CHAPTER Sixteen
The day seems to go on forever. Finally, the last bell rings. I trudge toward my locker, my textbooks feeling heavier than they normally do. It takes me three tries to get my locker open because my eyes keep blurring when I stare at the little numbers. I am beyond exhausted.
“So Regina is totally pissed.” Mattie leans against the locker next to mine.
“I told her I called the police using the pay phone,” I say wearily. “I don’t know what else she wants me to do. Turn myself in?”
“She keeps talking about how Scotch was misunderstood and really was a good guy underneath it all.”
“Ugh,” I say. Though I feel bad that Scotch’s mom has cancer, I’m fairly certain he’s not a good guy.
“Pretty much. I’ll try talking some sense into her at practice. Are you going straight home?”
“Yeah, I’ll catch a ride with Rollins.”
“Oh,” Mattie says, her eyes getting all big like she knows something that I don’t.
“What is it?”
“I just saw him walking out to the parking lot with Anna. I assumed you weren’t riding with him.”
My heart falls. I’d really been hoping for a chance to tell Rollins about what happened last night. I’m still not sure I did the right thing by calling the cops anonymously. I wanted to get his perspective because clearly Samantha isn’t going to be a moral compass in this matter. And Mattie’s too invested. She doesn’t want to see me get in trouble.
I slam my locker door shut. “Great. I guess I’ll walk. Again.”
Mattie grabs my hand. “I’ll see you when I get home.” She lets go and hurries down the hallway, her ponytail bouncing.
I hoist my backpack onto my shoulders and somehow summon the energy to walk home. The sun is warm on my face, and it would be an enjoyable hike if it weren’t for the morbid thoughts circling in my head. I keep wondering what’s happening at Lookout Point. Did the paramedics, realizing that Scotch was nonresponsive, zip him into a body bag and load him onto a gurney? Are the police searching the woods for any evidence of foul play? Do Scotch’s parents know yet?
When I turn onto my street, Lydia’s yellow car in my driveway almost makes me want to turn around and run the other way. She’s the last person I want to see right now, but I don’t really have anywhere else to go. I turn the knob slowly and push open the front door. Inside, I hear nothing. After setting my backpack down and hanging up my jacket, I scope out the kitchen and living room. No one’s there. I check out the upstairs. All the bedrooms are empty, and the bathroom door is wide open. No one is inside.
It appears that Lydia went out for the day. This piques my curiosity. Where would she go without her car?
I stand in the doorway to Mattie’s room. The shades are drawn, painting the walls in darkness. I’m tempted to open them or turn on a light, but Mattie’s window faces the driveway, and I don’t want Lydia to realize someone is in here if she comes home early. I can make out a suitcase on the floor next to the closet, though, and I kneel down beside it.
My heart hammers in my chest. I grab the zipper and pull it open, exposing a bunch of wadded-up clothes. One thing is for sure: my aunt isn’t the neatest person in the world. I recognize the outfit she wore when she showed up at the front door. It’s damp and shoved into a corner of the suitcase. Poking through the clothes doesn’t reveal more than my aunt’s preference for black silk underwear, unfortunately.
I push the clothes back into the suitcase and zip it up, noticing a pocket on the front that I hadn’t seen before. From the bulge, I’m able to tell there’s definitely something inside. Excited, I yank open the zipper and thrust my hand in. My fingers close around a leather wallet. Bingo. I pull it out so I can examine it properly.
Inside, I find a wad of receipts from places in San Francisco. A few credit cards. And her driver’s license. All of these items have the same name on them, but they’re not my aunt’s name. They say “Lila Harrington.”
Who is Lila Harrington?
That’s when I hear the front door open.
Crap crap crap crap crap.
My dad’s at work, and Mattie’s at cheerleading practice, meaning there’s only one other person who’d be walking into our house.
Lydia.
My panic makes me uncoordinated, and I struggle with stuffing the wallet back into the suitcase pocket. It takes me several tries to zip it up. I scramble to my feet and am poised to race out the door when something on the bureau catches my eye.
It is the picture of my mother in a sombrero.
The one I thought I lost last Thursday, before I got into the car accident.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, and the sound is enough to shake me out of my paralysis. I rush out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me. Somehow I make it to my doorway and bolt inside.
Lydia comes down the hall and pauses outside my room. “Hello, Vee.”
I’m out of breath. “Huh-hi. How was your day?”
“It was great.” She ticks off her daily activities on her fingers. “Took a walk around the neighborhood this morning. Lovely houses. Had a late lunch at this cute diner. They had the best pie. Seriously. I’ll have to take you there sometime. Then I walked around downtown and did some window-shopping.” She sighs. “The weather is just perfect today, don’t you think?”
“Perfect,” I agree, hoping she doesn’t see the way my smile wobbles.
Her face turns more serious. “I was hoping we could have a little talk.”
“Um, okay.”
Lydia shifts her weight, looking uncomfortable. “I want you to know I didn’t say anything to your father about you coming in late last night.”
My heart pounds. “What are you talking about? I went to sleep early.”
She gives me a long look. “Right.”
“What? Don’t you believe me?”
“I wasn’t exactly born yesterday, Vee.”
We stare at each other.
If she was the one who slid into me before Scotch’s accident, of course she would know I wasn’t in my bed.
After a long moment, Lydia says, “So you weren’t out with that boy? Rollins?”
“No,” I sputter, confused. “I told you. I wasn’t feeling well. I was in bed.”
She sighs. “Look, are you at least using protection?” The maternal tone she uses makes me want to vomit. Who does she think she is, anyway?
“I’m not having sex,” I say. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Promise me,” she says. “Promise me that if you do have sex, you’ll use protection. I’ll even take you to Planned Parenthood if you want. We can get you on the pill.”
“Jesus. What’s your problem?”
She takes a few steps into my room, puts her hand on my shoulder. “I just want to be here for you. I’ve been without a real family for so long. I want to be a good aunt to you. Vee, if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”
She pats me on the back, and I feel all my muscles tense. She sighs and backs away from me. “See you at dinner.”
“Wait,” I say, thinking of the picture I saw in her room. I want some confirmation that Lydia’s as shady as I think she is. “Have you seen a picture of my mother lying around anywhere? She’s wearing a sombrero. It’s from her honeymoon.”
Is my mind playing tricks on me, or did Lydia’s muscles just tighten, ever so slightly?
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Sure, I saw that picture. It was lying on the floor under the couch downstairs. I held on to it for a little while. Is it yours?”
I hold her gaze. She doesn’t look away.
“Do you want it? I can go get it for you,” Lydia offers.
“Yes, please.”
I hold my breath as she walks down the hallway. Doing the math in my head, I realize the last time I saw the picture was at breakfast on Thursday morning. It was missing by suppertime that night. What if Lydia is lying about finding it underneath the couch? Is it possible she was following me the day I lost it? Could I have dropped it in the parking lot or something? If so, Lydia could have slid into me that night and forced me to steal my father’s car, hoping I would get into an accident. But then, seeing I wasn’t hurt badly enough, she could have taken her plan a step further and decided to infiltrate our home. To destroy us from the inside out.
This speculation makes me feel crazy.
Still, when Lydia returns with the picture and presses it into my hand, I see an arch in her eyebrow that makes me wonder if I’m not.