Tristan had invited me to spend the day with him, learning everything I needed to know to be a Lifer. A whole day alone with Tristan. I tossed the covers off and yanked on the first clothes I saw—a T-shirt from the desk chair and jeans from the floor—then tore down the stairs, smiling at the now familiar sound of my dad pounding away on his keyboard inside his room. I was just headed out the front door when I heard the floor creak behind me.
“Where’re you going?” Darcy asked.
I hesitated for a split second before turning to face her. She was already showered and dressed, uncharacteristically early for her. I saw the hopeful curiosity written all over her face and knew she wanted to get out of the house, but I also knew she couldn’t come with me. Not on this particular errand.
“Um…for a run?” I said, guilt oozing out of my pores.
She narrowed her eyes. “In jeans?”
I looked down. Damn. One of the very few times in my life I was not sporting running shorts or sweats and she had to call me on it.
“A walk, I meant.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said, grabbing her sunglasses off the front table next to the framed photograph of our family—me, my sister, my mom, my dad—the only one we still had of the four of us.
I bit my bottom lip. “Actually, I’m going to hang out with Tristan,” I finally admitted, my face pulsating with heat.
Darcy’s eyes widened; then she gave me a knowing smile. “I see. Have fun,” she said meaningfully.
“Uh, thanks!” I said awkwardly. “We’ll hang out later!”
Outside, the warmth enveloped me and I took a deep breath of the sweetly scented air as I sped up the hill toward town. On my way across the park, I saw Officer Dorn and his boss, Chief Grantz, standing close together, staring down at the paved sidewalk. A small white bird lay dead at their feet, half a dozen fat flies buzzing around it. I wrinkled my nose, and suddenly, both of the officers looked up at me, an accusatory gleam in their eyes. But for what? A dead bird?
Just then, Nadia rode across the street on a dirt bike and skidded to a stop right next to them. They shared a few words, and her eyes snapped up to glare at me, too. I shivered in the warm sunlight, then quickly turned my back on them and started walking again. As I started up the hill to the bluff, it took every ounce of self-control within me to keep from looking back. After what felt like an eternity, I knocked on Tristan’s front door.
Krista answered, wearing her blue-and-white gingham general store uniform. “Hi, Rory!”
I smiled, Krista’s ever-upbeat attitude instantly squelching what was left of my uneasiness.
“Hey!” I said. “Going to work?”
“Yeah. I was just heading out,” she said, slipping past me onto the porch. “Listen, I wanted to ask you…I’m having this big party on Friday night, and I was wondering if you’d want to be on the planning committee.”
I blinked. “The planning committee?”
She smiled and blushed, smoothing her bangs off her forehead with her fingertip. “Yeah. It’s my one-year anniversary on the island,” she explained, tilting her head and biting her bottom lip. “It’s kind of a big deal, so the other girls are helping me plan it.”
I fiddled with the end of my braid. Party planning was definitely not my thing. But she looked so hopeful.
“Sure,” I said. “When do you need me?”
Krista squealed and grabbed me into a hug. “That’s great! We’re meeting here, Wednesday morning, at ten sharp.”
“Okay. I’ll be here.”
“Cool. If you’re looking for Tristan, he’s up in his room. Just go upstairs. It’s the second door on the left,” she said as she jogged down the porch stairs.
“Thanks,” I called after her.
She lifted a hand and hustled around the corner, out of sight.
I took a deep breath and walked inside, closing the door behind me. The foyer was huge and silent, lit dimly in the morning sun. The floors were a dark, polished wood, and matching wainscoting reached halfway up the walls. The decor was impeccable but impersonal: the nap of a deep red Turkish rug was all swept in one direction, as if recently vacuumed. One perfect orchid in a gold vase sat atop a gleaming hall table. The
walls were a warm, creamy white, bare of any photographs or portraits, aside from a landscape painting of Juniper Landing’s town hall.
A tall, banistered staircase stood to my right, but before I could move, a floorboard creaked somewhere nearby. I saw a shadow under the edge of a door on the far side of the foyer. It hovered there, as if listening.
For a long moment, I just stood there, vacillating somewhere between an instinct to run and my yearning to see Tristan. Finally, the footsteps receded and a door slammed shut at the back of the house. Unfrozen, I took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, looking into each doorway until I saw Tristan. He was standing with his back to me at a drawing table, which was set up to face a bay window overlooking the ocean, and he was holding something in his hands. Suddenly he tossed the heavy item into the bottom drawer of a storage cabinet under the desk, locked the drawer, pocketed the key, then turned around before I could come up with a good excuse for my hovering there.