Betrayal (17 page)

“What's up?” she asked.

“I heard some really disturbing news and I just had to call to give you my support,” Starla said.

“What did you hear?” Beth asked, now wishing she hadn't answered the phone.

Starla hesitated a little, as if conflicted about what she was going to say.

“I heard that they are questioning you about the murder of Olivia Grant.”

Beth's heart fell like someone had yanked it out and bungee-corded it off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. She didn't say anything. She almost couldn't breathe.

“You know,
your
exchange student,” Starla said.

Not wanting to give Starla the satisfaction of riling her up, Beth answered casually, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Beth was irritated and angry at the same time. Starla was obviously feigning concern and was fishing for more information. The last time Starla called her was in sixth grade when she was doing a book report on China and wanted to know the length of the Great Wall.

“You know, in miles,” Starla had said.

“Sorry,” Beth had answered, though she wasn't sorry at all. “I don't know how deep the Grand Canyon is either.”

To which Starla had famously replied, “Why would I ever ask that? That's in America. Don't you just know about the Great Wall? Aren't you Chinese?”

But that was then. This was now. This was about a murder investigation.

Starla went in for the kill. “I heard that you're the prime suspect because you had a fight with Olivia the night of the party and the police have evidence against you.”

“Who told you this bit of news?” Beth asked, doing her best to remain cool, which wasn't easy.

“A friend,” Starla said. “Let's just leave it at that. You don't have to get all over me because I just called to
help
. Circumstances beyond my control have pushed me in the direction of the juvenile justice system and, well, I just think that if you're in trouble you need to know that I'm here for you.”

“Thank you, Starla. I really appreciate your thoughtlessness. I mean
thoughtfulness
.”

Beth didn't even wait for Starla to answer. She cut the call short and hung up.

A friend?
Beth had told only one person that she thought she was in trouble. Why did Taylor tell Starla, the girl who wanted nothing more than to be the center of attention, all day, and every day?

KEVIN RYAN ON DEADLINE was not a pretty sight. He looked more like the criminals he was writing about than the purveyor of their sordid stories. When he was racing to the finish, Kevin didn't shave and he didn't shower until noon. Hygiene could wait during the crunch of getting a book off to his New York publisher. He even wore the same ratty Levi's for three days (at least that's what he'd admit to—his daughters thought it was closer to five).

As he tapped away on his keyboard, he heard a pounding at the front door that came with the fury of a WWF wrestler. He turned and looked out the window. He had been expecting a FedEx with some jail mug shots from a county so small and backwards it didn't have a scanner. No familiar delivery truck, but still the very persistent and bruising knock.

“Taylor, can you get that?” he called out.

No answer. She probably had her headphones on.

Kevin sighed, saved his file, and scooted down the hallway. En route to the door, he noted that the chronically pathetic Boston fern on the entry table looked like it needed water or a quick trip to the compost pile. He'd opt for water, if he'd only remember to do it.

He swung open the door to a fuming, looking-for-trouble Beth Lee.

“Hi, Beth,” he said, immediately noticing her puffy, red eyes.

Barely making eye contact, Beth asked, “Hey, Mr. Ryan. Is Taylor here? I need to talk to her . . .
now
.”

Kevin had known Beth since she was a baby. While Beth wasn't on the bus the day of the crash, her sister, Christina, had been, and the tragedy had brought the two families close together.

“You okay?” he asked, knowing that she wasn't okay at all. He opened the door wider.

She looked up at him and shook her head. “No, I'm not. I'm really, really upset.”

“About Olivia?” he asked.

Beth turned her gaze downward. “No. I mean, yes, about Olivia, but mostly about Taylor.”

Upset about Taylor?
He didn't even want to ask.

“She's in her room. Go on up.”

Beth pushed past him, her familiar Doc Martens hitting the floor-boards hard. She disappeared up the stairs.

