by Callie Rose
He sits up straighter. “I didn’t—” Then he cuts himself off and presses his lips together, nodding once. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
That stops me in my tracks.
Lincoln Black’s attitude toward me has ranged from openly antagonistic to confusingly intense, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him apologize to me… or anyone else, for that matter. This is the most genuine he’s ever been with me, and I have to work to strengthen the fortifications around my heart. When he looks at me like he is now, it’s hard to remember all the reasons I shouldn’t trust him.
I tug my bottom lip between my teeth, biting down hard enough to produce a sting of pain. “Well, next time, maybe don’t just make a bunch of assumptions about someone you don’t even know. Maybe they’ll surprise you.”
His lips tilt up at the corners, and the spark of humor in his eyes makes him look more human—and almost boyish. “Oh, you definitely surprised me, Harlow.”
He leans toward me slightly, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch an abbreviated movement of his hand, as if he almost reached for me but stopped himself. I jerk to a stop too, realizing I unconsciously mirrored his action and leaned in too.
Pulling away, I busy myself with my seat belt, and neither of us speak again until we’re both out of the car. As we’re heading across the motor court to the mansion’s side entrance, Lincoln says, “The guys are coming over later. Meet us in the pool house at 7:30. We need to talk.”
I have to do some cleaning, and there are a few homework assignments I should work on—but I’m not sure I can muster the focus to work on them anyway. Besides, his order makes a thrill of curiosity and nerves spread through me. What do we need to talk about? Have the guys been having little meetings like this without me all week?
Maybe Lincoln is finally letting me into their world a little.
Truthfully, I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But if I’m being forced to keep this secret, to let it eat away at my mind and soul, I want to at least not be kept in the dark.
I say hi to Mom, who asks how I’m feeling just like she did this morning. She offers to cover for me on my cleaning duties, but I don’t take her up on it. Monotonous scrubbing actually helps take my mind off things.
At six, I head upstairs to change back into my street clothes, and Mom and I eat dinner in her little apartment. The Blacks always eat downstairs in their formal dining room, served by Gwen, the house chef. But we’re not responsible for the setup or cleanup of meals.
I wait until exactly 7:30 to head downstairs to the pool house. I don’t want Samuel or Audrey to find me alone in there and wonder what I’m doing, so I give the guys time to get there first.
When I walk in, they’re lounging on the large, comfortable chairs at one end of the pool, and I have a sudden flash of déjà vu. This is where I first saw Dax, Chase, and River. Where I overheard them talking shit about me and kicked River’s phone into the pool in retaliation.
Whether I like to admit it or not, my relationship with all four of them has changed a lot since then. My feelings for them have changed.
And maybe theirs toward me have changed too, because when I walk in, something like relief flashes in each of their eyes.
They’re all wearing street clothes, and it’s obvious they came here for the privacy and isolation, not for the pool. There’s an empty chair on one side of the circle, and I step toward it.
“So, what’s up?” I ask as I sink onto the soft cushion, glancing around at their faces anxiously.
“We’ve been trying to figure out who the guy in the mask was,” Lincoln says bluntly.
I sit up straighter, eyes going wide. “What? I thought you said we shouldn’t say anything.”
“We’re not.” He lowers his chin, giving me a steely look like I might’ve somehow forgotten his ten thousand warnings to keep my damn mouth shut. “We’re looking into it. We haven’t brought anyone else in on this or told anyone anything.”
I blink. “Okay. What have you found out? Anything?”
Dax runs a hand through his dark copper hair. “Not much, sadly. Did you show her the pictures, Linc?”
My gaze shoots back to Lincoln. Now that they’ve mentioned it, I remember him lifting his phone to snap several pictures of the man in the mask before the mysterious stranger got back into his car and sped off. Panic and shock has made some of the memories of that night a little blurry, almost dream-like, and I’d honestly forgotten about the pictures on his cell until now.
Lincoln slips his phone out of his back pocket, taps out his password, and then swipes the screen a few times before handing it to me.
I peer closer at the small screen. The images aren’t great quality. It was dark, both inside the car and out, and he obviously didn’t use a flash—thank fuck, or we’d all probably be dead. So things that were clearly visible in person are rendered grainy and shadowy in the photographs.
Iris’s body lies on the road, but if I didn’t know what it was, I’m not sure I’d be able to guess. The attacker’s car was almost exactly perpendicular to ours, so the license plate isn’t visible at all. And Lincoln was right—even in the picture, I can’t quite tell the color of it. It looks black, but so does almost everything in the image. He captured several frames in quick succession, so I swipe through them quickly. Some are blurry because of the movement and low light. But there’s one, right toward the end, that captured a clear view of the man.
His ski mask is rolled down, so it’s not like I can see any identifying features. But I can tell he’s wearing a mask and can even see the pale outline of the skin around his eyes and make out the shape of his mouth.
This doesn’t do anything to prove who killed Iris, but it does at least present solid evidence that the person who murdered her did it in a premeditated act of cold blood.
