Sink or Swim

Chapter 9

Two days had passed since Jake had been round and what he'd said had stuck to Skye's mind like a tattoo. Suddenly her written down list of names didn't sound so crazy. To have her pen in their car, the driver must have been somebody she knew, somebody who had been in her house. Not only that, but it confirmed that the dumped car really was the one that had hit Skye that night.

She'd checked her room, she'd checked her old room and she'd checked the rest of the house. The pen was gone. This was no duplicate, it was definitely the one the police had found in the stolen vehicle. Skye used that pen so often that if she hadn't been so focused on other things, she'd have noticed it was gone before now.

The swimmer wasn't the type of person who just threw her stuff around, she was neat and knew exactly where she put everything. It was very rare to see her belongings go missing.

As much trouble as she was, this ruled out Vanna Durant. Unless somebody had given the pen to her, as far as Skye could recall she'd never been in the Lovelace house. None of her cousins were friends with Vanna and if anything, they despised her even more than Skye did.

Ruling the most troublesome person in the village out was not something that Skye had expected to do so soon, but she felt a smile on her face as she crossed through her name. One down. It was a start, at least.

"Hey, blondie," a voice called.

"Are you talking to me? In a house full of blonde I can't be too sure." At least at the moment it was only Lalia and Sierra living there. When Marcia and their brother, Oscar were around too it was even more confusing.

Skye hadn't noticed the mysterious redhead glide down the stairs and into the living room, but Charlene always seemed to be like this. She was as light on her feet as a ballerina and her presence was rarely known until she revealed herself.

"Sure," she replied casually. Sometimes Charlene's demeanour seemed almost flirty, but Skye hoped that wasn't the case. She already had enough relationship dramas, if you could call them that. "What'cha doing?" Her eyes rolled down to look at Skye's list, which sat on the blonde's lap.

"Just trying to work out who ruined my life, as usual." Why did she always feel so silly when she admitted it out loud?

"Wouldn't you feel better if you just moved on?"

"No, of course not. I've got no where to move onto yet. I do have my first physio session this afternoon so that might give me more hope...or the very opposite." Charlene pushed her lips tightly together. It was clear she wanted to say something when her eyes lifted away from Skye's and stared awkwardly behind her. "What is it?"

"I am going to get so killed for this," the redhead grumbled. Her hair was tied back into a messy, low ponytail. For anybody else it wouldn't look great, but because her hair was so perfectly straight, it actually suited her. Charlene walked around the sofa and threw herself down next to Skye.

It had to be related to Lalia. They had nothing else in common. "What's my cousin done now?"

"Uh..." Charlene took a deep breath, pushing her teeth together, knowing she shouldn't be getting involved. Skye watched whilst the redhead's fingers played around with the buckle on her denim dungarees. "Lalia told me to come down here to keep you distracted whilst she's on Zoom to her parents to tell them that she was in the accident with you."

Skye shrieked, "What?!"

"I don't think it's a good idea either which is why I'm telling you, despite my likely murder." The last part was said in a humorous manner. If Skye had learned anything about the redhead it was that she never seemed very serious about anything. After a beat however, Skye could tell that this was worrying even Charlene.