Kevin shut the door wondering how he was going to survive teenage drama with all the regular drama that seemed to permeate Port Gamble like a thick fog.

A second later, Beth Lee appeared in Taylor's doorway.

“Hey,” Taylor said, looking up from her laptop. She pulled off her earbuds. “I didn't know you were coming over.”

“I can't believe you told Starla,” Beth said, still in the doorway.

Taylor cocked her head a little. “Told her what?”

Beth had told herself that she was going to say what was on her mind and then leave. She was not going to cry. She hated crying in front of anyone. And yet, she could feel the tightness of her throat, throttling her, trying to force her to do so.

She fought it hard.

“You know damn well what you told her. I thought we were friends and that I could trust you. I feel bad enough about Olivia and everything and I didn't need you of all people to make things worse.”

Taylor got off her bed.“I don't know what you're talking about. Really.”

Beth held out her hand, keeping Taylor at arm's length.

“You know something?” she said, her eyes now brimming with tears.

“After Christina died, I felt like you were my family. Your mom, your dad, but mostly you and your sister
were
my family. I knew I couldn't ever match the kind of closeness that you and Hayley have. I get that. I understand the whole twin thing. But you made me feel like I was your sister.”

“You are like a sister to us, to
me
,” Taylor said, confused.

Beth crossed her arms. “That's almost funny. Because as much as I know you have complained to me about Hayley and Colton and everything, I've never once said anything to either one of them. I figured you needed a sounding board, separate from Hayley.”

“I do, and you are it,” Taylor said.

“Part of me was a little bit glad that you felt left out. I've always felt a little left out. Now I know that when I'm really scared, when I really need someone to support me, you aren't that person. You told Starla something I wanted to keep between us.”

“I never told her anything,” Taylor said.

Beth was shaking she was so mad, so hurt. “You know what really bites, Taylor? You can look right at me and lie.”

Taylor, now trembling, shook her head. “I'm not. I swear it.”

Beth refused to waver.

“Whatever,” she said. “I don't know if I can forgive you. I'm going through lots of stuff right now. And I guess I'm going to have to do it alone. Thanks for nothing, Taylor.”

“I didn't tell Starla anything,” Taylor repeated. “Sit down. Let's talk about this. There has to be some other explanation.”

“I'm not talking. I'm not staying.”

“Please,” Taylor said, now almost ready to cry herself.

Beth shook her head. “Here,” she said, pulling a frayed bracelet from her wrist. Her hand trembled a little as she held it out to Taylor.

Taylor knew what it was and what it meant immediately. She, Hayley, and Beth had made matching friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss and seed beads. They'd promised never to take them off. Hayley's and Taylor's fell off a month or two after they'd made them. Not Beth's. Beth had worn hers every day since seventh grade. Until today.

“I don't want that,” Taylor said.

“Neither do I.” Beth dropped the bracelet on the bedroom floor. She turned around and ran down the stairs.

The front door slammed so hard it rattled the dishes in the china hutch. Kevin looked up from his computer screen. A second later, Taylor's door slammed shut. Kevin knew that it wasn't his place to intercede. Teenage girls take no prisoners. No dad ever wanted to be caught in the middle.

The place in the middle was filled with quicksand.

BACK IN HER OWN BEDROOM, Beth Lee pulled down the window shades and ignored the texts from Taylor, a series of which had started to bombard her as she walked home from the Ryans:

Beth flopped on her bed and buried her face in her favorite squishy pillow. She wanted to shut out everything that had to do with Olivia Grant just then, but she couldn't. She felt such guilt, such deep shame, over what she had said to Olivia the day she died. Trying to make it go away only served to push it more in the forefront of her thoughts. It ran over and over in her mind even as she desperately sought to erase it forever. Right after she had snapped the Polaroid, before she opened the door for Drew, Beth had begged Olivia not to go to the party without her.

“Don't be so bloody needy, Beth,” Olivia had said, running her fingers through her long red hair. “You're so intense about everything. Everything is so important. I mean, costume shopping with you was fun, but now I need to get out of here.”

