Chapter 42
I hustle out of Wren’s house like it’s on fire—which, frankly, it might be soon if my nerves spontaneously combust. Nighttime melts the sun away early this time of year, but Wren’s got enough spotlights in her yard to illuminate a stadium.
I’m thankful for them, considering we’re back to square one with Janet Vick’s killer, who could be lurking in any shadow or behind any corner at any time.
Hadn’t she been complaining about the cost of my photography class when I first met her? But she casually mentioned “coming into money,” which I had assumed meant she’d gotten a job. It appears she meant real money, like a rich uncle died and left her his inheritance kind of money.
But what stops me cold isn’t the enviable car or the silver exhaust pipes running down each side, which I kneel to admire. What concerns me is what’s sitting in the tan leather passenger seat.
Even through the frosted glass I would recognize that color neon pink anywhere.
With my sleeve pulled over my hand I wipe at the icy glaze until the passenger side window reveals the eye-blinding shirt.
How did Wren get it? I consider several options, like maybe Marshall or Gillian planted it in Wren’s car.
Or maybe there are more than one of this specific sweatshirt out there.
There’s no way to know without directly asking Wren, and after she caught me snooping in her spare bedroom, I will certainly not be doing that.
What I do know is that Fred already confessed to Gillian being his mistress at the waterfall, so I know that wasn’t Wren. Plus Wren is young enough to be Fred’s daughter, so it would be downright gross.
Assessing the collection of junk inside, I wonder how she could treat this beautiful vehicle specimen with such carelessness. Apparently it’s become a storage room for all of the clutter she doesn’t have space for in her house. I need to get a better look at that sweatshirt.
My instincts tingle dangerously. I glide closer until my fingers find their way to the door handle. The door is unlocked. Of course it is, because kids her age assume locks are for “old people” like me.
I tug the door open and pick up the sweatshirt. The color is right, but the embroidered letter is wrong. This one has a W, presumably personalized for Wren. Tossing it aside, I’m pretty sure Wren won’t notice a difference if I rifle through fast food wrappers hidden beneath discarded clothes.
The original glove box has the key hole removed and replaced with a knob.
Upon popping it open, the sleek half-moon door falls down revealing a stack of papers inside.
I pick up the top page, which is a purchase contract for this car.
The purchase date is especially noteworthy. It’s the same day Ivory went missing.
“Okay, that’s convenient,” I say aloud.
Beneath the purchase agreement are half a dozen amateur printed photographs, definitely the poor quality I would expect of Wren. What’s more terrifying than the awful angles and poor resolution is that every photo is of me.
Me at my mailbox. Me hiking to Doomwood Falls waterfall. Me in my Juicy-butt-emblazoned sweatpants that Ivory teased me about. My throat tightens. Is Wren the one who has been stalking me?
Another picture shows me and Luca and my mother eating at The Codfather.
We’ve only been out together once in the past four years, the day I got hit by Gillian’s car.
These photos show that Wren had spent a week surveilling me, the pictures of which seem to start the day I met with Ivory for coffee and end on the day of my accident.
A vague piece of a memory slams into me from that day.
The black car careening toward me… but I can’t pull anything more from the image.
Closing my eyes, I force the rest of the picture to congeal as I search for the face behind the wheel.
It’s still a grainy blur of dark hair. The flash of that damn neon pink.
But there’s something more forming as the pink shirt bleeds into the dark hair. Just like the pink tips of Wren’s hair.
“Wren was supposed to kill me…” I sputter.
It explains why she was so surprised to see me after I was released from the hospital.
It was Wren watching me from outside the restaurant window right before the hit-and-run.
The neon pink sweatshirt matching Gillian’s is in Wren’s car.
While Gillian’s car is dented, I think Wren was behind the wheel.
But Wren seemed genuinely surprised to meet Gillian.
Could she be that good of an actress? Or maybe her beau Marshall set the whole thing up.
I don’t have concrete evidence against Wren, but I do have an exorbitant car purchase receipt from the day Ivory disappeared and photos tracking my whereabouts for days afterward.
If I were to follow the money—which most crimes revolve around—I’d conclude that Wren got paid a pretty sum to run me over and used Gillian’s car to do it.
I worked as a photojournalist for years, so I know a feature scoop when I see one.
I also know how to harvest the facts and weed out the fiction.
My gut was rarely wrong when I was in the field, and I know what it’s telling me now: Wren is hired to hurt me.
Maybe even kill me, though I don’t think Wren has the stomach for that.
If I were to guess, I’d say Gillian asked Marshall to find a girl financially desperate enough to help him.
Enter Wren, willing to do almost anything for a quick buck, as long as the risk was minimal.
But I need concrete proof if I’m going to put a stop to their plans, which I’ll find soon enough because I have something they want.
And I’ll use it as collateral for my life if I have to.
“Shari?” Luca calls from the end of the driveway. “What are you doing?”
I bolt up while inside Wren’s Corvette, smacking my head on the roof of the car.
“Nothing!” I squeak, grabbing the entire pile of photos and frantically shoving it under my armpit. “I, just, uh, dropped my house keys.”
How long has my brother been standing there watching me pillage Wren’s car?
“You mean the keys you’re holding?”
“Yep. These ones.” I dangle them in the air. “Found ‘em!”
I close the door shut so gently that the velvety thunk is barely audible as the latch catches, but there’s no hiding from Luca what I’ve been doing. Let’s face it, this is nothing compared to what else he knows about me.
Hurrying down the street toward home, the glossy photos begin slipping free from under my armpit.
A stray picture flutters mid-air, then gracefully lands at my feet before the wind can steal it away.
I pick it up, horrified by what I see. Staring at the print, I don’t know how to make sense of it.
The story I just built about Gillian and Wren and Marshall tumbles down like a house of cards.
“Ivory and Freida are at the house. We’re all waiting on you so we can eat,” Luca says.
He waves me on, but I can’t tear my eyes—or fingers—away from the photo. The paper sticks to my fingertips with a bizarre tackiness. I certainly won’t be eating tonight.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
I swallow, unable to speak. Instead, I lift up the picture to show my brother, and the moment he sees it, he also knows this is bigger than us.
“We’ve got to turn this in to the police.”