“Then how’d you afford it? It must have cost a fortune.”
“It was on sale. I got it with Mom’s credit card. She gave it to me.”
“Wow. That was nice of her.”
“You don’t have to be jealous. She’d give it to you, too, if you asked.”
“I’m not jealous, Piper.” She closes one cabinet and opens another. “I don’t need Mom’s credit card. I have my own money from working at the bookstore all summer back home.”
“Well, maybe you should spend it on something other than books. But just so you know, Mom would love to take you shopping for clothes. She’s thrilled that you lost weight and you have a boyfriend.”
Stacey’s appetite disappears. She closes the cabinet. “Mom said that?”
“Pretty much. And by the way, I can’t believe you told her about it before you even told me. I had to hear it from Courtney.”
“Seriously? I never tell you anything! Or Mom, either. Jules told her, okay? And I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Piper shrugs. “Your secret’s safe with me as long as—”
“It’s not a secret.”
“—as long as you don’t say anything about my jacket, or anything else, in case you hear . . . anything else.”
“What would I hear? And from whom?”
“You know, from Lennon. Oh, and you should probably, you know . . . fix yourself up a little before he gets here. Brush your hair, maybe put on your contacts, and some lip gloss and mascara, and some . . . regular clothes.”
She’s wearing her glasses, and the leggings and hoodie she’s planning to sleep in, and has a plastic banana clip in her hair to keep it out of her eyes. Earlier, she’d scrubbed off every trace of makeup.
“Lennon’s not coming over, Piper.”
“Courtney said he was.”
“Well, he’s not.”
“How come?”
“He’s just not, okay?”
“Aren’t you scared to be here alone?”
“No,” she lies.
“I would be. Did you guys break up or something?”
“No! Why are you asking me all these questions? I thought you were leaving.”
Stacey yanks open the refrigerator door, blocking her sister from view. She studies the contents of the shelves without seeing anything.
“Geez. Bye.” Piper’s boot heels carry her out the front door.
Lennon had texted Stacey earlier about coming over tonight while their parents were gone.
Caught her off guard; she hadn’t even known her mom and dad were going out. Anyway, she’d already spent time with him today, and it hadn’t exactly been idyllic.
Can’t tonight. Maybe tomorrow, she wrote back.
Tomorrow you won’t have an empty house.
Won’t have one tonight, either. My sister’s around.
Nope. She’s coming here.
She found herself resenting that he knew more about her family’s plans than she did. And she was uncomfortable with the idea of being alone with him again after yesterday, in his room.
It isn’t just that she’s worried about how far he’ll want to go . . . or how far she’ll want to let him go.
He comes on strong even when they’re apart. He’s been texting her all day. She hadn’t answered the one he’d sent from his guitar lesson because she was sitting in the café with her mother. He wanted to make sure she’d made it home, then when she didn’t answer, he asked, twice, if she was okay.
He called her as soon as his lesson was over. By then, she was back in her room looking up the Toska murder case.
“Why didn’t you text me back?”
“Because I’m busy.”
“I thought something happened to you!”
“I’m fine. Calm down—”
“Hey, you’re the one who said you were attacked by a crazed murderer this afternoon, and now you’re telling me to calm down?”
“I never said he attacked me or that he was a crazed murderer!”
Or had she? She no longer recalls exactly what she’d said or even what had happened earlier on the street.
Standing in the kitchen, all alone in the house where three people had been killed, she kind of wishes she’d caved to Lennon’s persistence about coming over tonight.
I need some space.
She’d actually typed that when he kept bugging her about why not, though she’d hesitated before hitting Send.
You want space, you got it, he’d responded, and she hasn’t heard from him since.
Any other girl would have been excited to spend a romantic evening with her new boyfriend, but Stacey is new to this. She’s used to being alone on Saturday nights.
Anyway, she really is busy, immersed in archived information about the murders at 104 Glover.
So, yeah. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with Lennon. Maybe there’s something wrong with her.
She closes the refrigerator.
Beyond its electronic hum and Kato’s soft snoring from the doormat, she can hear the usual street noise, sirens, low-flying air traffic.
The dog doesn’t stir when she goes over to double-check the lock, or when she leans past him to lower the shade on the window beside the door.
“You’re a lousy watchdog, you know that?”
She pulls down the shades in the kitchen and dining room, too, then does the same at the front windows. Piper hadn’t even bothered to lock the door. Stacey turns the bolt and fastens the old cast-iron chain for good measure. When her parents get home, they can knock.
Climbing the stairs, she pauses to look at the Williams family portrait. Gertrude’s dead eyes bore into her. She’d died on this very spot. Maybe her own mother had killed her. Maybe she really is haunting this house. Maybe they all are—the Toska family included.
Stacey covers the last few steps two at a time and pauses to look at her parents’ closed bedroom door. They’d probably drawn the shades while they were getting dressed to go out, but she peeks in to make sure.
The shades are pulled down. Everything is in perfect order. She hastily closes the door again. If the Toskas are still hanging around, they’re probably haunting this room where they died.
Does that mean Anna’s spirit lingers in Stacey’s room?
You don’t believe in ghosts, remember?
She goes down the hall to Piper’s room. The shade covers the lone window that overlooks the backyard. The bed is unmade, a tangle of clothes she’d tried on and discarded, a few with price tags on them.
Stacey spies a large shopping bag on the floor with a receipt sticking out of it. She picks it up and sees that Piper had used their mother’s credit card to pay full price for a leather jacket that had cost twice as much as Stacey earned in a month at the bookstore back home.
Mom probably wouldn’t care, though. The two of them are so much alike, her mother and sister. So effortlessly attractive. Even Dad. So different, all of them, from Stacey.
But she doesn’t really believe she’s adopted, does she?