“Don't go! Let's just stay here and have our own Halloween party,” Beth had thrown out in desperation.

“Are you kidding? That's crazy. I wish I'd been assigned to another family. Cheers,” she said and slipped out the door.

At the time, Beth had considered jamming out Olivia's eyes with the chopsticks in her hair, but the idea was only a thought, not a plan. As the front door closed, in an undertone so very low, Beth let out her final thought: “I wish you would drop dead.”

The memory sent a pool of acid to her stomach, and Beth fought the urge to throw up. Saying something so ugly to another person wasn't who Beth was or wanted to be.

Yet she'd done it once before. She hated thinking about it, but that horrible memory came back so, so clearly.

The night before the Daisies' crash a decade before, her sister, Christina, refused to let her use the periwinkle-blue crayon. Beth had wanted it for some flowers she was drawing, but Christina was using it to color a Disney princess and refused to hand it over.

“It's the wrong blue,” Beth had said, trying to give her sister a better color.

“No,” Christina had said firmly. “Mine.
You
use another.”

Beth had shoved the box from the tabletop to the floor. A rainbow of crayons scattered. She pushed back from the kitchen table and started for her room.

“I wish you were dead,” she had said, stomping away. “If you were dead I'd use any color I want any time I want. You'd never boss me around again. You're such a brat!”

“You're mean!” Christina had cried.

By the middle of the next day, rain pouring down, wind howling across the Hood Canal Bridge, Christina and four others had perished in the choppy, cold water. For two years the Disney princess coloring book page hung on the Lee refrigerator. It was the last thing that Christina Lee had made.

Every day Beth had looked at it and wanted to tear it into confetti and flush it down the toilet, because she'd never get a chance to unsay the awful thing she'd said.

Now, Beth had done it again. She had wished Olivia Grant dead. And she was.

Beth rolled onto her back and looked at the web of tiny cracks in the plaster ceiling. She didn't believe in the supernatural, but she did believe in coincidence and karma. Two people were dead, and Beth tossed and turned on her bed wondering,
Did I have something to do with it?

She got up and went for her sketching supplies. She fished through the pile and found just the right pencil. She drew water, sky, and an island in the center of it all. Her movement across the page was fast and furious. Somewhere between art and therapy, a picture emerged.

All in periwinkle blue.

Christina, I miss you. If Olivia is with you, tell her I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.

Chapter 17

IT WAS LIKELY ONE OF THE SADDEST homecomings ever. The British Airways flight from Seattle to London carried the entire Grant family home. Edward and Winnie were ensconced in business class, while their daughter was stacked among the luggage in the cargo hold. The dead sixteen-year-old's body, released from the Kitsap County morgue the day before its departure home for burial, had been sealed in a wooden box and then in a box marked with red and black biohazard stickers and a notation that the coffin contained human remains. Down in the belly of the 747, the air was cold and the sound of the aircraft was nearly deafening. It was no place for the living. And aside from the animals being shipped overseas, it wasn't.

Inside the passenger section of the aircraft, Edward and Winnie tried to pass the time watching movies, but neither could focus on anything. Edward, in particular, was having a hard time of it. He wondered over and over if there was something he could have done that would have changed what happened to his only child. If he'd let her go to Malta with friends the previous summer, maybe she would have met a boy. Maybe she would have never come home, and while that would have been far less than ideal, it would have been better than going to America and being killed. Everything would have been different. The ramblings of his mind were ludicrous and he knew it, but he'd lost his baby and the hurt of that loss was deeper than he could have imagined.

People had tried to make Edward feel better. They told him that time heals all wounds. Even those who had lost a child of their own offered words of comfort. But what was meant as a gesture of support came across as glib. Edward Grant was coming to the realization that there was no loss greater than the loss of one's child. And even with all his money, status, and power, there was not a single thing he could do about it.