“Well, isn’t that nice?” Mrs. Coldwell asked in a singsong. “Can I get you some hot cocoa, Mackenzie? A homemade chocolate chip cookie?”
“That’s okay,” Mac said. Mrs. Coldwell smiled for another beat, then murmured something about leaving the girls alone. She slipped into the back of the house.
Mac shifted awkwardly in the foyer, staring at the pictures on the console table. There was still a picture of her and Claire from a few years ago on the stage at the Seattle Symphony Hall. They were smiling so lovingly at each other, arms around each other’s waists.
Then she looked up at Claire. “What are you up to tonight?”
Claire glared. Her tone was acidic, her expression withering. “Why do you care?”
“So you’re not leaving the house?”
Claire just stared. “Does it look like I’m leaving the house?” She placed her hands on her hips. “What do you want, Mackenzie? To rub it in that you’re seeing Oliver?” She rolled her eyes. “He seems lame, if you ask me. I never wanted him anyway.”
Mac pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, wanting to retort that it had definitely seemed otherwise at Umami. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except keeping Claire safe.
“Uh, I’m not dating Oliver,” Mac blurted. “We’re just friends. That’s what I came to tell you, actually.” The words rushed out fast, though they weren’t a lie. She hadn’t heard from Oliver in days: It seemed like he’d gotten the picture. “He’s yours if you want him.”
Claire made a face. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds.” Then she slammed the door in Mac’s face.
Still, Mac didn’t feel bad. Problem solved, after all. She practically bounced along the driveway, filled with relief. Claire was safe—for tonight, at least.
She pressed the button on her keychain and her Escape beeped, flashing its lights. Just as she pulled the door handle and ducked inside, she spotted a car gliding slowly, sharklike, down the street toward her, its lights off. Mac slumped down in the driver’s seat and peeked out the window as the car made its way past Claire’s house. With a gasp, she recognized the make and model—an older Subaru Outback. And she flinched when she saw the lone figure sitting stone-faced behind the steering wheel.
Was that . . . Julie?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“CAITLIN? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING to me?”
The sound of Jeremy’s voice through the Bluetooth snapped Caitlin back into reality. Her mind had been wandering—and so had her car, apparently. It was Thursday night, and she’d been driving around aimlessly for at least an hour, something she often did when she just needed some quiet time to sort out her thoughts. Squinting through her windshield, she realized that she had steered out of her own neighborhood and all the way to the outskirts of Beacon Heights.
“Sorry, I’m here.” She scrambled to catch up to what Jeremy had been saying over the phone. Something about a sci-fi movie marathon at a little art house in Seattle the following weekend. “That sounds great. And—oh. The whole team is bugging me to go to Nyssa’s Halloween party tomorrow. You’ll come, right?”
“A Halloween party?” Jeremy sounded circumspect.
“I’m not really in the mood, either, but maybe it will be fun,” Caitlin said. “We’ll dress up, have some beers . . .”
Jeremy snorted sarcastically. “Since when do you know me as someone who likes to dress up and drink beer?”
Something inside Caitlin twisted—she’d really hoped Jeremy would just say yes without complaint. “I’m planning on going as a UDub cheerleader, if that helps,” she said enticingly, trying to keep the mood light. “It involves a super-short mini . . .”
He sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll go, but only for you.” She heard him swallow. “Are you okay? You’ve been kind of . . . strange, lately. Not really yourself.”
“Yes! I’m fine. Just really tired.” She yawned as if to emphasize the point. “I haven’t been sleeping well. It’s making it hard to think straight.”
“So then nothing’s going on?”
Jeremy sounded more resigned than irritated. Caitlin hated keeping stuff from him, building up the stacks of lies between them. Even little things: Though her parents had been informed, she’d kept it from Jeremy that a psychological profiler had questioned her. She could have explained it easily to him, but she’d decided not to. And then there was everything worse: What if he knew about Granger? And how would he see her if he knew she’d sat in a circle of girls and named people they wanted dead—and now those very people were getting murdered right and left?
“Is it the stuff with Ava’s stepmom?” Jeremy guessed.
Caitlin took a breath. “Yeah,” she admitted. The story had been all over school. “I just feel so bad for Ava,” she said.
Jeremy sniffed. “I thought you told me Ava hated her stepmom.”
Oops. Caitlin had told him that. “Well, hate is a strong word,” she said quickly. Then she looked out the window. “You know what? I think I’m lost.”
“Where are you?”