Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (general ebook reader .TXT) 📗

sick. For years she’d thought Jade was lying. But what if Jade had actually followed him into those woods?

Jenny wanted to feel relieved that her sister hadn’t been hurt or vanished, like that other little girl. Finding the umbrella had made it all feel real again.

If only Jade didn’t suck all the air out of the room, maybe things would be different between them.

“Am I boring you?” asked Nate.

“Oh no, not at all.” What had she missed? “So are you and your twin identical in every way?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t too off topic.

“Just looks. We’re actually pretty different.”

“Well, maybe you don’t look identical anymore. I think I’m done.”

He faced her, running a hand over his head, making the little bit of hair he had left all spiky. His ears stuck out at odd angles, not at all symmetrical. Jenny tried to arrange her features into a neutral expression.

“Okay, well, no mirror, so by the look on your face, is it that bad?”

“No, just…Wow. It’s pretty short.”

Her haircut hadn’t done him any favors.

“My sister and I have a complicated relationship too,” she said, surprising herself. “I mean, we aren’t twins or anything, but she has this way of attracting so much attention, I feel invisible most of the time.”

It was the first time Jenny had ever said that to anyone, and she was grateful that he just nodded as if she made perfect sense.

It was intoxicating, being honest for once, even with a stranger. Or maybe especially with a stranger.

When his face had been covered in soot, she’d only noticed the whites of his eyes, but now she could tell the irises were a forest green that changed shades in the light, like a mood ring. It surprised her, this tiny detail, or perhaps the fact that she’d noticed it at all. One of the scratches on his cheek stood out now too, a thin crevasse in his skin that had opened as he talked and was pulsing with little beads of bright red blood.

Without thinking, she ran a finger lightly down the length of his cut. “I’m really sorry Colonel Mustard did that to you.”

“Wow, Jenny. Are you going to introduce us to your friend?”

Jade’s voice hit her like an arrow in the back of the head.

And of course the giggling was coming from Shelby and Carly, because they were like Charlie’s Angels, always together and sniffing out gossip.

Jenny turned stiffly toward them, but not before she saw the look on Nate’s face: Confusion? Relief? Had she really just caressed his scratch?

Jade was staring at the wispy piles of hair scattered near their feet, as if a strawberry-blond sheep had just been sheared. Jenny waited for her sister to say something witty and Jade-like, but she seemed to be at a loss for words.

“Jade, this is Nate. He actually found Colonel Mustard for us. Nate, my sister, Jade.”

Whose timing couldn’t be worse.

Nate stood up and reached out a hand to Jade, then nodded hello to Shelby and Carly, like a proper gentleman.

He pulled the towel off his shoulders and shook it out.

“So thanks for the haircut. I should get back to base camp.”

He seemed in a hurry to get away.

From me, thought Jenny. Why did I touch his face like that?

“Going to see Colonel Mustard,” Jenny said to Jade and her friends, turning quickly in the opposite direction, grateful when nobody followed her. She was almost at the animal shelter when she realized she was still carrying the scissors.

The makeshift shelter was a cacophony of barks and meows and high, piercing animal sounds that made it hard to think, which was fine with Jenny.

“Can I just take my cat’s kennel with me? He seems really freaked out in here.”

She’d tapped someone on the shoulder. When the woman turned around, she was face to face with the dragon lady again.

“Oh, hi.”

“Hey. I don’t actually have anything to do with the animals.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“But did you see the news?”

Jenny brightened. “No…do we get to go back home?”

“Oh no, not that. It’s something else.”

She handed Jenny a clipping from the Rocky Mountain News.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” she said. “I’ve got to run now.” Her radio was making a staticky noise. “And I guess I should say sorry. I know you all trusted him.”

But her finger was in one ear and her radio was in the other, and she was gone so fast, Jenny got the impression that she didn’t want to stay and watch her read the article. At the same time, Jenny had the distinct feeling that this was why the dragon lady had given her such a strange look in the locker room. She’d already known. BODY SUSPECTED TO BE THAT OF GIRL MISSING FOR TWO YEARS SUSPECT IN CUSTODY

Local celebrity and longtime weatherman Earl Jackson, known to radio listeners as Coyote Jones, has been charged with the abduction and murder of a six-year-old girl who went missing in the forest near her home two years ago. To protect the family’s privacy, the girl’s name is not being released at this time. The investigation is ongoing, and more charges are pending.

Jenny didn’t ask anyone if she could take Colonel Mustard and his kennel with her; she just did it. She wanted to get away from all the noise and bury her face in her cat’s fur. It was the only thing that made sense.

This was going to be too much for her mother, who had believed in Coyote Jones, just like everybody else. Small-town trust is the backbone of small-town living. But it was unraveling.

Before this latest article, people in the shelter had been grappling with news that the fire had actually been started by a priest way over in Granville. Her mother’s eye twitch had gotten worse when they heard this. She had been raised Catholic and said that was reason enough for her girls not to be.

“What those men get away with…,” she said to Jenny and Jade mysteriously. “One day the whole church is going to implode, and I,