THE FOUR OF them drove through the streets in the Bentley, Hadley and Pearl in the backseat, both staring out their respective windows. Hadley still wasn’t speaking.
They went back to the club to pick up the Mustang. Akil took the Bentley keys from Bridges, glancing at the girls. “Listen, dude, do you—I mean, you got this?”
“Yeah. See ya.”
When Bridges and the girls reached the Spencer compound, the big house was dark, but the porch lit up with motion-sensor lights as they drove in. Bridges parked, came around to open Pearl’s door, but she let herself out, her gaze following the line of lampposts leading down the driveway to the cottages. She’d been in that living room with Bridges just hours ago, touching him, talking around the subject of going upstairs together.
Now she said, “I need my car,” in a tone that made him glance up from Hadley’s wan face.
“Pearl—”
“I want to go home. Now.”
He made a quick call on his cell phone, presumably to the same manservant who’d taken her keys. His call was answered right away, despite the late hour. Apparently, a middle-of-the-night summons wasn’t unusual in Spencerville.
She could feel Bridges’s gaze on her, waiting for her to turn to him, but she wouldn’t. The headlights of the Civic appeared around the bend in the drive. Bridges said, “Come down to the cottage. Just for a couple minutes.”
The Civic stopped beside her, and the manservant stepped out; same neatly pressed clothes, as if he’d slept propped up in a closet. “No.” Pearl glanced at Hadley. “She needs you.” Then she got into her car and left.
Dad’s truck was in the driveway when she got there; he’d left a couple of lights on for her. His snores were audible even from the living room. There was evidence of how he’d spent his evening after coming back from Yancey’s—a half-empty bag of corn chips on the coffee table, Bud Light empties, remote wedged between the couch cushions—and she felt more than guilt. It was a genuine longing for how things had been before she’d decided to make herself absent this summer. Not perfect, maybe, but predictable, a routine. She switched off lamps as she went and shut her bedroom door behind her.
Someone in black stood by her closet. Her heart slammed into her throat before she recognized herself in the full-length mirror, still wearing Tristan’s oversize jacket, creating a distorted, elongated reflection. She yanked off the jacket, then the rest of her clothes, and kicked the damp heap away.
Pearl curled under the blanket in her underwear, still feeling chilled. She thought of her phone, tucked in her purse, and the one person she wished she could call right now. When she closed her eyes, the strange half-light of the chamber pool was there, waiting for her, and the rhythmic, hypnotizing motion of the ctenophores.
It was relatively quiet for a Saturday morning at Dark Brew. The weather was gray and drizzly, raindrops dewing Pearl’s face and eyelashes after the dash from her car to the air-conditioned confines of the coffee shop. As she pushed her hood back, she scanned the seating area for Reese. No sign.
Jovia was behind the counter, putting cinnamon buns into the case from a parchment-lined baking sheet. She noticed Pearl and said, “Oh. Hey, hon.”
Well, much better than what she’d expected. On the drive, Pearl had imagined Jovia treating her coldly, asking what had happened at the ball last night to get Reese fired, or maybe ignoring her completely. Pretty ridiculous. Reese was so cagey about his personal life that he probably hadn’t told Jovia a thing.
Jovia stopped what she was doing, scrutinizing her. “Are you okay?”
“Are you? You look . . .” Pearl examined Jovia’s red-rimmed eyes. “Did you call Reese’s dad or something?”
Jovia made a rueful face. “That obvious, huh. You want the usual?”
“Two coffees this time.” Pearl hesitated. “And two chocolate croissants.”
Jovia didn’t remark, filling the order with deft movements. “Yeah, the conversation was typical. Things are a little tight for him right now, but he’ll be sure to catch up on what he owes us just as soon as he can.” Jovia snorted softly. “Must be behind on his Porsche payments. Don’t ask me what the hell I was thinking, not making him sign something legal in the first place. Anyway.” She shrugged, fitted lids on the to-go cups, and put everything into a cardboard carryout tray before making Pearl’s change.
“Has Reese been down yet?” She failed miserably at sounding casual.
“Nah. He’s off today, probably won’t stick his head out of his man cave until eleven or so.” Jovia pressed her lips together for a moment. “If you see him . . . well.” She gave a lopsided smile. “He’ll talk to you. He won’t talk to me. Good luck.” She slid the tray over.
Weighed down by the words, Pearl went out the back door, across the yard, and into the shadows of the carriage house. She could hear Reese’s music playing upstairs, and she steeled herself as she knocked on the door at the top of the stairs.
“Yeah?”
Pearl let herself in. He was stuffing dirty clothes into a bag, getting ready for a Laundromat run. When he glanced back and saw that she wasn’t Jovia, he remained silent, looking her over as he balled a uniform shirt in one hand. Then he turned his back again. “What, the Young Republicans won’t let you into their clubhouse without the secret knock?”
She looked at him, barefoot, dressed in threadbare jeans and a T-shirt; she’d expected to see evidence of last night’s fight with Akil—bruises, something—but he just looked like Reese on a day off. “Do you still have a job?” She kept her voice remote.
He snorted softly, nodded once.
“What’d the Nazi say?” Somehow, it felt forced to use the club nickname for Meriwether now, like she’d given up the right.
“All kinds of things. I wasn’t listening.”
Pearl exhaled, set the tray down on his makeshift bedside table. She caught a glimpse of what was pulled up on his laptop screen. Apartment listings. “You’re moving out?” No response. “Why?”
“Because I can. School’s over. I don’t need a guardian making sure I get to study hall on time.” He stuffed more clothes into the bag. “Jovia can’t put me up forever.”
“But . . . what’re you going to do? Are you leaving the club?”
“Why, Pearl? Do you care?”
