Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

wire coiled over the almost-tree-topping fences was a braid of tinsel at Christmastime. The bars over the windows that looked over the deep blue of Puget Sound were a steel version of cat’s cradle. Nothing, young Valerie came to believe, could match the splendor of the hallway that ran from her father’s enormous office down toward the cellblock. The shiny gold-hued-by-age linoleum was Dorothy’s yellow brick road.

One day, she knew, it would lead her away from there.

“I’m going up to read now,” Valerie said, casting a wary eye at the handmade Scrabble board Taylor and Hayley had arranged in front of the fire.

“What are you reading?” Hayley asked.

Valerie smiled and acknowledged the paperback she was carrying off to bed. “A murder mystery. Is there anything else?”

“Not lately,” Taylor commented as their mother disappeared down the hall.

No words were said about the Scrabble game or why they’d chosen it that evening instead of the Xbox console with its collection of video games, which had been a Christmas present. There was really no need to explain.

Valerie understood her girls in a way that most mothers couldn’t. There was a time when she was just like them. Even as a grown woman, she could still tap into the feelings she held when she was a young girl. It was more than her compassion that made her such a good psychiatric nurse or a mother, though she joked that the skills were interchangeable.

The twins picked out the tiny squares of pale, smooth wood.

“Let’s break it down,” Taylor said.

Hayley, who was busy turning all the letters so they were facing up, nodded. “All right. Why don’t you call them out?”

“Lewd hot rod,” Taylor said. “Sounds nasty.”

Hayley laughed. “Lewd anything would, but adding hot rod is particularly, well, you know.”

Next, Taylor set the appropriate letters in front of her, studying each as if they might literally speak to her.

She collected the T, H, E first.

“You’re the new Vanna White,” Hayley said.

“Huh?”

“You know, the helper on Jeopardy.”

“You mean Wheel of Fortune.” She moved the O, L, D next.

“The old…” Hayley said, pulling up the final four letters. “W, O, R, D.”

Taylor looked at the unscrambled letters. “‘The old word’,” she said.

“Maybe Katelyn was a teen hooker,” Hayley surmised. “You know, the oldest profession in history? There are lots of those girls in Seattle and Portland.”

Taylor looked at her sister and shook her head. “Don’t think that’s it.”

The next words, KOALA and FURL, stared up at the teens.

This time, Taylor took on the task of moving them around. In a few moments she’d arranged the letters into LAURA FOLK. Taylor shifted away from the fire. “Never heard of her.”

“I don’t know of anybody named Laura Folk either. Maybe she’s a senior or something… but I think we know everyone from Port Gamble and Kingston. That’s one of the supposed good parts of living in a small town.”

They looked down at the tiles. Taylor carefully slid them aside and then laid out the last two words: SELF and IVORY.

“Maybe ivory is the color of something we need to know and self is about us.”

“You like it when the words need no interpretation, Hayley.”

“It is easier when you don’t have to read into anything or extrapolate an inference from the words.”

“Nah. These words aren’t in the right order,” Taylor said, moving the pieces around until it read: I’VE FOR SLY.

“That sounds stupid. It doesn’t even make sense,” Hayley said.

“Maybe I remembered it wrong?”

“Maybe you did. Or maybe it has nothing to do with Katelyn.”

“I’m not going back into the tub.”

“Well I’m not. I’m not as good at it as you are.”

Kevin went past the staircase and called over to them. “What are you two arguing about? Hayley, did you come up with some esoteric or scientific name to get a triple word score?”

The girls looked at him blankly, having never played the game the way it had been intended.

“Something like that, Dad. We were just about to call it a night anyway.”

“All right. Maybe I can play next time. You never ask me.”

Hayley smiled as she moved the wooden tiles back into the box. “Okay, next time, for sure.”

They turned off the lights, followed their father to the creaky stairs, and said good night.

From the outlet cover opening, Taylor whispered to her sister, “This isn’t right, Hayley. Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean wrong? We’re doing great.”

“I feel it.”

“Well, I feel tired. Let’s let it sit and see what comes up.”

Taylor knew what that meant. Both girls did. They’d wait until something came to one of them. Something they could never directly ask for, but they knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt when it arrived.

That’s just the way things were.

Chapter Fifteen

Miranda “Mindee” Larsen was a hairstylist at Shear Elegance in downtown, or rather, what approximated downtown Kingston, only a short drive from Port Gamble. Until recently, Mindee had been first chair in the salon for four consecutive years, a designation of power and excellent performance. She blamed herself only a little for her recent shift from first to second chair.

It had finally sunk in that the owner, a hard-bitten, humorless woman with blue-black hair named Nicola Cardamom, was never going to let her buy into the business, despite their agreement to the contrary. When Nicola wooed Mindee from a salon in Bremerton, promises had been made.

“A woman with your talent,” Nicola had said, “should be front and center.”

Mindee fell for it and packed her scissors, clippers and color kit. Things weren’t great with her husband and she needed something to build upon. Just in case.

In time, Mindee finally understood how empty a promise could be. She’d been stuck in neutral for too long, and if things at home hadn’t been as complicated as they were, she simply would have quit. Doing head after head, day after day, for a lying boss like Nicola was exasperating and demoralizing. She found herself angry at everyone.

A few times she purposely let the tips of her sharp scissors nick a customer’s ear.

“You