If At First (Crimson Cove Mysteries Book 1)

by Tara Brown

  And I honestly didn't know what I would do if she was.

  My world didn't have room for extremes like that.

  Chapter Five

  This brings a new meaning to Crimson Cove

  The evening flew by, filled with drinking, dancing, and laughing.

  The sun faded and it got dark, taking away the royal blue and then the midnight blue of the sky as the light vanished completely.

  Before I knew it I was a little buzzed and a lot tired of dancing.

  I wiped the sweat from my brow, grateful I had used my makeup setting spray on my face. The party had turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated, mostly because of Sierra and Lainey who were still dancing.

  Rachel had been scarce, her night no doubt ruined.

  I wasn't sorry for her. She had made her bed.

  I wandered down to watch the sea from the railing of the deck for a moment, not sure whether I was ready to go home or not. It felt like a huge decision to go. Like I was making the choice by leaving the party.

  I dismissed the thought and told myself I needed to leave because it was close to midnight, and I would need to assemble the telescope. The stepmonster had felt it clogged up her chi in the feng shui and had shoved it into the pool house.

  I didn't even know what she meant; our house was surrounded by a giant patio with heaps of space for everyone and everything. We had seven conversation pits set up around the backyard.

  Clogging was an extreme word choice.

  I had already dragged it out onto the deck, but it was in a couple of pieces so I had to assemble it quickly.

  The music stopped long enough for me to hear screaming. I turned back, seeing the power had gone off. Everyone moved in amongst the solar lights, calling to their friends. The lights flashed once and then came back on, bringing the music with them. In the shadows on the dock I noticed someone near me. I held my breath until I heard his voice.

  “Hey, princess. What’s going on?”

  “Seriously, stop calling me that.” I glanced over, wrinkling my nose as Vincent—a wasted version of Vincent—nestled in next to me at the railing. From a distance he was absolutely gorgeous. Dark hair, tanned skin, green eyes, and a smile that always suggested he was thinking something naughty about you. He was a tall drink of water, but the water was vodka and up close he reeked of dysfunction and alcohol.

  “You look lonely.” He nudged himself closer and slid his arm around me, pulling me into him while looking down on me with that smile. I shuddered and leaned away from him as the stale alcohol breath seeped into my space when he spoke, “Why don't we go for a walk and you can tell me about your summer. I saw you laboring away yesterday,” he muttered as he lifted his hand into my hair. “And why did you cut your beautiful hair off? It was so nice and silky. Perfect hair for a perfect princess.”

  “Where?” I pulled back, startled. “I mean, where’s Sage?” Oh God, did he see me at his house? Where had he seen me laboring? “Stop calling me princess. I will cut you, I swear it!”

  He flung his free hand and motioned like he was lost on words. “Gone. She was yelling at Rachel because Rachel was yelling at Ash and he left hours ago and hasn't come back so Rachel’s even more pissed about that. It was a hot mess. They were in the bushes. I’m wearing Gucci. I don't trek about the woods in designer shoes. Anyway, it was tedious and pathetic.” He leaned back into me, pulling me to him. “You look like a hot mess. I like this skirt, princess.” He brushed a hand on the back of my bare thigh, lifting my skirt just slightly while saying princess with even more affect.

  I shoved him back. “Stop! Dude. You’re dating one of my best friends and you’re a pervert. And I am the last girl to be called a princess. If either of us is a princess, it’s you.”

  “Everyone is a pervert, Linds.” He shook his head. “And no one actually dates Sage. She’s more of a trophy you carry around for a bit, claiming your conquest, and then moving on.” He laughed and pointed a finger at me. “But you—you are trouble. I saw that from a mile. Just let me see if this is what I think it is.” He leaned in closer, moving fast and pressing his lips against mine.

  My heartbeat increased as he pressed my chest into his and squished me, stealing all my breath.

  My knee came up hard, before I even had a chance to wrestle with the idea of doing it. I didn't like kneeing boys in the balls. It was a committed choice once you went in, so I didn't ever want to do it unless absolutely necessary.

