Alden’s face was bright red. He was crying. “I didn’t, I swear.”
“Is that where you dreamed of doing it? Did you dream of getting her in bed?”
“I never even went out there!”
Scout sat on his thighs. I hovered next to her, staring at him.
“What was it?” Scout leaned in close and he reared back. “You made a move on her and she said no? Did that damage your fragile ego?”
“We know you were obsessed with her,” I said.
“I loved Georgia,” Alden cried. “I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
“Brooks said you warned other guys she was off-limits.” It had come out in the interview process. “You wanted her all to yourself.”
“And if you couldn’t have her,” Scout added softly, “no one could.”
“I did say that, but—” Alden suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on Scout.
She was pulling a Swiss Army knife out of her pocket. I recognized it as the one she’d gotten during her ill-fated foray into the Girl Scouts. She slid the knife up and looked at the wicked tip.
“What are you going to do?” Alden’s chest was rising and falling too fast. He jerked his head toward the door. “Help!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!”
“Did Georgia scream?” Scout asked. “Did she beg for help while you choked her?”
Tears filled my eyes. I had imagined it so many times.
“What areyou— Someone, help!” Alden thrashed in the bed, and I leaned my weight against his shoulder, suffocating his movements.
“Do you think it’s fair that my sister is dead and you get to go on living?” Scout’s voice was still a whisper. “Live in this big mansion with Daddy’s money and forget she ever existed?”
“No, but I— It wasn’t me!”
“This is so you won’t forget her,” Scout said, and pressed the knife into his chest.
I would never forget the pitch of Alden’s screams. His blood bloomed instantly as Scout carved into him, drawing aG, then anE, then anOthat looked like a marquise diamond, pointy on both ends.
“This is where you put your hands on her,” I told him, my voice barely discernible over his screaming. “She couldn’t have an open casket because your handprints wouldn’t fade. And the doctors couldn’tput her face back together, after what you did. Did it make you proud, the hole you caved in her head?”
Scout turned to me and our eyes met. It was a wordless acknowledgment: We were in this together. Georgia had been mine, too—my little sister, my responsibility, mine to protect. If Scout was going to sink to the bottom of the ocean, I’d tie myself to her and drown by her side. That was what sisters did.
She handed me the bloody knife, metal grip warm from her skin. And in that moment, I knew the truth: I would’ve accepted the knife even if I felt no loyalty. Because it was electrifying to see him in pain. Revenge was intoxicating, transformative, and it possessed me surer than any spirit.
I bent over Alden’s chest and got to work.
Chapter 10Isabel, the Rising Star
TEN YEARS EARLIER, WEST HOLLYWOOD
The next day, Scout and I sat side by side on our couch and waited for the cops to arrive. It would be any minute now. Surprising, even, that it had taken them twenty-four hours, but they’d probably needed to take Alden to the hospital first. The cuts we’d given him would require stitches, we’d made sure of it. Fear rattled inside me at the thought of being handcuffed and taken to jail, but whenever I remembered Alden would spend the rest of his life haunted by Georgia, his body her monument, it made what was coming worth it.
I glanced out the apartment’s second-story window. No red-and-blue lights yet. Only the gentle glow of golden hour, palm fronds blowing in the breeze, the distant sound of an R&B song from a neighbor’s open window.
Maybe they would send Detective Sutherland to bring us in.
“Scout, you want cracked pepper on your pasta?” Brooks peered at us from our small kitchen, wearing my frilly pink apron and waving the pepper grinder. He’d insisted on “taking care of us” ever since we’d returned to California, and no amount of protesting could stop him.
Over the past few hours, he’d tidied our apartment, a mismatched collection of hand-me-downs and thrift-store finds, washed our dishes, and now he was cooking dinner. The entire time, Scout and I had remained glued to the couch, following his movements with vague disinterest. Brooks seemed to interpret our motionless silence as profound grief, and I, of course, would never tell him otherwise. What Scout and I had done last night was between Georgia and ourselves.
