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“I’ve been doing my homework.”
“Why in the world were you googling her? How did she even come up?”
“Because your friends carry guns. And so I did some digging.”
She sat up straight. She wanted to sound firm, not scared. “You know something?” she asked.
Crissy was quiet, no doubt seething.
“You sound a little bit crazy right now,” she said. “I know you’re upset. I get it. You lost someone you cared about, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But there’s obviously no connection between his death and this Cleo Dionne person,” she went on, which wasn’t obvious at all. There very well might be.
“You’re deluding yourself, Betsy. You’re in so deep in something so criminal—”
“No! No. Sis—”
“Sis?”
“I wish you wouldn’t set fire to every olive branch I send your way. But it’s not just me. You burn every bridge almost any human being tries to build between you and them. I’ve lived here weeks, that’s all, and I probably have more friends than you. You live alone and you channel a dead woman because she had the same ailment as you, and because of what our stepfather—”
“Are you really going to put on your therapist hat and trot out that nonsense that I only do what I do because Diana had bulimia?”
“Your whole freaking origin story is a coat of crappy paint on a rotting house! Yes, your agent exploited your bulimia. You exploited your bulimia! But the truth is that it was our—”
“Stop it! There’s a big difference between getting an inspiration for a show because briefly—briefly, Betsy, briefly—Diana and I shared that—”
“That’s the opposite of what I’m saying!”
“Briefly—”
“Briefly? You were in rehab! You were institutionalized!”
“I have a residency. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that says about where I am on the Las Vegas ladder?”
She found herself rubbing the front of her forehead with the heel of one hand and closing her eyes. She was relieved, but also feeling a pang of guilt that her attack—instinctive as it was—had succeeded in misdirecting her sister. Sent her spinning out and away from the dead man at Red Rocks. “Jesus Christ,” she murmured. “You are impossible to talk to. This conversation began with you calling me because a friend of yours died. And then you implied I was involved. And now you’re boasting how successful you are. It’s hard to believe there was a time when we could have a conversation without it all going to recriminations and shit.”
“You just couldn’t stay away. You couldn’t leave me be. You had to come here.”
That stung more than Betsy expected, but she had asked for it. She had pressed one of her sister’s many bruises, and she had pressed it hard. When she said nothing in response, Crissy asked her again, “So, you’ve never heard of Cleo Dionne? And Frankie Limback was at some country club this afternoon?”
“Yes and yes,” she replied.
“I hope you’re telling the truth. Because I might just suggest the police talk to you, too. And Frankie. And all your friends at Futurium.”
Betsy wasn’t sure whether this conversation was more terrifying or exhausting. She knew only that she was in trouble. And so she decided that as soon as she and her sister had finished, she would call Frankie.
* * *
But Marisa came into her bedroom the moment she got off the phone.
“That didn’t sound good,” the girl said.
“Your aunt and I seem to fight a lot,” Betsy confessed.
“Did you always?” She collapsed on the bed and lay on her side. She looked older than thirteen. It fascinated Betsy how chameleon-like the child was: one moment she could seem barely a teen and the next she could look like she was sixteen or seventeen years old. A lot of the kids Betsy had dealt with back in Vermont were like that. It depended upon how hard their shell had become. Marisa was wearing the same T-shirt and shorts she’d been wearing when Betsy had caught up with her at the museum, but what had seemed childlike amidst the natural wonders—some stuffed, some breathing, some replicas—now seemed suggestive, even wanton.
“I need to call Frankie,” she said instead of answering her daughter’s question.
“So, you’re going to kick me out?”
