Page 7 of Winterveil

She tried Bonnie’s house first. After Giselle rang the doorbell twice, Bonnie had appeared, her puffy-eyed and tear-streaked face lit up from behind by the kitchen’s humming fluorescent light.

“I’m sorry, Gigi,” she whispered. And that was all. Before Giselle could even say a word, Bonnie shut the door in her face.

Stomach churning and heart pounding, Giselle had spent the night on a park bench. She wondered how Bonnie had managed to explain herself. Bonnie Nash was the quintessential good girl, a crucifix-wearing deacon’s daughter. Maybe she’d been able to convince her parents it was a one-time mistake, a drunken fuckup; maybe she’d even claimed that Giselle had taken advantage of her. The photo hadn’t told the whole story. No one knew that they had been sneaking around since January.

At least Giselle didn’t have to sleep outside for long. The next morning Sheriff Reeve had pulled up in his cruiser, cuffed her, and brought her to the station. His expression was grim, his voice gruff, as if he were delivering her to the firing squad.

“I expected better from you,” he said, and Giselle was certain he wasn’t just talking about stolen credit card numbers.

But the holding cell was warm, and so was the microwaved meal he’d grudgingly shoved at her through the bars. Sutton had let her pass a whole day and night in silent panic before he’d had the decency to show his face.

It had taken almost an hour of wheedling and not-so-veiled threats, but at last Sutton was wavering. Surely he would fold soon. Sutton Reeve was a lot of things, but he wasn’t malicious. And he really did care for her. Which made everything she had done worse.

Sutton took a step toward the cell. Then another. He leaned forward, fingers closing around the bars, near enough that their noses brushed. Giselle felt another flicker of hope.

“You know,” he said, voice low, “it’s not just the law coming down on you. I could forgive a thief, even a cheater. But you gotta get right with God. It’s your kind of sin that He isn’t too keen on pardoning.”

And with that, her heart dropped into her stomach. Even if she convinced Sutton that she still loved him, even if she persuaded Sheriff Reeve to release her without charges, she had nowhere to go. Her pageant earnings were held hostage in her mother’s bank account, inaccessible until she turned eighteen in July. Her friends had all turned their backs on her; her grandmother had probably already changed the locks. There was nothing left for her in Belle. Her life as she knew it was over.

But it was easier to feel fury than grief. Anger was safer than despair. And that was why, instead of dissolving into tears, she spat in Sutton’s face.

He stumbled backward, clutching his cheek as if he’d been struck. “You b—”

At that precise moment, the door to the jail room swung open.

In the threshold was Sheriff Reeve, who Giselle expected, and then two more figures behind him, who she had not. Sutton began to garble out an accusation, but Sheriff Reeve cut him off with a glare. He fell silent as the two others filed into the room.

The first was an older man with a thick shock of white hair, blindingly white, almost as if from dye rather than age. He wore a fitted dark suit, its simplicity belying the finery; Giselle could recognize 100 percent wool and real silk. Other than that, he was unremarkable—unnervingly so. A specter of a man, featureless and anonymous. It made her skin prickle.

The second was a girl around her own age. She had olive skin and wide, liquid-dark eyes, a delicate-boned face framed with curtain bangs. The rest of her hair, pin straight and pure black, was bound up in a high ponytail. She couldn’t have had more than an inch on Giselle, but her lithe and angular frame made her seem taller. There was something subtly powerful about her, maybe in her still, impassive expression, or her perfect posture—shoulders back, chin held high.

Or maybe it was the outline of the pistol on her right hip, beneath her leather jacket. That sinking feeling returned.

Sheriff Reeve jerked a hand toward Sutton. “Come on. Time to go.”

Sutton’s jaw dropped. “But she—”

“That’s enough.” Sheriff Reeve spoke in the same rough tone that he had used when loading Giselle into the back of his cruiser. “Come with me. Now.”

Mumbling, Sutton slouched away in retreat. He slipped through the threshold after his father, the door closing behind them with stark finality.

In an instant Giselle almost missed him. Better the devil she knew than a stranger with a gun—especially one who was surely too young to have a concealed carry license in West Virginia.

The question Who are you? danced on her lips, but before she could speak, the white-haired man stepped forward and, in one fluid motion, unlocked her cell. The door creaked open.

Her mind buzzed. The only words she could manage were “Thank you.”

The man nodded and repocketed the key. “This is hardly a place for someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“Yes,” the man said. “Someone of your singular talents.”

Giselle almost laughed. “You must be mistaken,” she said. “There’s nothing special about me.” Unless you counted the dozen or so pageant trophies piled in her closet. But she had a feeling these strangers were not here to congratulate her on Miss Carolina Charm.

“I have to disagree,” said the man. “And so does the law. You would not have found yourself in this situation otherwise.”

He made it sound like some sort of accident, a mishap of fate. She had ended up here, not fulsomely and enthusiastically committed crimes. Feeling slightly encouraged, Giselle said, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”