Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
J
Finn’s presence is smothering me. He’s sitting way too close to me on Courtney’s couch, his giant leg pressed against mine.
“Go over there,” I hiss, keeping an eye on my watch. I want to concentrate on asking Courtney my questions, and I can’t afford to have my watch beeping and screaming because of Finn Cross.
“There’s no room,” Finn says casually.
I sit up and fling my arm at the three-seater couch. There’s an entire length of the sofa empty. He acts like he doesn’t understand and leans back, sprawling out like a king on his throne and pushing me even farther into the corner of the couch.
Flipping David-sculpture, fallen-angel-looking jerk!
Just then, Courtney bounds in with glasses of lemonade. “I’m so sorry I don’t have anything else to offer.”
“This is fine.” I beam a giant smile at her. “Thank you.”
“No. Thank you.” Courtney’s eyes are locked on Finn. She hasn’t stopped looking at him since she ran out the front door, asking for a picture. “I still can’t believe one of The Kings is sitting in my living room, drinking my lemonade. This is unreal.”
I wrap my fingers around the cup, struck by a sudden wave of annoyance. She’s mentioned how unreal this is several times.
“What color are your eyes, Finn?” Courtney blurts. And then she covers her mouth and giggles. “Sorry. I just… from the pictures online, they looked black, but right now, they’re almost light brown.”
I try not to throw up. Is this what Courtney calls “flirting”? It’s so desperate, and why is Finn just sitting there and taking it? Why isn’t he threatening to kill her in her sleep the way he does to me?
The rockstar obviously likes the attention.
Well, screw him.
I’m on business, and I won’t let Finn and his gorgeous face steamroll this opportunity.
“Ahem.” I clear my throat. “Courtney, when we were chatting online, you told me that Kelly went missing six years ago.”
Courtney blinks at me as if she’s just registering my existence. “Oh, yeah. Yeah.”
“I looked it up, but I didn’t find any online articles about Kelly’s disappearance.”
“It didn’t make the national news or anything. Kelly had issues with her parents, so the police wrote it off as a teenage runaway. Her parents didn’t seem to care either. Kelly never really had a great relationship with… them…”
Drool starts running down the side of Courtney’s mouth.
I look at what she’s staring at and roll my eyes.
Finn is rolling up the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt, revealing masculine arms with veins running down the length of them. Courtney inches forward like she wants to lick her way up those veins.
I watch their interaction. My chest feels like someone is taking my ribs and tying them into a tight, little knot.
I check my watch.
It’s silent.
How?
I’m feeling intense discomfort right now, enough to make me want to grab Courtney by the chin and shove her face away. This sensation has to be from the stress of not getting any closer to the truth.
I inhale deeply and release it.
“Courtney?” I snap my fingers.
She jolts. “What was I saying? Oh, right. Kelly went missing. I think… I think I have a news clip from that time. I won the school Math Decathlon that year.” Courtney throws a proud look in Finn’s direction. “So I was on the second page, but the story about Kelly was on the front.”
When Courtney leaves to fish out the old newspaper, I cup my chin in my open palm and rest my elbow on the arm of the chair.
Finn turns to me, and his knee pushes mine deeper into the sofa.
It takes a concerted effort not to notice that leg or the arm that he spreads along the back of the chair so he can lean over me.
“Who’s Kelly? And why are you investigating her?”
I want to answer, but with his face this close to mine, I can see straight into his irises.
Courtney was right. Finn’s eyes are a light brown in the sun. They’re usually dark and shadowy around me. Always intense. Always murderous and suspicious.
But around Courtney?
Pure, honey-chocolate brown.
“None of your business,” I mumble, pulling my fingers into fists.
He arches a brow.
The discomfort in my chest scratches and claws at me. I have no idea what’s happening or why I suddenly feel like grabbing both Finn and Courtney by their hair.
Are the pills I took this morning messing with my brain?
“Found them!” Courtney sings as she saunters into view. I try to ignore the fact that the neckline of her blouse is now several inches lower than it was when she first came out to greet us.
If I had a body like that, I’d show it off too.
So, why do I want to throw a sheet over her neck?
“Here.” Courtney, totally oblivious to the chaos in my mind, hands over the newspaper and a school yearbook.
I take the article while Finn takes the yearbook and casually flips through it.
My eyes devour every word of the article. The small-town publication reported that Kelly Porter went missing after she snuck out of the house to meet a boyfriend.
“Who was her boyfriend at the time?” I ask.
“Um.” Courtney taps her bottom lip. “Jonathan Reynolds. He was the most popular guy in school—the tall jock with rich parents type. All the girls were after him.” Courtney stops and looks at Finn. “Except me. I preferred the quiet, sensitive types. Musicians, if you want to be specific—”
“So, Jonathan was arrested?” I interrupt her, glaring a hole into her skull.
Finn looks up from the yearbook, and I can tell he’s laughing at me by the slight twitch of his dull-pink lips.
