Chapter One
Hollie
Five Years Later
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d rather have invasive surgery than attend a dinner party thrown by my stepmother.
Yet here I am, at six-thirty on a Wednesday.
It’s a warm night. When the Uber drops me off outside the glamorous, gated property in Boulder Creek, Canyon’s most exclusive neighborhood, I glance down at my choice of dress.
It’s floor-length, emerald green satin with a deep ‘V’ at the front, which I wore during my graduation celebrations in London.
Much like my hair, which has a dyed, rose-pink hue, I already know that Evelyn Wallace, the mayor of Canyon, is not going to like it.
Through the gates, outside lights illuminate the grand house.
There’s a portico around the front door.
I walk along the path, noticing the immaculately maintained grounds.
It’s been a while since I’ve been here, since I usually avoid this place like the plague.
I’m unsurprised to find my key doesn’t work in the front door, because the lock appears to have been changed since I was last here. Instead, I blow out my cheeks, ring the front doorbell, push out my chin and wait.
It’s a long while before anyone answers. Eventually, one of the waiting staff comes to the door.
‘Good evening,’ she says as I enter.
‘Hello,’ I say politely. ‘I’m family,’ I add, as though to justify my existence.
Above me, my stepbrother’s voice drowns out her response.
‘You do know who is coming to this party, right?’ he drawls as he walks down one half of the double curved staircase.
Doug Wallace is an all-American asshole who gave me the ick from the moment I met him, when he was thirteen.
It’s a shame I’ve never had the guts to say that to his face.
Now, he’s a classic jock: tall, broad-shouldered, with blond hair, and tonight he’s wearing a tux with a black bow tie.
‘It’s not exactly the occasion to show off your tits, Hollie.
Although your rack is so small, I doubt anybody would notice. ’
I don’t flinch, because this, coming from my stepbrother, is standard. The waitress scuttles back toward the kitchen. I hear a shrill voice sound out above him: my stepmother of six years, Evelyn Wallace. ‘Is that Hollie arrived?’
‘She’s here, Mom,’ Doug confirms, tilting his head up toward where the voice is coming from. ‘Although, she might wanna rethink her wardrobe selection.’
I close my eyes for a moment and focus on my breathing. When I open them again, Evelyn appears, wearing a knee-length cocktail dress, off-the-shoulder, lavender-colored with an oversized bow. Her hair’s had a fresh blowout and she’s fixing her gold earring. She comes to the top of the stairs.
‘What do you mean, rethink her—’
She moves partway down, then comes to a halt when she sees me. Not a hello, Hollie or how are you? Just, ‘Oh, Hollie, no. No, no, no. That’s not the look we’re going for tonight.’
I peer down at my dress again, smoothing down the satin material stretched across my stomach. ‘It was all I had.’
She comes all the way down the stairs so that she’s level with Doug. I note how she grips his upper arm, almost in a protective stance. ‘It’s not exactly conservative, honey. The county sheriff is coming tonight, along with the chief of police. Let’s put you in something else.’
‘I’m pretty happy the way I am.’
Evelyn shakes her head. ‘I’ll be frank. It’s too low-cut. This is Texas, sweetie. You cannot wear that dress tonight. Come.’
She’s calling me upstairs. It’s nights like this that remind me why I should move back to England, asap. I don’t know how I’ve ended up back here for so long.
I pass Doug on the stairs. He sticks out his tongue and waggles it up and down lewdly. I offer him a middle finger.
‘Mom! Hollie flipped the bird,’ he says out loud, and for a moment, Evelyn comes to a halt on the stairs ahead of me. I see her head tilt to one side before she continues upward.
I follow her at a distance, around the curved balustrade of the atrium.
I swear, this is one of only about five houses in Canyon with an actual atrium, complete with a majestic domed ceiling.
On the curved wall are framed pictures of Doug at all ages.
Currently in his sophomore – or second – year at Canyon U, aged nineteen, he lives in college dorms, but he has a habit of using this house as his own personal party pad, and he is the main reason I refuse to live here.
I follow Evelyn into the master bedroom, then onwards into her walk-in closet. Inside, I find my father standing in front of the wall-length mirror, straightening his tie.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he says enthusiastically in his British accent.
I open my mouth to respond, but Evelyn interrupts me. ‘We’re changing her dress, honey,’ she barks.
Dad turns and looks me up and down. ‘You look lovely.’
Evelyn’s tone is terse. ‘Rick. Honey.’
