The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,63
the night. Still her eyes hadn’t closed, and after an airless silence, she’d heard the first cheerful twitters of the morning birds. She’d watched the way sunrise shifted the shadows in the room, trying to Cowslip the entire night away, but those two words lingered in her head like small obscenities.
She saw.
If they were true, if Shelby had seen, she would have yelled the house down. She would have waded in and pulled Molly out herself. How could Shelby see Molly in the pool, dead or dying, and slip back inside? Laurel could not fathom Shelby resetting the house alarm, cool as a reptile, then hiding herself in the long curtain or behind the low counter in the kitchen when Laurel had come screaming past. Not possible. So why couldn’t she forget those words?
“Where’s Shelby?” she asked.
“Off with Bet Clemmens,” Thalia said, sounding smug about it.
The depth of Laurel’s immediate relief shamed her. She rolled to face her sister, turning in place because there wasn’t much bed left that Thalia hadn’t draped a long, skinny limb across.
“What do you mean, off with Bet? The park?”
“Bug, I’m a genius,” Thalia said. The smugness was growing. “An evil genius? Perhaps. But we can’t choose our gifts. Did someone have a lunch date with Mother today?”
“Oh, crap,” Laurel said, her hand automatically reaching up to smooth her hair. “I can’t manage it.”
“You don’t have to. I told her you were sleeping the sleep of the mentally deficient. Or maybe I said ‘the emotionally devastated.’ No matter. I asked her if she and Daddy wouldn’t be so sweet as to take the girls to the mall, maybe go to Wendy’s for one of those delightful Asian salads; perhaps they might even spend the night. She was all over it, so I pressed a warm credit card—one of yours, by the way—into her hand and packed them off. Now I can vivisect the Bunny at my leisure.”
“You are an evil genius,” Laurel said in shocked admiration.
She’d meant to aim Thalia back at Stan Webelow today; if Stan were to blame, they could leave Molly’s damaged family alone. But now she was willing to give Thalia her head and let her unleash any kind of hell she chose. Laurel would tear Bunny open herself, right down the middle, and go digging in her insides, if that was what it took. She had a day’s reprieve, one day, to find out where blame should fall. The Dufresnes or Stan Webelow, she didn’t care, as long as the truth they uncovered wiped away those little words. When Shelby came home in the morning, Laurel didn’t want to look at her girl the way Detective Moreno had, didn’t want to pry at her, seeking Thalia’s theoretical unhappiness, or worse, a monstrous coldness at her center.
She spoke again to make herself stop thinking. “Lordy, Thalia, Mother didn’t even know Bet was still here.”
“I know,” Thalia said. She threw her hands over her head and arched her back, stretching herself like a long, lolling cat. “Shelby came in trailing Bet Clemmens like a pull toy. Mother positively gaped. It was as if I’d poured sour milk into her Froot Loops. Then she forced this ghastly, gracious smile. I knew she was about to pick up her spoon and choke down every freakin’ fruity, curdled bite.
“You know the weirdest thing? Beyond weird, but this is Mother. When she said she’d take the girls, I think she meant Shelby and Molly. She’s already managed to forget the kid died.”
Some of Thalia’s hair was draped across the pillow, tickling Laurel’s nose. She pushed it away. “You know we’ll both pay later.”
“Oh, yeah,” Thalia said, laughing. “Mother only lets DeLop exist at Christmas, and now I’ve walked her through a big steaming pile of it and sent her off with it stuck to her shoes.”
Laurel sat up and swung her legs down off the bed. “So we’re going to see Bunny today? At her house?”
Thalia didn’t answer immediately, and the pause stretched out so long that Laurel stood up and turned around, looking directly down at her sister. “Thalia?”
Thalia closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose. “Why does your bedspread smell like lavender?” she asked.
“I put sachet in the batting. Quit smelling my bed and tell me what the plan is.”
“I’m the plan, Suzy Homemaker,” Thalia said.
“I don’t know what that means.” Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s my new blouse. Three suitcases, and you’re wearing my new blouse?”