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She’d left her phone on her kitchen table, so she ran back across the yard, waving at a stunned Jackson as he walked out his front door on the way to work, and back up her own porch steps. Her call went straight to voicemail, and she shot off several impatient texts before standing at the table for fifteen minutes nibbling on her thumbnail.
He didn’t answer her immediately and she flopped down in a chair, chewing on her leftover toast and racking her brain for a plan before deciding it would be best if she just got dressed and went to work. It would be a long day, but he was bound to answer her eventually and since she had no idea where he’d gone, there was nothing she could do to speed up the process.
When he hadn’t answered her by lunch, she got angry. When he hadn’t answered her when she got off work, she got worried. Maybe he didn’t intend to answer her at all. That seemed reasonable after what she’d said to him. She’d told him in the messages that she was sorry but maybe that wasn’t enough.
He still wasn’t home when she pulled her car into her driveway, but after a full day of thinking she had a pretty good idea of where he might be. He was pissed off at her, so he’d probably gone to the bar. That was basically what she would have done after a fight, if she hadn’t been the one to start it. She would have run to her friends for a little solidarity and support.
The longer she thought about it, the more sense it made, and even if she wasn’t all that thrilled about seeing Dylan or that one flirty bartender again, she had to find him. Especially now that she’d remembered the bartender. Did he think she’d broken up with him and gone to her that night? Was twenty-seven too late in life to get into her first fight over a man?
Probably, but the thought sounded appealing when she pictured Ethan with someone else and it was an idea that she was willing to entertain, if only in her fantasies. She’d never thrown a punch before, but that didn’t keep her from winning in her imaginary bar brawl.
His car wasn’t outside when she pulled into the parking lot, but it looked like there was employee parking around back so that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. There weren’t any other cars in the front and the neon ‘Open’ sign wasn’t on, but it was late enough in the evening that the bartenders would be setting up even if they hadn’t opened for customers yet.
She gave the front door a tug, prepared to stand outside knocking if she had to, but it opened smoothly to reveal the dimly lit interior. There were people inside, she could see them moving around toward the back, but they were too far away for her to make out their faces. Almost certainly Dylan and Myles. Ethan if she was lucky. The angry bartender if she wasn’t.
“Hello?” She stepped in and closed the door behind her. Without the open door to let in the last of the day’s sunlight, her vision went dark, and she couldn’t see anything but the low lights that were on over the bar.
“We’re closed.” The voice was low and gruff, not Ethan but still vaguely familiar.
“Yeah, I know.” Eloise came closer, feeling her way forward toward the bar with her feet so she didn’t trip. “It’s just that I’m looking for Ethan. Have you seen him?”
“Eloise?” That voice she definitely recognized and after a few confused blinks her eyes confirmed what her ears were telling her.
“Sarah?”
Thirty
“Eloise, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I was looking for …” Eloise fell silent as she took in the scene before her. Dylan was there as she’d predicted but Sarah was sitting on his knee. Chloe sat across the table from them beside Myles and the two of them looked by turn miserable and terrified. “What do you mean what am I doing here? What are the two of you doing here?”
“Eloise!” Dylan smiled, that awful creepy smile that she hated, and patted Sarah’s hip. “What a surprise. I think you’ve met my girlfriend?”
“I don’t … What?”
Eloise was looking at Sarah, but Sarah was looking at the table. So was Chloe. Both of them refused to look at her, even when Dylan grabbed Sarah’s chin in his hand and pressed a kiss to her lips.
A noise of distress escaped from somewhere in Eloise’s chest. It was the closest she’d ever come to hearing a heart breaking.
“It was you.” That much Eloise thought was certain. She didn’t understand why or how her friends had come to be involved in it, but she knew the blame rested on Dylan. “You killed her.”
“Guilty.” He had the audacity to wink at her and Eloise was afraid she might vomit. “She was a lot like you. Too noble and nosy for her own good. She paid for it and now … so will you.”
“You knew about this?” Eloise ignored Dylan, her attention focused on Sarah and Chloe. “You knew he killed her?”
“Not at first.” Sarah still wasn’t looking at her, but Eloise could hear the tears in her voice. “Dylan invited me to the bar, that morning I met him at your house. He slipped me his number on a business card, and I didn’t want to come alone so I brought Chloe and Kim with me. I knew you didn’t like him, so I didn’t say anything to you. It was just supposed to be the money, that’s what we decided that night, but then?—”
“What night? When did you …” Eloise couldn’t picture it and her brow furrowed as she tried to trace it back and put the pieces together. Sarah’s bruises. Kim’s death. Their strange attitudes in the days before the murder … It all led back to the night Ethan had shown up bleeding at her door. She’d thought they were jealous after that—mad that she’d started spending more time with Ethan and less time with them—but that hadn’t been it at all. They’d been hiding something from her. A plan Ethan hadn’t known about because he’d been away from the bar, nursing a gunshot wound. “Why would you do this to Kim?”
That was the part that still didn’t make sense. Kim was no threat to them. She wasn’t a threat to anyone.
“She got cold feet and threatened to back out.” Sarah’s eyes were puffy from crying and there was a fresh bruise forming on her cheek. “She said she was going to go to the cops if we didn’t call the whole thing off, but I still didn’t think he’d actually hurt her. It was just supposed to be about the money.”
“You were embezzling from the bank.” Eloise’s voice sounded far away, distant and thin like it was someone else that was speaking instead of her.
“That’s enough.” The hand on Sarah’s chin turned from gentle to punishing. “My lovely little lady here wanted all the fun of being bad and none of the tough decisions. But that’s not how it works, is it, honey?”
Sarah whimpered and shook her head. Eloise could hardly look at her—it made her feel sick—but looking at Chloe was no better. She was further from Dylan, but her shoulders were trembling with small, pitiful sobs.
