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“Yes, I’m sure. It’s dumb and I don’t acknowledge dumb.”
It was a familiar refrain, one Lyric had been spouting ever since they were sophomores in high school and Brent Neuhaus had spread rumors that he’d slept with Lyric. It had made no sense to Lyric what the big deal was. She knew she hadn’t slept with him, so what did it matter what the rest of the world thought? She hadn’t realized what people were saying about her behind her back and what was getting back to Momma. But Harm had. She’d cornered Brent outside of the band hall and kneed him in the nuts hard enough to raise his voice three octaves.
He’d stopped talking about her sister.
In Harmony’s opinion, that was the trouble with adulthood. You couldn’t just knee someone in the balls to make them shut up when they were being an asshole. And there had to be women working at the tabloids too, so a knee to the southern region would be awkward and not very satisfying. She supposed she could knee women in the boobs, but the physics involved seemed overly complicated. Which meant she was going to have to find another way to shut this thing down. It might not bother Lyric, but Harm had been fighting battles her sister didn’t know about their whole lives. She wasn’t about to stop now.
Lyric finally stopped typing and looked up. “So, what’s the deal with you and Dalton?”
Harm cringed at the name. “I hate him. He’s an asshole. End of story.”
Lyric studied her like she was trying to use X-ray vision to map the inside of Harmony’s brain. “Here’s the thing … I’m not sure I buy that, because you only get this mad when you’re interested in someone. Remember Lance Smith?”
“How could I forget my first love?” Harm sing-songed as she fanned herself. “I just knew we were destined to end up married with four kids. Soul mates whose eyes met across the wide expanse of the cafeteria on the first day of sixth grade. It was fate.”
“Until his eyes latched onto Brianna Winsor.” Lyric closed her laptop.
“The slut.” There wasn’t much heat to the insult, since Brianna Winsor-Smith had been one of her best friends to this day. “He only wanted her because of her early-developing C-cups.” She pointed to her own D-cups. “My boobs are so much better. And so are yours.” She thought about it for a second. “Now that I think about it, Brianna and Lance are married with four kids and did fall in love in middle school and never looked back. Now he’s an out-of-work mechanic who hangs Christmas lights for a living, drinks too much, and talks about his glory days in high school. Dodged a bullet there.”
The “great” thing about San Angelo was it was small enough that you got to keep tabs on all your old classmates—whether you wanted to or not.
“The point is, you were hurt and sad and glued his locker shut. When Sam Ellinger broke up with you, you started laughing because you didn’t care.” Lyric leaned back and crossed her arms. “And all I’m saying is, you were pretty mad when you got home this morning.”
“Dalton handcuffed me to a pole in his freakin’ office. Who does that?” Bastard—she could feel herself getting mad all over again.
“I gotta tell you, I didn’t think he had it in him. Where did he even get the handcuffs?” Lyric’s brow scrunched up. “Did he just pull them out of a drawer or something? I can’t see him just having handcuffs lying around.”
“Never mind where he got the handcuffs. That’s not the important part. The point is that he handcuffed me against my will and then left me there while he went off to some important meeting.” Harmony sighed. Sometimes Lyric just couldn’t see the big picture through the forest of minutiae.
“For no reason? I don’t know Dalton that well, but he doesn’t seem like the type who does anything for no reason.” Lyric thought about it for a minute. “Is there a type of person who handcuffs people for no reason?”
“I hope not.” Harm shook her head. “Anyway, he’s on my shit list. I doubt I’ll ever see him again.” The thought made her sad. She liked hanging out with Dalton. He wasn’t boring like most men.
“Wanna bet?” Lyric’s eyes gleamed in the overhead fluorescent lighting of the kitchen.
“No.” Harm had a feeling something was up. Lyric only wanted to bet when she knew she could win.
“Too bad for me.” Her sister reached for an apple from the fruit dish in the middle of the table. “He’s coming over for dinner tonight.”
Harm told herself the pitter-pat of her heart was just indigestion from the Taco Bell mad feast she’d eaten on her way back to Lyric’s house.
“Oh no he isn’t. He isn’t that brave. Or that stupid.”
“Oh yes he is. Brave, I mean. Not stupid. He seems like a pretty smart guy. Or at least he did, until he got on your shit list.”
“Exactly what I’m saying.” She’d get her chance to kill him after all. And it wouldn’t even have to be a messy affair. Poison was completely undetectable if you hid it in from-scratch brownies and then covered those brownies with strawberries and whipped cream. Or so she’d heard …
Now all she had to figure out was where to hide the body. She didn’t know Fort Worth that well, and a body-dump search wasn’t exactly what she wanted on her Google search history when Dalton went missing. Then again, Heath and Lyric had a huge backyard. They probably wouldn’t even notice if she dug up a corner.
“Wait, why is he coming to dinner? Are he and Heath best buddies now or something?” If they were, it would complicate her plan. People tended to get upset when their sisters-in-law killed their BFFs. Harmony had never really understood why, but that was the way of the world.
Maybe she’d misjudged Dalton’s relationship with Heath?
“No, this is the first time. He called Heath and invited himself over. I think he wants to apologize to you. He’s bringing dinner.” Lyric clamped a hand over her mouth. “Crap, I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Dalton wanted to surprise you.”
Harm had a feeling it was less about surprising her and more about making sure she was here for dinner. That was the kind of tricky thing he would pull. Of course, since her first thought was to disappear before he got here, it proved he knew her a little better than she wanted him to. Better than she wanted anyone to, if she was being honest.
But now that she knew what he was up to—and what he expected her to do—she couldn’t run. Partly because she wasn’t a coward and partly because there was no way she was going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d won this round. Because he hadn’t. And he wasn’t going to. Since he was bringing dinner, she’d put herself in charge of making dessert. And just to prove she was a lady, she would leave the rat poison in the garage.