“No.” Courtney blinks. “Jonathan had an air-tight alibi. He was at the basketball court with his friends when Kelly came out. But here’s the thing.
” Courtney leans forward. “Everyone knew Jonathan’s family was tight with the sheriff’s office.
There’s no way his mother would let him get arrested and ruin his golden future.
They were the ones pushing hard for the fact that Kelly was just missing. ”
“So, why do you think she died?”
“One of his friends told someone that he lied about Jonathan being there. He said Jonathan left the court earlier than what they told the police. That rumor got around town.”
“The cops ignored that? They just wrapped up the case saying Kelly ran away?”
“There was no evidence of foul play, and the parents supposedly found a note,” Courtney says with a casual shrug. “A few years later, the Porters moved away, and I heard they passed in a plane crash. The only person left is Kelly’s aunt. I’m not sure where she is though.”
I scratch the base of my neck, mentally sorting through the new revelations. How does the Kelly I know factor into all this? Is she the same person who was rumored to be murdered by her boyfriend back from the dead?
Or an entirely different person altogether?
“J,” Finn calls. He holds out the yearbook and taps one long, tan finger against a group picture.
I take a cursory glance at first and then double back and snatch the yearbook from him. The photo reveals a group of ten high schoolers holding up a sign for a charity canned food drive. The two girls in the middle look exactly alike.
“Courtney, did Kelly have a twin?” I demand.
“No, she didn’t.” Courtney scoots to the edge of her chair to see into the yearbook, and her eyes brighten in recognition.
“Oh, that’s Gina Codd. There was this other girl who looked just like Kelly.
I mean, there were minor differences, but they looked so much alike that people kept mistaking them for each other. ”
“Were they secretly sisters switched at birth?” I ask. “Or did Kelly’s dad have a mistress?”
“No, no. Mr. Porter was down bad for his wife. The guy was couples goals for everyone in town.”
“What about Gina’s parents?”
“Gina’s dad worked in the mines, and her mom was a seamstress. You could pretty much tell Gina and Kelly apart by their style. Kelly was always wearing the latest designer clothes and Gina…” Courtney’s eyes dart to the left as she sheepishly admits, “They called Gina ‘Budget Kelly.’”
My heart starts flogging my ribs.
I get an excited surge in my gut.
I’m on the cusp of the breakthrough I’ve been searching for.
“I’m guessing Kelly didn’t like that very much,” I murmur, so excited that I can barely speak.
Beep. Beep.
Finn gives me the stink eye.
“Did Gina ever fight back in some way? Or did she ever have a disagreement with Kelly?”
Courtney scrunches her nose. “Not as far as I can remember. She was younger than us, so she was in a different class.”
My excitement plummets.
“Although… there was a rumor going around a little before Kelly disappeared. One of Jonathan’s buddies said Budget Kelly did her makeup and hair just like the Real Kelly and fooled Jonathan into sleeping with her. Then he found out who she was and told her off.”
“Is that true?” I ask, nearly levitating off my seat.
Beep.
“Calm down, Ghost,” Finn snarls.
How can I be calm? This is it. This is the answer.
Courtney looks between me and Finn. “I don’t know.
Stories in small towns tend to get bigger and more exaggerated the further they travel.
But Gina didn’t seem like the type to do something that unhinged.
She never fought back when people made fun of her.
She just smiled and laughed along. She was cool like that. ”
No one is “cool like that” when they’re being made fun of and constantly compared to someone everyone else thinks is “better.”
I know that intimately.
“Does anyone know where Gina was the night Kelly disappeared?” I ask.
“Noooo.” Courtney drags out the word, her eyes narrowing. “What’s that beeping sound?”
“Nothing.”
A familiar, sharp pain strikes my chest, but the adrenaline rush flowing through me is too fulfilling.
I grit my teeth and sit up as straight as I can.
Finn is hovering over me, looking for signs of pain.
If he sees me folding over and clutching my chest, he’s going to do something crazy, and I have so many more questions.
“Courtney, are you still in contact with Jonathan?”
“I’m not. I think he moved out of the country.”
Beep.
“Let’s go, J.” Finn peels out of the chair and rises to his feet, a monster with smoke flaring through his nostrils.
Sweat beads on my neck. I pretend not to hear him. “By chance, do you know where Gina’s parents live or if they’re still in town?”
“Yeah, they are,” Courtney says. “Hey, are you okay? Your face is getting really red.”
My chest pumps up and down.
It feels like someone is tightening my ribs until they crack.
Damn this weak, pathetic body of mine. My mind is locked in, incredibly willing to keep going, but my body has the strength of a paper bag, easily crumpled.
“I’m… okay.” I grimace and try to subtly rub my chest. “Can I have directions…”
I’m flying off the couch and landing in Finn’s arms before I can fully pronounce the word “directions.”
“Stubborn, bull-headed…” Shadow Prince mutters expletives under his breath as he launches out of Courtney’s house.
Eyes squeezed shut and chest screaming with pain, I wave my phone and tell Courtney weakly, “Text… me.”