  He groaned as I made contact and his knees buckled. “Oh, shit. You wanna play rough?”

  I laughed and stepped back. “You have some serious issues. I wanna play slap you around for a while if you try that with me again.”

  “We can do that too,” he spoke through a groan.

  “You are such a pig.”

  “And you are such a virgin.” He winced again, cupping his balls. “Let me fix that for you. Let me help you loosen up,” he slurred and I wrinkled my nose.

  Stepping back more, I shook my head. “Night, Vincent. Get therapy.”

  “I’ve always liked you, Linds. Even when everyone said you were gay I said I think that's even hotter.”

  “You’re an asshole, Vince! Clean your friggin’ room and stop taking pictures of poor helpless girls.” I waved over my shoulder and stalked up the dock away from him. I regretted the words the moment I spoke them.

  The wind off the ocean was picking up, the way it always did at night, making me cold and bothered by the fact I’d told him I’d seen the stupid pictures.

  A flash of red hair caught my eye. I narrowed my gaze to see Sierra sneaking out of the bushes next to the stairs up to the dock, by the large barbecue pit. She stepped out and glanced around and then disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor.

  I waved but she didn't see me. She was too far away.

  I had lost them all in the crowds and drama.

  Lainey wasn't in the spot I’d left her.

  Sierra had clearly been doing something she didn't want anyone to see, in the woods and in heels no less.

  Sage was obviously caught up in Rachel’s drama of the day.

  And I could still taste her boyfriend on my lips.

  Gross.

  I trekked up the yard, thankful I was in my flats. Vincent’s mouth on mine had sealed it for me—I was ready to go home.

  “Linds!”

  I turned to see Sierra calling me from behind the pool house. She waved at me and called again, “Come here.”

  I spun and looked back toward the water where the dancing and partying was happening, wondering how she had gotten up here so fast without sprinting in her heels. I shook my head and assumed I had hallucinated and hurried to where she was hiding.

  But as I rounded the corner she wasn't there.

  I blinked and listened, hearing sobbing from close by. As I got around the next corner, I jumped, startled at the way Sierra’s makeup ran down her cheeks. Her lips trembled as black mascara tears rolled down her face. She reached for me with bloody hands.

  I stepped back. “Sierra, what happened?” She hadn’t looked like this a moment ago.

  Her breaths ripped from her in jagged gasps as she tried to speak, “Rach—Rach—Rach—” She shook and gave up, succumbing to the sobbing.

  “Something is wrong with Rachel?” I asked but she didn't say anything, she just cried.

  How had she been so calm moments before? How had she been down at the party, sneaking from the woods? It didn't add up.

  My heart pounded in my chest. Clearly something horrible had happened. I scanned her body for wounds that would explain the blood, but she had none I could see.

  “Where is Rachel?” I grabbed her arms, shaking her and noting the crimson color was smeared across her white dress. “What is happening?”

  She sobbed, turning and pulling me through the yard where no one was. I couldn't get my breath as we rounded the pool house and walked to the guesthouse on the far side of the property.

  I continued to try
to get something from her. “What is it? Are you hurt? Is Rachel hurt? Was there an accident? Did you idiots try to drive?”

  She dropped to her knees, shaking much worse than before. She bawled and heaved, just pointing at the forest behind the guesthouse.

  I let go of her, leaving her there.

  I didn't know what to do or what to expect.

  I didn't have any sort of training for a moment like this one, no first aid even.

  So I licked my lips and walked—holding back the storm inside me.

  As I cleared the grass and the building, I stopped. Horror climbed up my legs, freezing them in the spot they stood. It paralyzed my waist and chest, keeping my breath from me. I lifted my hands to my lips, in shock and confusion. There was no way the thing before me was what it appeared to be.

  It was a lie.

  A mistake.

  I gasped my breaths into my hands as a montage of horror movies I had seen took over my brain, creating an obvious hallucination.

  “No!” I gasped as a sound escaped my lips, either a moan or a cry. I couldn't be sure.