My lips thin as I indicate the low-cut nature of my dress. Dad’s mouth goes into an ‘O’ shape. No sound comes out, but he nods his head. That she calls him ‘Rick’ makes me crease up on the inside. I don’t know when the ‘h’ in ‘Rich’ got replaced with a hard ‘k’.
Evelyn is working her way through a nearby rack, flipping through a row of dresses, each of them in its own protective covering. ‘Got it!’ she announces, moments later. ‘This is the one I was thinking of.’
I hear a zipper before she pulls out a copper brown satin cocktail dress with thick straps.
‘Go put this one on, honey,’ she commands me, the hanger dangling from one finger at the end of her outstretched arm. ‘It’ll suit you.’
A few minutes later, I know the dress doesn’t suit me.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror in one of the spare bedrooms. It’s at least one size too big, ill-fitting and the square neckline sags at the breast. When I go out in the corridor to voice my objection, Evelyn is already back downstairs with my dad, as the other guests are beginning to arrive.
The flash from a camera fills my vision. I see spots again, as the noise level in the room grows louder. My arm is wrapped around Dad’s waist while more ‘family’ pictures are taken. It was Evelyn’s desire that we put on a united front.
When Evelyn calls time on the photographer, my fake smile evaporates. Dad presses his lips against my temple and gives my waist a squeeze.
‘All done,’ he says to me lightly, as Evelyn moves back off to mingle with her guests. ‘Everything okay?’
I tug at my dress. Across from me, Doug gives me a smirk. He continues to look at me over the rim of his glass of Coke, like he’s itching to say something derogatory.
‘I wish you’d have told me what kind of a party it was,’ I mutter in Dad’s direction. ‘Like, these guests are basically all the richest people in Canyon.’
‘Did I not tell you that?’
I tug at the other side of my dress, uncomfortable. ‘You didn’t say that I was going to have to make conversation with the sheriff, or—’
Evelyn is back, snapping her fingers at my dad. ‘Rick, honey, come say hi.’
He gives me a half smile as he’s dragged away, and Doug seizes an opportunity.
He sidles over to me. ‘That dress is the shade of the Hershey squirts,’ he says from the side of his mouth. ‘It’s like somebody got food poisoning and took an explosive shit all over you.’
‘Let me guess,’ I shoot back. ‘You’ve been storing up that line for the last ten minutes. You must be so pleased with yourself that you finally said it out loud.’
‘Not at all. Just wanted to compliment you on your poop-stained ’fit.’
I wish I was one of those people who had a witty comeback for everything. But I’m not, and social situations only increase my anxiety. So, I stand there, arms by my side, without a drink, watching the crowded room full of party guests and feeling utterly trapped.
For dinner, I’m seated at one end of the extended dining table.
Thankfully, Doug’s at the opposite end. A line of servers emerges from the kitchen carrying the plates with our starter.
I make polite conversation with the woman in her forties next to me, who appears to work for City Hall.
She looks like she wants to be here about as much as I do, and I make small talk about my job as a candy striper, working as a volunteer at Sunset Pines Nursing Home in Electric Hills.
I don’t know when the atmosphere changes exactly, but when the main course is over and as the plates are being cleared, there are raised voices around the center of the table.
‘Chief, my point is, yet again, that progress has stalled,’ a glamorous woman with coiffed hair and dressed in a purple suit raises her voice to the person opposite her.
She has a strong southern accent. ‘We are nowhere closer to resolving this situation than we were a year ago. Rapture is a renegade town. Friday, Saturday nights, the college kids go up there now, did you know that? They go party there, because it’s seen as the latest social media trend.
And Echo Salinger welcomes them with open arms, because it gives more support to his cause. ’
I bristle at the mention of Rapture, the township on the borders of northeast Canyon, because it reminds me of my miserable American high school experience.
‘That’s not true,’ my stepmother says, and the entire room goes quiet. She looks to a younger man in a suit with slicked-back hair. I recognize him as one of her more junior staff. ‘Is that true? Why did I not know about this?’ she asks him, her eyes narrowing.
He looks nervous. ‘Uh, I did not know about that, no.’
‘Scotch & Smoke is the bar,’ the glamorous woman says. ‘They have a system. They give out wristbands to these college kids to gain entry. Echo Salinger’s invested in the most powerful generator possible. You can practically hear rock music from the highway.’
‘Sheriff?’ Evelyn questions a second man, who looks quite young for his role. ‘Did you know about this?’