The overwhelming revelation of the place—that’s why Claire had first been insensible to the fact that Eileen had taken the keys and was out of the car, approaching the front door. Then clarity had struck Claire across the face.
This house wasn’t theirs yet. Eileen would have to square away legal matters with Mr. Knutsen. There were papers to be signed, no doubt, and important conversations to be had. Claire herself wouldn’t inherit until next September. So what on earth had she meant to do here?
Claire always had a plan. Always. But tonight she’d acted on impulse, desperate for a scrap of hope: lemonade that would make sense of the lemons. Her golden moment. Now, what were they supposed to do next? They couldn’t just break into the house.
Though that seemed to be exactly what Eileen had in mind.
“Eileen, stop!” Claire yelled through the open passenger door.
Claire knew Eileen heard her. She didn’t stop, though, and she didn’t turn around. She kept walking ahead. Is she in a trance? Claire thought irritably, ignoring the fact that she’d recently been in one herself.
Then she heard a noise from the back of the van: another door opening, shoes hitting gravel. A moment later Murphy was passing in front of the windshield, a jogging blob of a purple puffer coat.
“Murphy!” Claire shouted. “I told you to stay in the van!”
Murphy waved without looking back. She might as well have been giving Claire the finger.
“Unbelievable,” muttered Claire, throwing open her door and stepping into the night.
Eileen had reached the front porch and was taking the steps slowly, studying her feet as she moved, as though inspecting the wood’s integrity.
Could be rotting, Claire thought. Magnificent as it is, the entire house could come crashing down.
Sudden panic burst in Claire’s chest, and she broke into a run, moving fast enough to catch up with Murphy and grab her by the arm.
“Hey—ow!” Murphy yelped, tugging away.
Claire held firm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Uh, checking out the house. What are you doing?”
Murphy’s intonation could only be classified as sassy. Claire ignored her, looking ahead.
“Leenie,” she whisper-shouted.
Eileen, still unresponsive, had moved her inspection of the porch to the front door. Claire stomped up the steps, hauling Murphy along. There, she got a good look at the situation. Eileen was turning the door handle left, then right. When it didn’t give, she shook it violently.
“Would you stop that?” Claire hissed. “You can’t break in.”
“I’m not,” Eileen said, fiddling. “You can’t break into a house you own.”
“We own,” Claire corrected. “And you don’t own it yet.”
“I’m eighteen, aren’t I?” Eileen countered.
“Yes, but there’s paperwork that—”
“If I can vote for the president and fight in a goddamn war, then I can enter my new house.”
“We can’t risk it,” said Claire, realizing with dawning horror the position she’d put herself in. “What if the police come out here? They could arrest us. We can’t afford to get arrested. We don’t have that kind of money.”
“Sure we do,” said Eileen, smiling placidly. “You have thousands, Claire. Isn’t that what you said? The people of the Internet have paid you well.”
Claire threw Eileen a dirty look, then felt instantly ashamed. Was this the kind of person she was? Making faces, like a child? Claire couldn’t imagine Harper Everly—with her perfectly contoured face, radiant hair, poise, and grace—even thinking of such behavior.
Being impulsive had been a terrible idea. Claire wondered how nonplanners did this, day after day—running where the wind took you until you landed flat on your face. It put you in precarious positions, led you to throw dirty looks.
Claire had to rise above. This had been a bad idea from the start, but she could turn it around. She could devise a way to get out of here.
“Think about it,” she told Eileen, her thoughts leaping one step ahead of her words. “We get arrested here—just set aside the implications of that. It’d get back to Mr. Knutsen, and you don’t know what kind of trouble that could put us in. You haven’t seen Uncle Patrick’s will for yourself. What if there’s a clause saying he disinherits us if we break in?”
Eileen squinted. “Yeah, Claire. I’m sure there’s a clause that says exactly that.”
“You don’t know!”
“You’re goddamn paranoid.”
“Fine,” Claire snapped, grasping for a different approach. “It’ll get back to Mom, though. You want her hearing about this?”
Eileen grew very still. Even though the sisters barely spoke anymore, in this moment Claire knew what Eileen was thinking.