Page 38 of Play Nice

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “I’m suing.”

Baker’s already big eyes go huge.

“Relax, baby. I’m joking,” I say, sitting on the deck stairs.

“Actually, we’re suing,” Austin says. He gestures to Baker. “Look at this.”

“A tragic accident,” I say.

“Did you fall, or did she push you?” Austin asks Baker. “Be honest. You’re under oath.”

“I…I fell,” Baker says.

“Hmm. You’re off the hook, miss. For now,” Austin says. He unwraps the antiseptic towelette and brings it to Baker’s scrape. “When did you move in?”

“I didn’t,” I say.

Baker winces. “There’s no car out front.”

“I don’t have a car. I’m a city girl,” I say. “I’m not here full-time. I’m just fixing it up. It was my mom’s house.”

“Oh shit,” Austin says, standing up straight. “I knew you looked familiar. Daphne?”

The shock of hearing my sister’s name knocks me back. I bang my elbows against the stairs.

“No. Clio?” he asks. “Not Leda.”

“How…?”

“Like I said, I live down the street. I grew up here. We hung out a few times, as kids.”

“Did we?” I think back. Toward the end of our short tenure in the house, my sisters and I were so desperate to get out, we did end up making friends with some of the neighbor kids. There were games of capture the flag, freeze tag. The rest of the kids all knew each other better because they went to school together, rode the same bus, but not us. The Barnes girls went to private school. I’m sure it added to our mystique.

Austin presses the Band-Aid to Baker’s head.

“Ow!” Baker says.

“My brother Jackson helped your mom move in,” Austin says.

Mom wrote about him. The scared teenager who denied saying that he hated the house.

“Did he think the house was haunted?” I ask, swatting at a mosquito. “Your brother.”

Austin crumples up the Band-Aid wrapper and puts it in his pocket. “Don’t think so. No one thought that until after the book came out.”

“Interesting,” I say. “But you think the house is haunted? That’s why you sent your nephew to break in? On a dare?”

He hangs a hand on the back of his neck. His cheeks go red. “What can I say? I’m a bad babysitter.”

I look at Baker. “I think you’re the bad babysitter.”

“Ha. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah,” he says.

“You don’t remember me?” Austin asks.

“Sorry. You must not have made much of an impression.”

He laughs. “I was shy. You and your sisters were intimidating.”