These girls were the killers. JD steadied himself against the mantel above the fireplace, trying to get his thoughts to come one at a time, rather than all at once. The current was fast and there was no jumping to shore.
Before he turned away, another item in the case caught his eye. Up in the right-hand corner was a pen. Not just any pen. The fancy one, embellished with silver swirls, that he’d given to Em as a gift two Christmases ago. It was the kind of pen you kept—refilling it with ink when it ran dry, using it only to write down your most important secrets. He remembered how she’d looked at him when she opened the box on Christmas morning, still wearing her striped pajamas.
This is for a real writer, she’d said, her eyes glowing shyly.
That’s why you should have it, he’d responded.
And there it was, lying lost in the Furies’ case of terrible triumphs. He balled his hand into a fist and raised it high above his head, compelled to smash the glass, retrieve the pen, and get the hell out of this haunted house.
Suddenly, Ali appeared right next to him, close enough to make his arm hairs prickle. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
He stumbled backward, knowing that his face betrayed a look of both shock and fear. JD tried desperately to appear unfazed. “Hi! I, ah, didn’t know you were here. I was just . . . ” He trailed off, unable to come up with an excuse.
“I heard you two come in,” she said, smiling coyly. ?“I thought I’d come say hello. I’ve got to keep a pretty close watch on her these days.”
On Ty? Me too, he thought.
“Yeah, I ran into Ty out there in the woods. . . . She’s just in the kitchen,” JD said, pointing vaguely. “I think.” His mind was racing. Should he excuse himself and make a break for it? Being here with Ty and these trophies was bad enough. Now he had two of them to deal with? And what if Meg was home too . . . ? There was a seesaw tipping back and forth in his stomach, and JD felt vaguely seasick.
Ali’s eyes narrowed. Her lashes and eyebrows were so light that her eyes appeared as pricks of black on a white canvas. The room hung with silence as heavy as the drapes. “You know, you should be careful,” she came right out and said at last. “If Ty’s paying attention to you, that means she wants something. And when she wants something, it’s never good.”
A wave of cold broke over him. “What does that mean?” He wondered if he should say something about the trophies, call her out on being connected to the murders, or simply run.
“It’s a warning,” Ali said. “If things don’t go according to plan, it’ll be worse for everyone.”
“Well, I don’t know what the plan is,” he said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little late to this party.”
She smiled brightly. “And it’s been such a fun one. . . . ” Then her face clouded over slightly. “Until Ty got carried away. She doesn’t understand. We’re family. We’re supposed to stay together. . . . ” She trailed off and looked past JD at the trophy case.
“She doesn’t understand what?” JD asked. He knew he should leave, but he needed answers. His frustration and fear were mounting, and he felt like he might bubble over at any second. If there had been something to throw, he would have, then. He wanted to break something. To see it shatter into a million pieces.
“Well, I can’t tell you that,” Ali said. “We have a lot of secrets. I just want to make sure no one was spilling them.” She looked pointedly toward the kitchen.
“I know your secrets,” JD bluffed.
Another tinkling laugh. “Oh, no you don’t,” she taunted. She sidled right up next to him and whispered the next bit into his ear, making him shrink away. “If you did, the past few months would have been very different. In fact, someone’s been keeping secrets from you.”
She was like a cat, batting him back and forth between her paws. He was at her mercy. His brain might as well have been rattling in his skull. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said tonelessly. But he desperately wanted to know.
“Aw, that hit on the head must have confused you,” Ali cooed, reaching up to trace a finger along the scar on his forehead.
It felt like a hot poker being dragged across his skin. He jerked away. “What do you know about that?”
Ali tossed her hair over one shoulder and reached a pointy fingernail up to tap her lips in an exaggerated expression of thought. “I seem to remember a construction site . . . a pipe . . . a terrible accident . . . and a girl who was so in love that she did whatever we asked her to do in order to save you.”
The seeds. Em. That night at the Behemoth.
He’d had it all wrong.
Em. Oh god, Em.
“So all that stuff about Crow . . . ” JD trailed off, recalling how convinced he’d been that he’d seen her kissing Crow at the construction site. How he’d believed Crow was the one responsible for knocking him out. Now, in a flash, he knew otherwise. It wasn’t Crow—it never had been. It had been the Furies all along. They’d tricked him. Possibly even messed with his mind somehow.