“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’sjustregistering 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 effortnotto 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 eyesarea 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.