“I’m not the one who said I didn’t give a shit.”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say about actions.”
“Don’t you even want to know what’s really going on? I’ve been trying to tell you since the beginning. You’re supposed to be—” She stopped, took a breath. “I thought we were friends. But you won’t even talk to me. So, those are the rules? You can do whatever you want, hang out with whoever you want, but if you even see me with another guy, I’m dead to you? How is that fair?”
Reese turned on her. “It’s not just some other guy, Pearl, it’s Tristan-effing-Garrison and his trust-fund gestapo. You really need me to explain why it’s a bad idea to hang out with people like that? Those guys have no fear. Money and Daddy’s attorney can make anything go away. After what happened to your dad, how can you—”
“I don’t need you to tell me about that.” Her voice belonged to a stranger: harsh, flinty, years older than her. “I know what they did to us. What the hell do you think this is all about?”
For the first time, Reese hesitated, watching her. “You tell me.”
“Gee, can I?” When he stayed quiet, she took a seat on the bed, one leg folded beneath her. She lifted her coffee cup from the tray, plucking the plastic seal with her fingernail. “It’s more something that I need to show you.” She took the memory card out of her pocket. “This belonged to Cassidy Garrison.” He watched as she slid the card into his laptop and played Cassidy’s video.
When it was done, Reese sank slowly onto the edge of the mattress. The stiff resentment was gone from his expression. “You’re sure it’s real?” A nod. “Where’d you get it?”
“Found it hidden under the bathroom sink of the Garrison yacht. That’s where it was shot, too.”
“You’ve been on their yacht?”
“I’ve been lots of places. If you want to hear about it.”
He scooted back against the wall, opened his coffee, took a sip. “Shoot.”
She began with Bridges first approaching her; the party on Little Nicatou; the regatta, and so on, until she finally reached last night. When she finished, Pearl sat with her fingers linked loosely around her bent knee, staring at the pattern of Reese’s quilt. It was patchwork, looked like he’d probably had it since he was a kid.
“Sounds like Hadley really lost her shit.” Reese tore into his croissant.
“They knew she would, or at least Tristan did. It was all another test, a game. Hadley lost, and now she’s out. I don’t think Akil will ever look at her again.”
“Why’d Tristan set you up to win?”
“I don’t know.” Pearl bit her lip, shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. Those guys go along with whatever Tristan says. He’s got total control.”
“The alpha dog.”
“It’s more than that. It’s like they’re in awe of him, or scared of him, or both. Akil’s so mad all the time, all Tristan needs to do is wind him up. And Bridges . . . I don’t know what he is. Along for the ride, I guess.”
“Tristan sounds intense.”
“No. He’s actually not that bad.” Reese’s brows went up. “I’m saying he usually isn’t mean or nasty, that’s all. And he does stuff sometimes—random nice things, and doesn’t take credit for them. I don’t know, it’s weird. It’s like he’s always studying people. Playing games like last night in the cave is his way of . . . figuring us out, maybe?”
Reese cleared his throat. “So, as evil eccentric millionaire geniuses go, he rates about a six on a scale of ten. Gotcha.” He gestured to the paused video on the screen. “You think he knows about this?”
“If he knew, he would’ve taken the card before now. Either Cassidy didn’t have a chance to get back on the boat to grab it, or for some reason, she decided the danger was gone.” Pearl was silent a moment, the consequences of that sinking in. “Tristan said she had OCD, that she had panic attacks. Nobody outside the family knew. And somebody was after her, obviously.”
“Somebody pissed off enough to kill the whole family? What about that Akil guy? Maybe he snapped after she dumped him.”
“But Bridges said that he treated Cassidy like a princess.”
“Oh, Bridges said.” Reese leaned his head back against the wall, studying her. “What’s the deal with you and Golden Boy? Are you going to keep leading him on after he ditched you in the Caverns of Mystery, or what?”
Pearl opened her mouth to answer, but the words died. She didn’t want to bullshit Reese. She thought of Bridges’s lips on hers, his hands sliding places where no one had ever touched before, and felt a weakness that made her wonder where the power really lay. “I need more. I have to find out what happened to the Garrisons, to Cassidy. Maybe when I do—”
“People will stop blaming your dad.” Reese met her eyes. “I understand why you’re doing it. I don’t like that you’re risking so much.”
She forced a smile. “What risk? They’re just a bunch of Alligator Shirts, remember?”
“What happens when this guy expects you to follow through on what you’ve been promising? You think a Spencer who nails two, three girls a summer is going to be happy to hold hands until August?”
“Tristan says Bridges sees something in me.”
“And that’s all you need to hear.”
“Nothing’s going to happen that I don’t want to, okay?” She’d never seen Reese serious for so long, and she stood, pacing over to the boxes, pushing the shade aside to peer out at the day, where the rain had nearly stopped. “I’m not worried about Bridges. It’s like . . . I’ve got all these pieces, and I just need to figure out how they fit. David was a bully, a control freak, maybe worse. And Sloane was cheating on him, had been for a long time. Everything else is locked up inside Tristan’s head. If I can find a way to get in there, maybe . . .”
When he didn’t say anything, she turned back. He was starting to eat her croissant, looking thoughtful. “You know who you should talk to? Marilyn Whitley. She cleans for a bunch of the families on the Row. I’m pretty sure she worked for the Garrisons.”
“I’ve met a Marilyn.” Pearl remembered the woman from when she used to ride with Dad to check on his houses: small, bird-boned, carrying bags of trash or washing windows with newspaper and ammonia water. “My dad’s friends with her. Or they used to say hi and stuff, anyway. Do you think she’d talk to me?”
“I don’t know. I only met her once. She lives over in Winter Harbor.” Reese spoke around a bite: “She’s Indigo’s grandmother.”