Page 101 of Cruel Lies

I've got a dozen dresses laid out on the bed and no idea which one to wear, because Ronan won't tell me where we're going. All the text said wasDress warm, but pretty.

What does that even mean?

"That one!" Isabella decides. She's sitting on the floor with a necklace of mine draped over her head like a tiara and her feet jammed into a pair of my heels, the straps flopping loose around her tiny ankles. "The red one. It's the prettiest."

"You think so?"

"Red is the prettiest color," she says. "Everybody knows that."

She stands up in the heels, wobbling, arms out for balance. She takes one step and nearly goes down. I lunge, but she catches herself on the edge of the bed and giggles.

"Careful, bug."

"I'm walking like you, Mommy!" she cries out happily. "Look! Clack, clack, clack."

Hayden is on the bed, lying on his back with his legs up the wall, upside down. He's been trying to guess exactly where we're going all night long, but I don't think he's any closer to cracking the case than I am.

"Maybe he's taking you to a lighthouse," he says. "Ooh, I bet it's haunted!"

"It's not going to be a haunted lighthouse, honey."

He pouts. "You don't know that."

I pick up the red dress and hold it against myself. I don't have a mirror to check—still don't, thanks to a certain man—so I hold up my phone and take a picture at arm's length.

Isabella clomps over in the heels and looks at the picture over my elbow. "See? Prettiest."

"Okay. Red it is. You've convinced me."

She beams and does a ballerina pirouette, hands over her head and everything.

"Who's watching us?" Hayden asks, flipping right side up so fast the blood rushes back into his face and he goes pink. "Is it Juliet again?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes!" He pumps a fist. "She lets us stay up 'til eight-thirty."

"She doesnot!" Isabella says in alarm, looking at me with wide, fearful eyes. "You're lying!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"At ease, children," I interrupt. I wave a hand to defuse their argument before it can enter the high decibel territory. "There's a little wiggle room on weekend nights, but it's a firm nine o'clock bedtime, copy that? Juliet and I are going to talk to make sure we're on the same page before I go."

"Yes, Mother," they chorus in dead, creepy voices that they copied from a zombie movie they weren't supposed to watch. Then they break into giggles and flop around on the bed.

Then, because peace and quiet amongst children can never last long, Hayden throws a pillow at her. She shrieks and throws it back and misses by a mile, which knocks the whole stack of dresses half off the bed. I catch the pillow and give them each a firm bop over the head, and for a second, we're all just laughing, the three of us, in the mess of my bedroom with the sun coming through the window.

This is the good stuff. I know it even while it's happening, which doesn't happen often. Usually, you only figure out a moment was good after it's already gone.

"Alright, alright. Both of you, out of my room while I do my face. Go pick a movie for tonight."

"Can we watch the shark one?" Hayden asks.

"No sharks before bed," I scold. "You'll have nightmares."

He gives me his best puppy dog eyes. "I promise I won't!"