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

engine. Taylor Ryan wasn’t sure what she was going to say or what would greet her. But she had to get to the Larsens. The Larsens’ car disappeared down the dimly lit street just as Taylor reached house number 21.

A voice came from behind her: “What just happened here?”

Taylor spun around. It was Hayley and Colton.

“Where were you?” Taylor asked, eyeing her sister warily. “I texted you four times today.”

Hayley pulled her coat closer and fanned out her scarf. “Studying,” she replied.

Taylor resisted the urge to roll her eyes just then. “Whatever,” she said. “The Larsens have gone to the police station. I just missed them.”

Colton shifted on his feet, taking a slight step away from Hayley. It was as if he were trying to show that whatever their relationship was, they were not one of those joined-at-the-hip couples who clung together like handbills tacked on telephone poles. A little space between them was just fine.

“Jake’s going down, big-time,” he said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Taylor said.

Hayley studied her sister right then. She telegraphed something, and if Taylor had wanted to, she probably could have grabbed the feeling. Instead, she started walking.

“I know Jake is a creep, but I don’t think he did this,” Taylor said.

“Did what, specifically?” Colton stopped, and the girls did the same. On the sidewalk in front of the Timberline, they huddled, acutely aware they’d just passed Katelyn’s house.

“Killed Katelyn,” Taylor said, her voice almost a whisper. “He didn’t do it.”

The disclosure had Colton’s interest. He cocked his head, and his dark eyes flickered as he asked, “And you know this because… ?”

Hayley looked on, but stayed silent.

“I just know it. I can’t say how, I mean,” Taylor replied, pausing to find the right words. She knew that, whatever her reasons, whatever the source of what she knew, he wouldn’t be able to understand. No one would.

“I just don’t think he did it.”

She could have said she was certain he didn’t do it, but certainty coming from the pages of a magazine seemed too lame to share—especially a magazine as dumb as Justice. Besides her dad, who reads that anyway?

Chapter Forty-Five

Under the watchful eye of Annie Garnett and the stony faces of his mother and sister, Teagan Larsen slumped into a chair across from the Port Gamble police chief. The boy who wanted nothing more than to be the man of the house after his dad left suddenly dissolved into tears. If the thirteen-year-old had been on the cusp of adulthood a moment before, all of that was gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Mindee was crying too. She’d set all of this in motion, and the outcome had been devastating to everyone involved.

“Honey, this is my fault,” she said.

Starla didn’t say a word. She’d seen enough cop shows to know that every utterance she made could be used against her. Starla didn’t intend to go down with the ship. She, more than anyone, had something greater to lose.

My brother is a loser. My mother, a damned hairstylist. A second-chair stylist at that!

Chief Garnett patted Teagan on the shoulder, not so much to comfort him but to keep him focused on what he had to say.

“Teagan,” she said, “I need you to tell me what happened.”

Teagan looked up with flooded eyes. “It was an accident. I swear it was.”

“Do we need a lawyer?” Mindee asked. It was the first indication that she knew that whatever it was that had transpired in Katelyn’s room was potentially the subject of a criminal investigation. Apparently, it had slipped her mind that they were sitting in the office of the Port Gamble police chief.

“Up to you,” Annie said, somewhat coolly. “We can get to the truth either way. Teagan, what do you want to do?”

“I want to talk,” he said. “I want to tell Mr. and Mrs. Berkley that I’m really, really sorry. That what happened was my fault, but it was an accident.”

His word choice was interesting: an accident, but his fault.

Annie waited for Teagan to look up. There seemed to be no guile in the boy’s damp eyes just then. Whatever he was about to disclose was going to be the painful truth.

Every rotten detail.

“Then you need to tell us what happened, okay?” Annie asked.

Mindee spoke up again. Her eyes were puffy from her own tears. Her voice creaked a little with the emotion of the moment. She had so much to answer for right then, but now it was her son’s turn and she was worried.

“Are you absolutely sure he doesn’t need a lawyer?” she asked.

“If it was an accident, there’s no need for it,” Annie said.

Mindee turned to Teagan, who up to that moment had barely looked at his mother or sister. When he did, there was no doubt what he felt about either one of them. He’d been living his life alone in house number 21. Starla was caught up in the wonderland she’d created of her own life, and her mother had dragged Jake Damon into her bed. Everyone was so busy doing whatever it was they’d wanted to do to make themselves happy. Teagan had been left to his own devices.

He’d always liked Katelyn. A lot.

Teagan looked at the chief. “I used to think that maybe, you know, if we were both the same age we’d hook up. Be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Teagan took a gulp of air.

“When I saw those notes Jake was writing to her—at least I thought it was Jake—it made me so mad. I mean, he already had my mom and then he was going to steal Katelyn away from me too. Forget that.”

“Steal her away?” Mindee said, now touching her son’s shoulder. “She wasn’t interested in you, Teagan.”

Teagan shot his mother a frosty look and removed her hand. “Mom, you don’t know anything about me or Katelyn or anyone. Not even your precious Starla.”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Starla said. Not surprisingly, the first words out of her mouth were meant to preserve her character in