  I couldn't be sure of anything.

  My brain was also frozen, stuck on the image that was so obviously staged.

  I twitched slightly, shaking my head back and forth in denial. “No.”

  Lainey matched me in motion and horror and possibly outdid me in shock. She stood across the bodies from me, as if she was my mirror reflection but a more ghostly apparition than I was. Her cream-colored dress was also coated in blood, as were her hands. She had been processing the scene longer, or she had created it. There was always that option.

  I dropped to my knees, not sure of exactly what I was seeing. My friends were dead on the forest floor, but my brain refused to allow that in.

  Pain stabbed into my knee but I ignored it. I knew it was there, like the vision of my bloody friends before me on the ground, but I didn't feel anything.

  Lainey too dropped to her knees, shaking and sobbing.

  There was no explanation. She offered no words.

  “No,” I said again as I stared at the way Rachel’s body was twisted, as if broken that way on purpose.

  Maybe she had fallen and her back was broken?

  I gazed up into the trees above us and knew there was no way she had been up there. And even if she had been, that wouldn't explain how her head was twisted so disgustingly that I hardly recognized her. Her dark hair was shiny, like it was glossed with something, but I knew it to be blood. Her dress, a pink Marc Jacobs, was soaked and more of a crimson color.

  A gasp slipped from my lips as I looked at Lainey again. “What happened? Did you call the police? We need to call 9-1-1! Did you check their pulse?”

  She shook and stared at Rachel whose eyes were open. I peered down, noting her palms faced the sky, regardless of how unlikely it was she had fallen that way with them twisted so. First aid might not help her.

  My brain refused to feel a thing as it processed the scene, explaining it all away. I leapt forward, finally making the movement I knew I should. I checked Rachel’s pulse, watching as the blood oozed slowly from the fresh wounds in her midsection. I gagged, noticing the warmth still in her skin. “Call 9-1-1! Call! Call them!” I snapped at Lainey but she didn't move. She just stared at Sage who was on the ground next to Rachel, their hands almost touching like they had died reaching for one another.

  Only Sage’s hands were coated in blood and her lip was swollen.

  I stared down at her long enough, knowing she must have killed Rachel in a fit of fury, and suddenly realized she was still breathing.

  Where Rachel was not.

  “She’s alive,” I whispered.

  Lainey lifted her eyes to me, shaking her head and still in shock.

  “She’s breathing.”

  Lainey frowned, looking at me like I was a monster for saying it. “SAGE IS ALIVE!” I shouted.

  Lainey jumped and Sierra appeared next to her. They clung to each other.

  All three of us gaped down at our friend as she coughed and blinked, coming back to us from whatever place her horrific deed had put her.

  Chapter Six

  Daddy’s girl?

  I looked in the rearview at Sage and wanted so badly to ask why we had run, but the way she shivered constantly told me there was no point. She hadn’t said a word from the moment she opened her eyes. She had seen her hands and then Rachel’s body and screeched. She was clearly still in shock.

  I drove us in Rachel’s car to Sierra’s house. It was only a five-minute drive along the shoreline and Sierra’s driver had ditched us.

  None of us spoke.

  When we got to the house, the gate opened and I drove in and parked at the guesthouse in the back. I jumped out, grabbing the door and helping Lainey from the car. When I got her inside she was still twitching and shuddering. I stared into her dark eyes. I knew what she was seeing. It sickened me. The whole scene was likely to be on replay.

  Sierra grabbed Sage from the car and dragged her in.

  Once we were all there I couldn’t look at any of them. I didn’t know why we had done what we had done, but they were clearly guilty of something.

  I walked back out to the car.

  I would have to take it back. How would I explain? Why did we leave?

  The moments after Sage woke were blurry with confusion, and I knew we had made the wrong choice. It was the illegal choice.

