I didn’t have the spare anxiety to think about meeting with Andrew. Thankfully, I didn’t fear him. He was still Andrew to me. Goofy and high and kinda dumb.

  Looking at our group of friends, I realized I missed the girls I still saw them as.

  I missed stupid things like Rachel tagging me in some Instagram photo where I was obligated to leave a remark like “Hair Goals” with a lame heart and several burning emojis. And then of course I would have had to complain about how bad the photo made me look, while still praising her. I actually missed that required girl habit, even if I never bothered to do it before. I made my maid do it. Eve went through and did all my required girl messaging.

  I missed Sage tagging me in some bullshit post that made her look great to everyone else. She tried to drag me in with her, all of us really. But I resisted and always left some slutty remark to mess with her.

  I really missed watching Sage do Lain’s makeup because she was a fail. I couldn’t believe I missed Rachel telling us we were Feisty Spice, Nerdy Spice, and Spacey Spice. I always wanted to punch her in the face when she called Linds Beefy Spice. But I didn’t. I should have. Rachel was always Sexy Spice unless she wasn’t there. Then it was Bitchy Spice, which suited her even more than Hipster Lying Whore Spice.

  I missed the simplicity of our lives, the very ones we had been certain were hard.

  I hated hindsight for the lesson it brought about cherishing every day and living in the moment.

  But most of all, I hated myself for ever rushing or wasting time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Boy

  “You okay?” Lain leaned in, giving me a look.

  “What? Yeah. I was just thinking,” I lied. I wasn’t thinking, I was stressing. The parking lot of the New Haven Corrections Facility had become real the moment we parked. I went from cool and indifferent to almost hysterical.

  I vibrated with anxiety as Lain gave me a small shake. “Stay calm. You run the show. Not him. Stroke his ego. Tell him how smart it was to meet a girl at Engelmann and then plot a dastardly murder with her.”

  A smile twitched on my lips. “Did you say dastardly?” I laughed, suddenly calmer.

  “Shut up. I’ve been watching old movies all week.” She rolled her eyes. “My point is to be smart. Let him torment you both a little bit but then pull it back. Don’t let him stay in contro
l or he won’t answer anything.”

  Sage swallowed hard. She wasn’t amused by dastardly the way the rest of us were.

  Vincent and Jake stood outside the car waiting for us. When we climbed out they helped, Jake holding my hand tighter than he had ever held anything of mine. “Don’t let him see you respond if he says something disgusting to you. He wants a response, that’s all.”

  Vince gave a weak smile, but I could tell he was equally disturbed by the idea.

  We were in over our heads.

  Sage stood and slipped her fingers into mine, squeezing tightly as I slipped on the glasses Lain had loaned us. They had nothing but glass in them, but they looked amazing with our hair pulled up tight in buns and our work suits. Sage wore a skirt but I went for pants. Technically, I had stolen the outfit from my mom. I didn’t imagine she had anywhere to go in pants anyway.

  “Let’s not make it a big deal. We’ll be back in a minute.” I nodded and walked off with Sage.

  She gripped the pen and file folder, and I held my phone and summoned as much courage as I was capable of as we made our way across the pavement.

  “You okay?” I asked as we neared the front entry.

  “No. I’m terrified. Andrew has always weirded me out. He’s creepy.”

  “Tim Burton is creepy. Andrew is friggin’ screwed in the head.” I gave her a sideways glance as we climbed the steps. “I’m not okay either. I’m scared. All the time. I’m so tired of all this. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of not knowing how to behave. Do we still act like us and ignore the eyes watching and setting us up? Or do we try to hide from the limelight and risk looking guilty of something we aren’t? Do we let Rita into our hearts or do we wait until we know she’s not one of them? It’s all a double-edged sword.”

  “Me too.” She squeezed and then let go.

  A guard opened the door for us, giving us a skeptical look.

  “We’re here to see Andrew Henning, part of the Casey legal team.” I said it with a perfect lie.