“Where the hell are you?”
The line went quiet. After a moment, she whispered, “I’m outside Alden’s house.”
I froze. “Why?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Scout, come home right now.” My heart hammered. “I’m serious.”
“Are you going to make me do this alone?” Her voice was oddly empty. The voice of new Scout.
I knew in my gut that whatever she was planning was a terrible idea. But she had my number, because I would never let her do anything alone.
The taxi dropped me off down the street from the Banks mansion, on a steep incline next to Scout’s Honda Civic, which flashed phantom-white in the taxi’s headlights.
I slipped into the passenger seat and dumped the robe and handcuffs, already sweating. “Let’s go home. I’ll order a pizza. We can watchHousewives. And I’ll never bring this up again.”
“I’ve been watching the house for hours.” Scout’s eyes were glued to the tall gate that guarded the Bankses’ property. “Everyone left. I think he’s alone.”
“Scout, stop.” I raised my voice, cycling through denial into anger. “You’re scaring me.”
She turned. “You asked who would help us.”
“What?”
“At the funeral, you asked who we’re supposed to turn to for help now that the cops have abandoned us. And the answer is, we do it ourselves.”
I looked down at the handcuffs. “Do what?”
“Even the scale.” Scout shoved open the door. “Bring the handcuffs.”
One after the other, we scaled the gate and walked silently past the reindeer-sheared bushes, saying nothing on the long trek up to the house. Georgia had walked up this driveway only a month ago, rolling her eyes, her round baby face flush with exertion. I could see the ghost of her in her red dress beside us, laughing and calling us Romy and Michelle.
We tried the front door, then the side, but it wasn’t until we remembered the butler’s pantry that we made it inside, the sash from my robe balled in my fist. We climbed upstairs just like we did thenight of the party, except this time every creak in the floorboards had me spinning, convinced Scout had miscalculated and someone else was here. She didn’t pause. She was a missile. This version of Scout, I remembered well.
We found Alden’s bedroom at the far end of the third floor. Scout flung open the door and suddenly there he was, the boy who had occupied so much of my attention, lying in bed in blue plaid boxers, a small lamp illuminating the book in his hand. We froze in the doorway, staring. Alden froze in bed, staring back. He was long and lanky, so skinny you could see his ribs.
“What are you doing here?” he croaked.
“We came to talk about Georgia.” Scout swept toward him. I followed, closing the door and locking it.
Alden dropped his book and scrambled back against his headboard, trying to climb to the farthest corner of his bed.
“Grab him,” Scout said simply.
A strange thing had happened to me. At Scout’s order, all the terror I’d felt sneaking through the house dissipated, replaced by cold fury. Georgia was decaying in the ground and he was warm and comfortable in bed?
I lunged at him with the handcuffs and sash, wrestling for control of his arms while Scout pinned his legs. Alden and I fought, his fist connecting with my cheek, but I had his shock on my side and managed to shove him back, his head clipping the wall. I caught his wrist in a fuzzy handcuff, looping it through the rails of his bed frame so it held him in place.
“What are you doing?” he screamed.
“Shut up.” My voice was unrecognizable.
“I didn’t kill her.” He tried to push against me. “I swear!”
I managed to bend his other arm behind him, capturing it in the other cuff. I stood back from the bed, breathing hard and sweating, unable to believe I’d pulled it off. My cheek burned from where he’d hit me.
“We know you’re lying.” Scout tied his feet together with my bathrobe sash, so tight the skin around the knot went white. “You ambushed her in the pool house.”
