“Oh shit!” Marnie said. “Please don’t tell us you stole a multimillion-dollar necklace from Clapard.”
“I didn’t. I stole it from Constance.”
Both girls leaned back in shock.
“What? No!” Constance said. “I’d never seen this necklace before you wore it last night.”
That explained why she hadn’t reacted when she saw me, but I was still confused as hell.
“So itwasn’tone of the pieces Clapard loaned you?”
Constance exhaled. “Clapard didn’t loan me anything.”
“Oh shit,” Marnie said again. “I don’t think I want to know what that means.”
“I gave everything back,” Constance said.
“Clearly noteverything,” Marnie said.
I wrapped my face in my hands. “So all the Clapard pieces I wore over the last few days… Now I’m really going to prison, aren’t I? Why did you let me wear them?”
Constance shrugged. “Everyone wears those. They’re a dime a dozen. You could have gotten them anywhere.”
“Yeah, becauseeveryoneknows I can afford Clapard. And with my glowing career, luxury jewelers aredefinitelyfalling over themselves to lend me multimillion-dollar necklaces.”
“Where did you even find it?” Constance asked.
“Under your bed,” I admitted.
“So you thought you would just wear it in front of, like, a hundred people?”
“It’s so beautiful,” I said, sheepish.
“That’s a great reason.”
“Stop!” Marnie said. “It’s done now. The lying, the stealing, the murdering… All of that is done. Let’s focus on damage control.”
She grabbed her phone and came to kneel in front of both us. She flicked through all the photos I’d posted as we scrutinized them in silence.
“Okay, okay,” she said, between sharp breaths. “In this one, your hair is completely hiding it. You’d never recognize it. And in that one, it’s tucked away under the cape.”
“I should delete these,” I said, already reaching for my phone.
“Don’t do that,” Marnie said. “It will make us all look even more guilty.”
Constance’s lips quivered. “This is all my fault.”
“Yes,” I said, even though it really wasn’t. “But if you go down, I go down with you. I’m the one who wore the freaking necklace in public and I’m not ready to face the consequences. I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it.”
Constance exhaled deeply. “Maybe we don’t have to.”
Constance
“We’ll stay here all day. No one will know. The police can’t talk to us if they can’t find us.”
We couldn’t talk to the police in this state anyway, with the guilt still sprayed all over us like sea mist.
“Because that’s not going to make us look suspicious at all,” Lou said. “The three of us hiding from the police.”
