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“Just Blaise, please,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Can I get you anything, sugar?”
It’s easy to see where Lindsey got her sweetness once I met her mother. She has the same sweet voice, the same ladylike manner. She’s as blonde and tan as Lindsey, but she has the plump look of the fortyish housewife that she is. She’s like the perfect PTO soccer mom. She makes cute cupcakes with decorative frosting and cookies with sparkly sugar on top, and she comes to every event where Lindsey might perform or be honored in any way.
Apparently she’s also a descendent of some old southern aristocracy, and Daria says she brought a lot of money with her when she married Lindsey’s dad, the cut-throat lawyer who Chase threatened to sic on George.
And who’s currently being investigated for murder.
“Lindsey asked me to bring her some tea?” I say, feeling unsure, as I usually do around other people’s parents. I can’t help but watch her from the corner of my eye. Is she judging me for whatever my mom told her about that party? Or did Mom try to laugh it off and pretend it was just a miscommunication?
“Oh, of course,” she says. “The glasses are right here.”
I feel like an idiot, remembering that Lindsey wanted iced tea. For some reason I pictured her drinking from a teacup with a saucer like an English lady from a Jane Austen movie, even though I haven’t had that kind of tea since Meghan buried my tea set in the back yard when I was ten.
We said we’d never have tea without each other, and we buried the set so we could dig it up the next time she came. But the next time she came wasn’t for a whole year, and by then I was old enough to talk about boys instead of tea parties. As Blaise pours three glasses of sweet tea, I think about that tea set, still in the ground behind our old Connecticut home. I wonder if some little girl will find it someday when she’s digging for worms in the back yard, or if it will stay buried forever, like a secret taken to the grave.
I shiver remembering the other day when I got home to find my family watching Local News with Jackie. There was a clip mentioning the investigation. Apparently a worker was knocked out and buried alive at Mr. Dolce’s construction site—after getting into an argument with Mr. Darling earlier in the day, in front of the rest of the work crew.
“Here you go, honey,” Blaise says, setting down a tray with three gold-rimmed glasses of iced tea, each one notched with a slice of orange on the rim.
I pick it up awkwardly and thank her.
Does she think her husband is capable of murder? You’d never know such a thing was hanging over this house. Everyone wears their manners so well, as if their breeding is a shield against outsiders.
Our families have a lot in common that way.
“You just go on up, sugar,” she says, taking the tray. “I’ll have Becky bring this up to you with some snacks in a minute.”
“I can get it,” I say, taking it back. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m not used to having literal servants around. I feel like I’ve suddenly stepped into the eighteen hundreds. Back in Connecticut, we had a maid who came to clean our house once a week, but Lindsey has full-time help who lives at her house.
I feel even more awkward around the maid than around Mrs. Darling. I stand there for a second, not sure if she’s going to give me the snacks to bring up too. When she doesn’t, I head upstairs, praying Lindsey and Chase are done fighting.
I’m halfway up the winding staircase when Lindsey’s brother appears at the top. I want to turn around and run back to the kitchen, but I force myself to keep climbing.
Preston’s eyes lock on me with keen interest as he descends, like a hawk who spotted a rabbit in the grass. He’s wearing a pair of low-slung, cream sweats and a black sleeveless workout shirt that clings to his muscular body and reminds me exactly how strong he is, even with one of his forearms in a cast. He’s also hot, if you can ignore the calculating look in his eyes.
The cops are clearly investigating the wrong Darling man. Preston might as well walk around waving a red flag because there’s no way he’s not a stone-cold sociopath.
He watches me a second, waiting for me to take in every angular edge of him—elbows, shoulders, sharp chin, sharp nose, sharp eyes, the points of his spiked-up hair. It’s as if he’s made up of a series of blades, every one of them potentially lethal.
The tray rattles in my hands, and he scoffs and reaches down, plucking up one of the glasses. The balance shifts, and I almost drop the others, adjusting my hands just in time to keep the whole thing from toppling down the stairs.
Preston takes a sip, his eyes locked on mine as if waiting for me to stop him. I’m frozen in place, though. The things I’ve heard about Willow Heights boys flash through my mind.
Entitled assholes…
Bad news…
Treat girls like disposable fuck dolls…
“You can’t replace her, you know,” he says.
“What?”
“Destiny,” he says, taking another sip. “You can’t replace her. You’re nothing like her. She could have been a spy, but you’re not even smart enough to be a rat, are you? You’re… Nothing.”
seven
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