Bile tries to force its way up my throat as the image of the tall man hits me like a punch to the gut. I wasn’t prepared for how visceral my response would be to seeing these pictures. It feels almost like slipping back into a replay of that night.
Lincoln reaches over and tugs the phone from my stiff fingers at the same time Dax and Chase rise from their seats and sit down on mine, sandwiching me on the lounge chair between them. Somehow, this has become their unofficial duty—calming me when I’m about to lose it.
I love and hate that they moved without hesitation, and that their proximity instantly soothes me.
Lincoln presses a button on his phone and slips it back into his pocket. My stomach churns, but I suck in a deep breath and release it slowly. “So, has this led you to anything? Is there anything there that helps identify him? I can’t see it, but…”
Maybe I missed something. Please, let me have missed something.
“No, nothing yet. Well, except for the big, obvious one. Whoever killed Iris was male.” Chase shrugs, resting a hand on my knee.
“The most logical place we’ve been able to think of to start is to do more digging on Iris and her family. See if we can figure out what they were into that may’ve gotten them enemies,” River says carefully. He watches me closely as I reply.
“But you’re just sitting on evidence. You know that, right? I mean, right now the police think Iris was hit by a drunk driver—that her death was an accident. Those pictures could help their investigation so much.”
“Yeah.” River shrugs. “Or they could get buried and never see the light of day, while the killer suddenly knows they’ve got witnesses they need to deal with. If we can get more information, we can think about going to the cops, but even then it’s a risk. Right now, it’d just be fucking dangerous.”
Maybe I’ve just been hanging out with the kings too much, but what he’s saying is starting to make sense to me. I’ve never exactly lived my life in black and white, and what these guys are doing is just one more shade of gray. I find myself sort of impressed that instead of just trying to put this behind them and pretend it never happened, they want to do something about it themse
lves.
Of course, I can’t help but wonder how much of that is self-preservation.
We don’t think the man in the black ski mask saw us. I don’t remember his gaze lingering on our car, and we were a good way down the street, hidden in shadows.
But we don’t know that.
It’s possible he did see the car, maybe even realized after he sped away from the scene that he might’ve been watched—and now, it’s possible he’s doing the exact same thing we are.
Trying to figure out who was there that night.
19
On Wednesday of the following week, there’s a funeral for Iris.
I’m not invited, which makes complete sense, since she and I were never close friends—and no one knows I have any connection to her beyond our encounters at school. Her parents don’t know I witnessed her final moments, and if they did know, I don’t think that would make them more inclined to invite me to the service.
They’d probably hate me.
All four of the guys are invited, and all four of them go. I spend the evening in Mom’s apartment watching old movies with her, trying to keep my mind from wandering to the church downtown where Iris’s family and friends are mourning.
I hug Mom goodnight at a little after ten and head around the corner to my room. As I’m opening my door, I notice Audrey slipping out of the bedroom down the hall from mine. I pretend not to see her, turning my head away and stepping quickly inside my little sanctuary. I have no idea what she was doing in there—it’s the same room I heard Mr. Black having sex in once—but I decide I really don’t want to know. My brain is overloaded with secrets, and even my usually curious nature can’t handle another one.
Besides, once you learn something, you can’t unlearn it.
I brush my teeth and slip into my pajamas, and I’m about to crawl into bed when there’s a light knock on the door. I’m so on edge these days that even that soft sound makes me jump, and I really wish there was a damn peephole in this thing. I want to know what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door before I commit to facing it.
There isn’t though, so I take a deep breath and open the door a crack, peering out into the hall.
It’s Lincoln.
And he’s drunk.
At least, I’m assuming so. I’ve never seen him look this disheveled. His dark hair is always a little messy, but now it sticks out at odd angles. His beautiful amber eyes are a little glassy, and his entire face looks worn and drawn. He must’ve been wearing a full suit at the funeral, but the jacket is missing now. His tie is loosened haphazardly, and the sleeves are rolled up his forearms. And he smells like a damn distillery.
“Linc?” I ask, unconsciously shortening the word to the nickname his friends use. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer, just steps past me into my room. I hesitate for a second before shutting the door softly and turning to face him. Something is obviously wrong, and it makes my internal alarm bells go off, but I’ve started to truly believe that Lincoln wouldn’t do me harm. He has a somewhat misguided sense of right and wrong maybe, but he’s not a bad person.
“What happened? How was the funeral?”
He still doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even look at me. He just sinks down onto the end of my bed, resting his forearms on his thighs and bowing his head. He looks sad and… broken. I don’t understand quite what’s happening, or why he’s so upset now—more so than he was the night we saw Iris get murdered. What’s changed since then?
Or has it all finally caught up to him?
I don’t bother asking him another question, since I’m certain I won’t get an answer. Instead, I pad over to the bed and sit next to him. I’m not quite sure what to do, but I can feel the distress radiating from him like a field of toxic energy, and I can’t take it. I want to ease it somehow.
