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Holly hesitated, as if expecting something else, but Kami peeled off and headed for her usual seat beside Amber Green.
Amber gave her a brief smile through the curtain of her fox-red hair and then returned to reading The Nosy Parker. Kami beamed at Amber’s bent head.
How do you deal with it? Kami asked Jared. The laughing at nothing and occasionally stopping dead in your tracks.
I have a system where when I stop, I lean casually against something, Jared told her. It makes people think I’m a bad boy. Or possibly that I have a bad back.
Kami laughed again and Amber gave her a familiar look that said she was worried Kami was crazy. Kami’s laughter subsided and she flipped open her notebook to start plotting her interview with the delinquent.
Holly was bringing him to her tomorrow. She had to be prepared.
It was dark by the time Kami got to Angela’s house to discuss their future of unstoppable investigative journalistic teamwork. The Montgomerys had bought their house because they thought Sorry-in-the-Vale was quaint and would be a great place to raise the kids. One year and two extensions on their house later, they both got so bored they seized any excuse to go up to London and leave the kids on their own. Angela never talked about it and never seemed to miss them.
The house had once been pretty but now resembled a sad little donkey with two oversize saddlebags. Light shone from one window, and the gate was hanging open, which was a mercy because Angela always took forever to get up off the sofa and buzz Kami in. Kami pushed the gate open farther and headed for the back door.
It had gotten very dark, very fast. She could only make out the pale side of the house and the stir of leaves that was the yew tree by the wall. Even walking carefully, Kami almost tripped over the hose.
The near miss jolted the breath out of Kami for a second. She heard the s
oft, almost stealthy sound of someone else breathing—which was when an arm locked around her throat and a male voice whispered in her ear: “Don’t move.”
Chapter Five
Listen for a Whisper
Kami’s fingers bit into a pressure point on the arm at her throat. When the hold loosened, she went down low, keeping her grip steady, and used her body to trip the guy and flip him into the wall. “Rusty!” she snapped. “Quit doing that.”
Rusty’s eyes gleamed up at her from his crouch, laughing-bright even in the darkness. “I’m keeping you on your toes, Cambridge,” he said. “Transforming you from a simple English schoolgirl to a lean, mean fighting machine.”
Kami put out a hand and gave him a push on the forehead that tipped him back against the wall. “You’re right, I am feeling meaner.”
Rusty got up and held the back door open for her because he was a gentleman, even if he was also an incredibly annoying person who kept attacking her. Kami called out for Angela, her voice echoing off all the white surfaces in that spotless kitchen, and Rusty leaned against the doorframe as if all the exertion had exhausted him.
At first glance, Rusty was a masculine version of his sister—tall, dark, and incurably lazy. He had the same athletic frame, which he draped on walls and furniture as if simply too weak to support himself. He had the same classic features and almost the same black hair, though his was shot with the red highlights that gave him his nickname.
In reality, Angela and Rusty were markedly different. They were even lazy in quite different ways. Rusty was sleepily good-natured and thought Angela wasted energy being cranky. Angela refused to cope with being hassled by teachers, so she was brilliant at school, while Rusty had failed out of Kingston University after one term.
Rusty had also been the one to introduce Kami to her one and only boyfriend, Claud of the unfortunate goatee. She didn’t hold it against him: it was hard to hold anything against Rusty.
“Oh, Rusty, why did you let her in?” Angela said. “We could have just lain down on the floor until she went away. We could’ve had a nice floor nap.”
“Have you guys eaten?” Kami asked. “I’m starving.”
“Cooking is so much trouble,” Rusty said mournfully.
“You could order in,” Kami suggested.
“Delivery people are so annoying,” Angela responded.
Kami opened the cupboard doors and began rummaging around for supplies. She found a half-empty packet of pasta and waved it about in triumph. “I’m going to cook something.”
Rusty drifted over to the kitchen island, where he sank onto a stool. “So little and so busy,” he remarked with solemn wonder. “Like a squirrel.”
Kami threw a piece of pasta at him. He caught it and then, as if he only worked in fast-forward and slow-motion, brought it gradually to his mouth and chewed it with great deliberation.
“Rusty attacked me in the garden,” Kami announced.
“Hey, women pay good money to have me attack them,” Rusty mumbled.
