I headed up to my rooms. Usually I took the long way, the back way, but that night I took the main staircase and wandered down the hallway of my father’s victories for what I hoped would be the last time. Whatever happened in the coming days, my father would not be part of my life again. I’d already decided that. I’d worked so hard for his approval—for my mother’s—for Annie’s—but time and time again they’d all rejected me.
It wasn’t evenrejection, I saw now. They were just so fucking in love with themselves that there was no room in their hearts for anyone else.
No room for someone who wasn’tuseful. Like poor Harper had been useful for Annie to sharpen her claws on. Harper had been exactly what Annie had always wanted: a loyal follower who took everything Annie dished out and still insisted that Annie was wonderful.
It hit me that Annie had just been playing out the same dynamic we’d grown up with, the dynamic she’d been taught by our parents. Harper Connelly was themeof her group of friends, the one who was supposed to take all the abuse and the anger and the derision.
The scapegoat.
Where was Harper now, I wondered? Somewhere in LA? Or had she played it smart and headed home, given up her dreams of being famous?
God, I hoped so.
I looked down at the USB in my hand. The idea of polluting the one space I had in this house that was mine with the image of my sister’s dead body… It was too much. So I did a heel-turn from my rooms and headed toward my father’s study instead. I’d use his computer to look at the photographs on the USB and prove to myself that my trust in Jack was not misplaced.
And then I’d call Jack and apologize and beg him to come back.
* * *
My father used his study here in the house so infrequently that he kept all his passwords written down on a sticky note in his top desk drawer. The drawer was locked, but that didn’t slow me down. I just reached for the ornate letter opener sitting on the desk—a mini replica of the Excalibur sword fromCamelot Court—and jimmied at the drawer until the wood splintered and the lock gave. It would be obvious what I’d done, but I didn’t care.
Before long, I had loaded the USB on the computer. But I paused, uncertain. Was there a way to look butnotlook? I opened the first photo, staring doggedly to the side, and let my eyes inch back to the screen so I could take in small parts of the picture at once.
The first few photographs didn’t even show Annie’s body. Just trampled plants and dusty footprints, some shotgun casings, a few splatters of blood on the dirt trail. I was getting so worked up that I almostwishedthe next one would show the body, just so I could get it over and done with.
And then I got my wish. A few photos later, as I let my eyes travel slowly over the corner of the screen, I realized this picture was a full-length photograph of Annie, lying there on the ground, dead and brutallyreal.
I threw my hands over my eyes before I could really see it, before my mind could work something indelible into my memory that I’d never forget. I wrenched open the broken drawer and slapped around inside for the Post-it notes I’d seen in there. I peeled one off, and then, trying not to look straight-on, I planted it on the screen, right over her face.
I had to add another, and then a few more, because the backlight from the screen shone through too much, but at last I had a DIY censor bar over the worst parts of the photograph. I just hoped the damn things wouldn’t fall off before I’d finished looking at…whatever it was I wanted to look at.
Despair flooded into me again. What the hellwasI looking for? What did I hope to accomplish by going through grisly crime scene photos of my sister?
I thought about Annie. Iwasn’tdoing this out of some morbid curiosity. I was doing this because I felt like I owed my sister, the person I’d come into this world with, to at least witness how she’d left it.
I owed her that much before I moved on with my life and tried to forget my whole godawful family for once and for all.
I let my gaze drift, unfocused, and then zeroed in on the bottom left corner, on the feet. On Annie’s feet.
Nope, too much. “For fuck’ssake,” I whispered harshly, willing myself to calm down. I took another breath and looked, hard and long, until my head stopped swimming and my heart stopped hammering.
There. It wasn’t so bad, not as bad as I’d feared, as long as her face was covered up. The uncomfortable cross-turn of her legs, the pathetic way her dead feet fell away from each other… It almost got to me again, but I furiously glared at those damn feet until the threatening tears subsided.
She was wearing flats. Flats with worn toes. Not sneakers—which put a pin in the cops’ idea that she’d been hiking out in the hills. Hiking in flats? No way.
Cheap little flats…
I zoomed in on the sole of the shoe, trying to see if I could guess the brand. It was the left foot—and there was something on her right ankle, slightly hidden by the angle—I zoomed in—wait, dammit…there—
I went numb all over.
Overhead, there was a huge crack of thunder, and I jumped up in fright. The electricity dipped, flickered, went out. The computer shut down along with the lights, leaving me blinking into the darkness.
Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I’d been seeing things. Because the body in those photographs had a tattoo on her right ankle, a poorly-executed red flame.
Annie had no tattoos. She thought it made her less hirable to have recognizable marks on her body. My thoughts flew straight to the story Emma Dempsey had told me, of Annie and Roxy tricking Harper Connelly into getting a tattoo.
But Em hadn’t told me where it was, specifically, on Harper’s body. Maybe I was mistaking a leaf or a shadow or something for a tattoo.
