Page 18 of Pretty Dead Things

“Of course, babes.”

Mom got all paranoid after Cat told us about Olivia’s dance experience, but I’m not worried. Olivia is basically like a tiny little church mouse.

Hannah claims the chair, I perch on the bed, and Olivia positions herself in front of the mirror. She pulls off her leggings, then grabs the hem of her baggy T-shirt and lifts it over her head.

And, holy shit.

I didn’t realize that’s what Olivia was working with under all that fabric. She’s a closet stunner.

She pulls the dress up and reaches back a long, lithe arm to zip it herself. It fits her like a glove.

Hannah lets out a wolf whistle, but I’m struck dumb for the moment.

Then the door opens, and Mom pops her head in. “I’m home,” she says. “Just wanted to see if you’ve had dinner yet. Oh, Hannah,dear. Don’t you look just lovely? I really like…” But she stops mid-sentence when she catches sight of Olivia. She pushes the door open fully and steps into the room. “And who’s this?”

My spine pulls taut as a piano wire, because I swear Mom’s eyes just dilated like a cat who’s spotted that tiny little church mouse from across the room.

Helplessly, I watch Olivia go to Mom. “Hi, Mrs. Preston. I’m Olivia.”

Mom’s eyes skate to me and back. “Cat’s girl?” She shakes Olivia’s hand. “It’s so wonderful to have you in Miss Lone Star this year. Is that one of Sarah Lynn’s dresses?”

Olivia glances over to me, smiling, blissfully unaware that the room has turned electric, every surface humming like a live wire. “She’s letting me borrow it for orientation tomorrow.” She smooths it over her flat stomach.

“This color is just divine on that creamy complexion of yours.” Mom circles Olivia. “Oh, you know what, though”—she reaches out to grab hold of the skirt’s hem—“Sarah Lynn, isn’t this the one with that stain, the pen mark? Yes, here it is.” She tsks. Olivia tries to twist her head to see the back of the dress, where Mom is rubbing a thumb at the fabric. “Here,” Mom says, sliding down the zipper. “I’m actually going out tonight anyway. Let me drop this off at the dry cleaner. I’ll pick it up first thing and bring it over to your mama. How does that sound?”

Olivia lifts the dress over her head and Mom snaps it up quickly, folding it into the crook of her elbow.

“Are you sure?” Olivia says, reaching for her clothes. “That’s so nice.”

Mom waves it away, all Miss Congeniality. “I need to make a trip to the dry cleaner anyway, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about it.”

Hannah and Olivia get dressed and gather their things, waving goodbye as they leave together. Mom and I are quiet while they take the spiral steps down. But as soon as we hear the front door close behind them, Mom says what I already know she’s thinking.“Be careful of that one, Sarah Lynn.” She tosses the blue dress into the corner like it’s a dirty hand towel.

Final verdict on Olivia? Red-dot-level threat.

Beauty is power. But it also puts a target on your back.

CHAPTER FIFTEENINGRID

One day when we were all thirteen, Izzy, Ben, and I played in the woods on the Sherman land, like we’d done a thousand times before. But that summer, things were shifting like a kaleidoscope, colors brighter and everything sharp and tangy as a penny on the tongue.

My foot slipped on a wet rock as we climbed down the riverbank toward The Hollow, and Ben caught me round the waist. His fingers on my sun-warmed skin. I was hyperaware of his body. Of the maleness of him. He wasn’t just Ben, the kid we’d always known. He was a boy, close enough to me that I could count his eyelashes.

But it was Izzy who was bold enough to kiss him that day, while we swam together in the river—one quick whim that had her giggling, spinning away from him in the water, that left him blushing, that led to him taking her to the movies later that week, Abel chauffeuring them around in his truck.

It was inevitable that one of us would have kissed Ben Sherman that summer. And it made sense that it was Izzy. She’d always been the carefree one. The leap-and-never-look one.

When Izzy disappeared, the Shermans did as well. They never answered their phone again, not for us anyway. Abel put up barbed wire fences around the property,TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOTsigns along the river, and everyone believed him. Even Carol avoidedMom in the grocery store, slipping away before Mom could speak to her, leaving her basket stranded in the aisle.

I waited for Ben. Waited for him to reach out behind his parents’ backs, throw pebbles at our window again, leave a note in the knot of the pecan tree, something, anything. Waited for him to explain how it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t have been him who hurt Izzy.

But the pebbles never came. His parents pulled him out of school with just a few months left of senior year, sent him away to West Texas to work the oil fields. By the time he came back, I’d already left town myself.

If Ben was innocent, he would have reached out to me.

But he didn’t.

Now, the invitation—I KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR SISTER—burns a hole through my purse as I pull open the doors to Barrel & Branch. The bar is a dimly lit mix of rustic and glitz—deer heads and crystal chandeliers.