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

“What do you two want?” Starla asked.

“I’d like a diet soda, please,” Hayley said.

“Water for me,” Taylor added.

Starla made a face. “Okay, but I didn’t mean that. Why are you here? Not that it’s not nice to see you, but we really don’t hang out anymore. Not since I made cheer.”

You have to throw that out as if it were winning the Pulitzer, Hayley thought.

“We’re here about Katelyn,” Hayley said. “Can we talk in your room?”

Starla eyed her warily. “I guess, but do you still want the drinks?”

“No,” Taylor said. “We’re good.”

They followed Starla upstairs. It had been a couple of years since they’d been in Starla’s inner sanctum. The last time they’d been there, she had posters of pop stars and hippy-dippy beaded curtains she bought at Spencer’s back in seventh grade.

This time it was completely different. Taylor almost gasped when Starla swung open the door.

The walls looked like mirrors. Everywhere they turned were pictures of… Starla. She was posing in her Buccaneers’ uniform (with and without pom-poms) and in some ridiculous evening-wear attire that reminded Hayley of getups she’d seen in kids’ pageants on TV. There were even some images of Starla practicing her cheer routine in the backyard.

“Motivation,” Starla explained, picking up on the girls’ obvious stares. “I read in a magazine that if you surround yourself with the best that you are, you’ll get even better. I have a lot more to work with, but you two should give it a try.”

You’re a real piece of work, Taylor thought, but thankfully she managed to hold her tongue. She and her sister were there for a reason—and an important one at that.

Hayley studied the photo of Starla in the backyard. In the background, off to the side, was Katelyn, standing with slumped shoulders and a sad look on her face.

The reason they were there.

“We wanted to talk about Katelyn,” Hayley said. “Do you think she actually killed herself?”

“I don’t know. I guess she had a lot to live for,” Starla said halfheartedly, as though she was not sure if that was true. She planted herself on a big pink beanbag, the only item that either visitor remembered. Beth Lee had once hurled all over it during a sleepover when Mindee served salmon cakes (“made up of two cans of salmon—the good kind”) and Tater Tots. The memory was disgusting, but it still made Taylor smile. Just the idea of Beth retching over a beanbag was awesome enough, but the fact that it was Starla Larsen’s made it absolutely sweet.

“I heard Hedda went missing. Did she come home yet?”

“No,” Taylor said. “Have you seen her?”

Starla shook her head. “Oh, no! What kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t call you the very second I saw her?”

You would be a rotten friend, thought Hayley.

A friend like Starla Larsen, thought Taylor.

Like most bedrooms in the historic district, Starla’s room was small and there weren’t many places to sit. Hayley slid to the floor, resting her back against Starla’s white wrought-iron daybed. It had a lemon-and-cherry print duvet and enough ruffled pillows that it seemed it would take an hour to scoot them aside to make space to sleep at night. Taylor swiveled the white and black plastic IKEA desk chair around to face the other two.

“Katie was pretty messed up,” Starla said.

Hayley tried to get comfortable by shifting her weight. The hardwood floor was, well, hard.

“Messed up enough to kill herself?” Taylor asked.

“Teen suicide is rampant in this country,” Starla said, readjusting her messy bun. “I did a paper on it.”

Hayley gave up on being comfortable. “Katelyn was your best friend.”

Starla shook her head. She did so slowly and without making eye contact.

“Correction,” she said. “And I know this will sound harsh, and harsh is not at all what I’m about, but she was most definitely not my best friend. I might have been her best friend, but not the other way around.”

“All right,” Taylor said. “But you knew her better than anyone. You would have noticed it if she was spiraling downward, thinking of killing herself. Right?”

Starla punched at the beanbag to spread its flattened Styrofoam beads. “Look, I’ve been busy. I feel horrible about what happened to Katie. But if you’re looking for me to give you some insight—and I don’t even know why you’d care—I can’t do that.”

“What about last fall? Can you tell us about that?” Hayley asked. “What happened?”

Starla refused to meet Hayley’s gaze. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Taylor picked up the beat in the conversation. “Something happened. Her mother was really mad about it.”

“Her mother was always pissed off at something,” Starla said. Her tone was dismissive and mean.

“Right,” Taylor said. “But what happened, Starla?”

Starla appeared to think for a moment. It was hard to tell sometimes—not because she wasn’t smart; she was. She was just very, very cagey.

“I don’t know,” she said, hesitating a little. It was clear the Ryan twins weren’t going to leave her alone without some kind of revelation.

“Tell us, Starla. Katie would want us to know,” Taylor said, nearly wincing at her own words. Who knew what anyone would want, especially a dead girl?

Well, maybe she and her sister would.

“It might have to do with stealing that money from the till at the Timberline,” Starla said, getting up from the giant pink beanbag.

“What money? What are you talking about?” Hayley asked.

“She took some cash out of the register so she could get away.”

Taylor leaned closer. “Run away?”

“Not really,” Starla said. “She took the money and caught the Bainbridge ferry to Seattle to see her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Taylor asked.

Starla looked around, refusing to meet either girl’s piercing gaze. “Some online guy,” she said. “I don’t know any more about it.”

Again, Taylor pushed. “She never told you his name?”

Starla got up and started walking toward her bedroom door; her very clear signal that the conversation was over.

“Cullen Anthony, I think,” she said. “But I