I nodded slow. “Do you know when they all moved to Lantana and into the manor?”
“I want to say it was a little before Taylor was born,” Courtney drew out, her gaze drifting over my head and into the past. “Mom and Dad still aren’t big fans of mine, but they love their grandbaby, and have since I told them I was pregnant. Mom even threw a huge party for my baby shower and invited your mom. What’s even wilder is that your mom actually came.”
“She came?” My brows hit my hairline. “The same woman who called you an insolent slut went to a baby shower for a kid named Chlamydia?”
Courtney giggled even as she swatted me. “She absolutely did, and she brought Sue.Your mom,” she stressed, “was very polite and courteous the entire time. She congratulated me and gifted Taylor the cutest pair of purple baby booties. Butyour sisterspent my entire baby shower hitting up my family, friends, and all the other moms to invest in her new organic skincare line—SueNaturals.The flagship product of SueNation,” she mocked.
“Yikes.”
“Yeah, yikes, and now we get to thegood part.”
“No,” I groaned, massaging my temple. “Please, don’t tell me there’s more. There can’t be more after my sister went full psycho racist bitch on an innocent waitress.”
She gave me an amused smirk. “Oh, there’s more all right. Sue clearly believed all she had to do was wait for the heat to die down, and then everyone would be willing to forgive and forget. But she was wrong. No one wanted a thing to do with SueNaturals, or the lifestyle brand she was trying to resurrect.
“She claimed she invented the formula for an all-in-one, all-natural and organic face cream that was a moisturizer, anti-wrinkler, and blemish-eraser. She hawked it like mad, but she clearly couldn’t get the buzz going, because suddenly an ad went up on the Lantana Business Bureau website saying she was taking on affiliates.
“For every jar an affiliate sold, they’d get a seventy percent cut of the sticker price.”
I whistled. “Wow. That was generous of her.”
“Wasn’t it?” Her smirk went nowhere. “All of a sudden, SueNaturals was the talk of Lantana. People were holding parties and inviting all of their friends to hear about this amazing, revolutionary new face cream. They were getting their own followers all whipped up.
“Sue was making money again, and she was loving it. All of a sudden, she was back on the hashtag-femboss scene, going on about expanding into fashion with SueThreads and money management with SueMoola.”
“But...” I drew out.
“But—” Courtney cut herself off giggling. “All of a sudden, the first batch of SueNaturals customers started reporting rashes, breakouts, hives,and skin infections in the places where they applied her cream. Sue swore up, down, and sideways that it had nothing to do with her product, and she wasn’t responsible, so one of them took it to a lab to be analyzed.”
She was laughing so hard she could barely get it out. “The report came back and—and—it turned out there was no special, all-natural super formula at all! It was just a bunch of other popular face cream brands all mixed together with the special ingredient! Poop!”
I jerked in my seat. “What! Did you just say poop?”
“Poop, Sarah! Bird poooooopp! Shit! Excrement!” She was crying, she was laughing so hard. “Sue scooped the crap out of the bottom of Tweety’s cage, plopped it in a jar, and charged two hundred dollars for it! And when the wives of Lantana found out, they sued her ass so hard and fast, she couldn’t sit down for a month.”
My jaw worked for a full minute. “They... sued her?”
“You bet they did. Not only that, but she was slapped with a huge fine by the FDA and ordered to stop selling immediately,” she said. “Sue settled all the lawsuits out of court and made them all sign NDAs as a condition for payment. I guess she thought that would be enough to make it all go away because, yes, she did attend the Lantana Street Fair last year with her SueNaturals booth.
“But she wasn’t the fucking h-headliner.” Court caught another case of the giggles. “Sarah, they chased her out of there—screaming and pelting her with anything they could get their hands on. Someone actually stole a tray of my cupcakes just to throw at her!”
If there was something to say in response to all of that, I didn’t know what it was. For eight hours, my sister blathered on and on about her perfect life and successful business, and it was all a lie.
“Wow,” I whispered. “Just wow.”
She squeezed my wrist. “Look, I told you all of that not only because it brought me great joy, but because I need you to know that Sue wasn’t the smart one, or the creative one, or the successful one. The only thing she had on you was being a better liar and bully. You’re the best twin, Sarah. Doesn’t matter that you had a ten-year delay, you will make all of your dreams come true.”
My eyes swam. “Now you’re making me cry.”
A knock sounded on the glass, drawing our attention to the figure in the window.
An older woman with thick-framed glasses, wispy red hair, and a worn, threadbare brown coat knocked on the glass again, and then pointed to the stack of papers in her hand.
“One sec.” Courtney went to the door. Flipping the lock, she stuck her head out. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Hello,” floated to my ear. “You won’t know who I am, but my name is Collette Williams. My daughter, Tracy Williams, has been m-missing for two w-weeks.” I saw her eyes well through the glass. “She was last seen leaving her job at the post office on the night of the fourteenth”—Mrs. Williams turned and pointed to the post office right at the end of the street—“and I haven’t heard from her since.
“My daughter wouldn’t leave without telling me. She just wouldn’t.” A shaky hand peeled a piece of paper off her stack. “This is my girl. Have you ever seen her before? Maybe— Maybe she came in one afternoon for a cupcake or...?” She trailed off at Courtney’s headshake.