  Sage had woken and instantly gone into shock. She had seen Rachel’s dead body and made a high-pitched sound before scrambling backward, desperate to get away. She started to have a panic attack, and for whatever reason, Sierra panicked too. She had grabbed Sage by the arm and dragged her from the forest. I didn't know why they were running, but I wasn't going to be the one left standing there with blood on my hands. I took Lainey’s hand in mine and followed Sierra as she bolted for the garage. We stole Rachel’s car and drove off before anyone saw us—before we even talked about what we should do.

  There had been no words. No explanations. No confessions.

  Obviously, one of us had killed Rachel, and all I knew for sure was that it wasn't me.

  I stared at the car, completely lost on how to solve this. I was about to go back inside when a figure appeared in the driveway. I jumped, about to run, until I saw it was Ashton. He walked to me and paused, tilting his head to the side. “Is she safe?”

  “No. Rachel’s dead,” I called out, feeling weird about speaking for the first time in so long and even weirder about the sentence I had said.

  “Sage—is Sage safe?”

  I nodded, lying to us both.

  He walked to Rachel’s car and looked at the door, speaking in a low tone, “I'll take care of this. Burn all your clothes and wash everything you have touched with bleach. Soak phones and keys and everything in bleach. Scrub under your nails in the shower, washing everything three times and bleach the shower when you’re done. Burn the towels and bleach the floors.” He got in and started the car, giving me a look. “NOW, LINDSEY!” he snapped at me out the window before driving the Mercedes away and leaving me there to wonder what the hell had just happened.

  There hadn’t been a drop of blood on him. He clearly hadn’t killed Rachel. Her death had been a bloody one.

  Maybe he knew it was Sage and he was covering it up for her. Unless he had washed up already. But I could swear I saw him leave the party long before Rachel must have been killed.

  I turned and closed the door, seeing the three of them sitting on the leather couches and staring at the wall. They mirrored the girls in a horror movie—the kind you always roll your eyes at because they make all the wrong choices and somehow live through it all.

  “Don't sit,” I said. “We have to burn all these clothes and the shoes and bleach the couches. Bleach our hands and our phones and our keys.” I looked at Sierra. “Bleach?”

  She frowned, like she didn't hear me or understand the words I was saying.

  “BLEACH!”

 
“Pool house,” she muttered, stammering the rest, “It-it-it’s in the p-p-p-pool house.” Tears started rolling down her cheeks again.

  Sage looked at me blankly and whispered, “I toasted her rotting in hell.” Her words turned to sobs, “I-I-I-I toasted h-h-her—” She broke down, falling from the couch onto the carpet. I closed the door to outside behind me and observed the rug where she was touching it with her bloody hands, wondering how long we had before we would run out of time to clean this all up.

  Lainey started to cry again.

  I realized then I had to be the common-sense girl, the survivor in the crowd. I had to be the reasonable one. I walked to Sierra and grabbed her blood-coated hands and lifted her from the ground. “Come on.” I forced her to stand and walked her to the large walk-in shower. I pushed her inside and turned on the water, making it so hot it was just bearable. I lifted the garbage can. “Put your clothes in here.”

  My mind screamed; it begged me to stop and let the authorities do their job. It told me I was in the wrong, and I was choosing the thing that would end my life before it had even started. I was aiding and abetting.

  But my mother’s voice whispered that they were my family.

  So I did it.

  Sierra started to strip and I turned and went for Lainey, dragging her in next. I pushed her, blubbering and incoherent, into the shower with Sierra. They already resembled inmates as they shivered and stripped. “Put your clothes in the garbage can.”

  Walking back into the living room I jumped seeing Sage was already standing and no longer crying. She just stared at the wall but then turned sharply, and gave me a pained look. “I don't know what happened.”

  I didn't either, and I almost didn't want to know. I was scared to be alone with her there so I offered her my hand, forcing it to stay still and not shake. She lifted her hand, caked in dried blood, and dropped it in mine.

  I pulled her to the bathroom and pushed her inside the shower that had seemed so large a moment ago. “Take everything off, every scrap of clothes and jewels and put them in the can.” I stepped back, seeing the caked blood on my hands.