While her best friend Cassidy snacks on brie and boys in France, Darcy Li-Quinn must face her last year of high school and the unpredictable wrath of her sister, Danica, alone. Darcy's plan for dealing with Danica and her heinous friends is simple-b...
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"Did he have a solid alibi?" I ask.
We've decamped to my place so we can discuss Lily's suspicions about Shane without fear of being overheard. Having swapped my scratchy school uniform for black leggings and a baby blue tee, I'm lying on my stomach on my queen-sized bed, with my arms hanging off the edge like dangling vines. Lily's curled up in the wicker egg chair that hangs from my bedroom ceiling; Hunter's sprawled on his back on the fluffy white rug between us. If I stretched my fingers out just a little, I could run my fingers through his malted whiskey hair. Not that I'd do that, because that would be... weird. But I could... if I needed to.
"Shane says he was at a party with his friend Spider the whole night, but I don't think the police questioned Shane with much focus because he wasn't a suspect," Lily says. "Even if they did, Spider would say whatever Shane told him to-he's been my brother's loyal lapdog since kindergarten."
"Shane was unhappy about the pregnancy and your parents' acceptance of Archer, but do you think he was angry enough to kill?" I ask Lily.
"I honestly don't know. Shane's always been... petulant... and a snob. He never thought Archer was good enough for me. If they were talking and Shane lost his temper..."
"Something about Shane immediately rubbed you the wrong way, Darce. What was it exactly?" Tilting his head back, Hunter looks up at me from his spot on the floor.
I shrug, unsure how to justify the creepy, crawly feeling that invaded my spine the minute Lily's older brother entered the room. Hunter waits me out, his crystalline gaze curious and patient and stupidly distracting. I'm cataloguing the greens and browns and blues that play across his irises when realisation hits me like a brick. "Shane reminds me of my sister," I whisper, feeling guilty even as I say it. "They're both bullies who don't deal well with not getting their own way."
"That's definitely Shane," Lily says.
"If Arch and Shane met up that night as planned, how would we prove it?" Hunter asks.
"Fingerprints or DNA at the scene, or CCTV footage, I guess?" I say.
"Wouldn't the police check all that for a suspected robbery?" Lily says.
"You'd think so," Hunter says. "But even if they have samples, I doubt they tried to match them to Shane. If they legitimately think it was a break-in gone wrong, they wouldn't have any reason to suspect Shane was involved. He's an arrogant prick, but he doesn't have a criminal record and he's not exactly struggling for cash."
"True, I-"
Loud and insistent ringing interrupts Lily's next thought, and I hop up to retrieve my phone from my desk. Cassidy is off and running as soon as I answer. "OMG, D! Like, 'Bonjour, are you dead?' I've been calling and calling and calling." It's loud wherever she is-the 'doof, doof' of a heavy bass line fighting it out against the squeals and laughter of multiple conversations.