Tentatively, I reach my hand out and run it through the hair at the nape of his neck. The dark strands are soft, and I feel his body shudder at my touch. I rake my nails gently over his scalp, something my mom used to do to me when I was feeling shitty, and he lets out a breath. Then he turns toward me suddenly, wrapping his arms around my middle and pressing his head against my low belly.
It’s a strange sort of hug, and there’s something almost desperate about the way he clings to me. I bite my lip to keep my own rising emotions in check as I keep stroking my fingers through his hair. His breathing is harsh and uneven, and I don’t know if tears are falling from his eyes or not, but I have a feeling this is the closest he’s come to crying in a long time.
He never says a word, and I don’t push him to talk. He and the other kings saw me at my worst the night of Iris’s death—they brought me back from the brink of a dark, awful place. If that’s where Lincoln is now, the least I can do is sit with him, be there for him, bear witness to his pain until it passes.
After a while, his breathing evens out again. It’s almost midnight, and my eyelids are growing heavy. I try to loosen his grip so I can stand up, but he makes a noise almost like a growl in his throat and tightens his hold on me. Giving up that fight, I scoot backward a bit on the bed, bringing him with me, and end up lying on my back with his head resting on my stomach. My hands find his hair again, and I bury them in the thick strands as sleep drags me under.
I don’t know what time he wakes up in the middle of the night, but when I blink my eyes open the next morning, he’s gone.
Halloween falls on a Saturday, and even though I don’t feel like doing much of anything, I let Lauren and Andrea talk me into going to a costume party. Of course, as soon as they find out I’m going, Lincoln, Dax, Chase, and River all decide to go too. Despite their decision to let me in on their search for the masked man, and despite Lincoln’s strange visit to my room a few days ago, they obviously still have trust issues where I’m concerned.
It’s fucking frustrating. I don’t know what they expect me to do, or how to convince them I’m not going to do it.
One of the boxes my Mom swears she shouldn’t have packed contains several old costumes, so I steal one from that stash—a Cleopatra costume, complete with toga, wig, and headdress. It’s probably not as trendy or timely as most of the costumes girls will be wearing at the party, but it’s better than my alternate option, which is showing up in my street clothes and telling everyone I don’t give a shit.
Like I said. Not really feeling the holiday spirit.
The party is at a mansion on the west side of town, and Lincoln insists on driving me—surprise, surprise. I know people at school are starting to take notice of how often he and I show up to events together. There is the built-in explanation that I’m his maid and am living in his house, but that doesn’t explain why I’m seen so often with the other three guys too.
I half expect Savannah to take exception to me monopolizing the attention of four of the richest, hottest guys in school, but she hasn’t said anything… and as soon as we walk through the doors of the single-story, sprawling house, I realize why.
She and Trent stand near the wide doorway between the foyer and the living room, and he’s got her nearly bent in half backwards as he devours her mouth with a sloppy kiss.
I pull up suddenly, and Lincoln pauses behind me. When he sees what I’m gaping at, he snorts under his breath. “Oh, you didn’t know? That happened like a week ago.”
Ew. Ew because his tongue has to be somewhere past her esophagus by now, and also ew because I know he and Iris were some kind of something, even if no one at school really knew about it. Is this his way of processing his grief? He looked fucking wrecked that Monday after the news of her death broke.
I don’t know what exactly was going on between Iris and Trent, but from where I’m standing, it looks like he just moved from one cheerleader to another, never mind that one of them fucking died.
Savannah has continued to be over-the-top in her display of grief, using it as an excuse to do and say whatever she wants, to be an even bigger bitch to me than usual. She’s become so
theatrical about it that it’s honestly gotten a little hard to tell how much of it is real and how much is fake.
Lincoln grunts again, tugging me in the opposite direction toward the other wing of the house. We find Dax and Chase surrounded by several girls—they tend to flock around the twins whether the boys encourage them or not, which they’re definitely not doing right now—and then the four of us migrate over to the corner River is lounging in.
It occurs to me that this is really all I wanted, that this is what makes me feel safe. I might’ve come to this party because Lauren and Andrea invited me, but the only people I really feel like hanging out with here are the four boys I’m with.
Wow. There’s something I never thought I’d say.
Dax and Chase settle on either side of me on a wide, plush couch. The floor plan of this house is open, so even though we’re in a completely different room, I can still see Trent and Savannah. They’ve stopped making out like sloppy drunks, but she’s still clinging to him like a leech, leaning up to whisper in his ear.
“You don’t think it was Savannah, do you?” I mutter before I can stop myself.
My voice was low, but River, who’s sitting across from me, narrows his eyes at me in surprise and leans closer. “What are you talking about?”
I sigh, glancing around. This isn’t the place to have this kind of conversation. I’m not sure there’s any good place, but this definitely isn’t it. “Nothing. It’s probably stupid. I just know they hated each other at least as much as they liked each other. And they spent weeks fighting over Trent.”
Dax shakes his head. “She’s not smart enough. And the person in that car was a guy. For sure.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” I shake my head, making the hair of my blunt black wig shimmy, and the five of us settle back into the couch cushions.
