“So?”
“You realize how many people around here still believeyour family is hiding something? It only benefits you to find the bones. It’d shut everyone up. They’d finally stop talking about y’all like you were Thorn’s accomplices.”
“Nobody is talking about Ryan,” Mar says irritably. “She grew up in Europe, not Starling. And she’s under no obligation to team up with a dumbass who fancies himself some kind of super-detective because he has apodcast.”
Zed’s face reddens, and I catch a flash of anger in his eyes before Mar takes my arm.
“Come on, Ryan. Let’s go.”
Later that night, I watch a movie with Jasmine in the living room while texting with Everett, who’s telling me the latest about his sister, the queen of trouble.
“Hey, Jaz,” I tell my cousin, “apparently Everett had to go rescue Nikki from a scary biker bar across town and pull her off some thirty-year-old dude.”
Jasmine’s face pales. “Oh my God! What!” She grabs her phone and scrolls through her notifications. “I can’t believe she went back there.”
“Wait—tonight wasn’t her first time?”
“She’s been a couple times before,” my cousin confesses. “She says the guys there buy her drinks.”
“Notguys, Jaz.Men,” I correct. “She has no business being in a place like that.”
Jasmine bites her lip, dismayed. “I told her to stop going.”
“Clearly she didn’t listen.”
From what I’ve seen, Nikki doesn’t listen to anyone.
“I’m going to bed,” I say, leaving Jasmine to her frantic texting.
As I walk down the hallway, the murmur of voices seeps through my aunt and uncle’s bedroom door.
“…when someone…affair.” Dan’s voice is harsh, bitter.
Affair?
I pause midstep as alarm bells go off in my head. Then I step closer to the door.
“No,you’renot being fair!” My aunt’s voice, sharp and cutting, rises above his.
Maybe I misheard Dan. Maybe he said fair and not affair. Maybe those true-crime forums are poisoning my brain.
I press my ear to the door, guilt prickling at my skin. Their voices dip lower, but I catch fragments. Dan again, firm but not loud enough for me to make out the words. Maggie, clearer this time.
“No. You can’t say something like that and then…”
I’ve never heard them fight before, but maybe it’s nothing. Maybe my mind is twisting this into something worse.
Backing away slowly, I try to ignore the anxiety crawling up my spine. As I turn around, I bump into something solid. Someone.
“Whoa!” Connor’s voice is hushed.
He steadies me, then glances at his parents’ closed door. They’re still arguing, Maggie’s voice rising again.
“It’s probably nothing,” I assure him. “Just one of those stupid arguments that sounds worse than it is.”
He seems unconvinced. His eyes flick toward the door. “They never fight.”
“Maybe they’re stressed. It’s probably something silly, like…I don’t know, money or work or whatever.”
