Before I get started on my beauty routine, I pop my head back into my dad's office.
“I'm going out with the Student Council. We'll be in Nutmeg, probably at the diner or something.”
Dad stands up from his chair as I book it toward the stairs.
“You didn't think to ask if that was okay? You just tell me what you're going to do now, and that's that?” I pause halfway up the stairs with my hand on the banister, and turn back to look at him.
“I'll be eighteen in less than a year. And yeah, that's what I suspect I'll be doing.” Dad purses his lips, and there's the slight flaring of nostrils, but that's it, the only spark of anger I see in him.
“Well, I'm fine with you going into town with your friends, but I want you back before dark.” There's something too easy about this, about the way he's giving in.
I don't like it.
My intuition is buzzing with suspicion.
“Why didn't you just tell me that Spencer was alive?” I ask, truly curious. I mean, you'd think if a father could alleviate his daughter's suffering that he'd do whatever it took. Even an obsessive rule-follower like Archibald Carson should've been able to figure out that an it's all going to be alright, Charlotte, your friend is not the dead boy doesn't break any of the police's rules.
“It wasn't my place, Charlotte. I take my job very seriously, you know that. And I needed to respect the wishes of the investigators.” He turns away to go back into his office, and then pauses. “Take the emergency credit card with you and buy a new phone; I don't like it when I can't contact you.” He adjusts his glasses and gives my frowning face a look, like he can tell I'm seeing right through his bullshit. “I don't care if it's an Apple or a Samsonite, or whatever, but it has to be comparable to the one you just lost.” Too late, Dad, the Student Council already got me one.
“It's not Samsonite, Dad, it's Samsung.”
Archie ignores me and disappears into his office, leaving me with this dark swirling feeling of unease in my lower belly. He's clearly mad at me, but he's being so … lenient.
I don't like this, not one bit.
It feels like there's another mystery revealing itself at Adamson, one that's, you know, a little different from the murder but just as alarming.
God only knows what my Dad is planning.“I don't trust him,” I say over a strawberry sundae with real strawberry syrup. Apparently, it’s homemade right here, by hand, from organic strawberries grown behind the café and tended with love and care and a truckload of hard ass work—excuse my language. This is all straight from the horse's mouth, the horse being Merinda Smith, the owner of the Jaw Flapper Diner.
Well, actually Church's family owns the place, but it's very clear who the heart and soul of this restaurant is.
“Your dad?” the twins asks in unison, each of them with a completely different type of sundae in front of them. I noticed they both started to order the same—hot fudge, vanilla ice cream, topped with nuts, total classic—but then they turned and glared at each other and both went off in completely random directions. Micah is rocking a scoop of blueberry ice cream with blackberry syrup and sugared huckleberries on the top while Tobias has an orange-vanilla scoop with marmalade and candied walnuts. “Why?”
“He told me to get a new phone—I didn’t bother to tell him you guys already did.” I wiggle the new iPhone around (it's a cheery yellow which, like, totally floats my boat) as an example. “And he didn't like that I just told him I was going out, instead of phrasing it as a question, yet he let me go out anyway.”
“Shit, throw him in jail for child abuse,” Spencer says, and I jump. He's smiling though, sitting opposite me in the booth. I think he wanted to sit together, but Tobias slid in the seat, and then Micah hip bumped me in next to them. So now I'm a shield between the twins while Spencer sits sandwiched between Church and Ranger. The former has a huge bowl of coffee ice cream, with a hot mug of black coffee on the side, and the latter is working on a slice of pie. “But I get it. You're used to him being a prick, and he's not, so …”
Spencer trails off, his eyes drifting slightly downward, toward my breasts. I wore the prettiest blue dress in my closet, this short little cotton spring wrap with wedges and a cluster of pearlescent bracelets that Monica got me for my birthday last year.
When I opened the front door this morning, I thought several of the boys might blow a gasket. Or maybe just a load in their pants. It was both strangely thrilling and a bit terrifying, all at the same time.
