Page 9 of New Year

“So we’re looking for a cousin of Lindsey’s and a Dolce girl?” I ask. “Hasn’t anyone considered that he killed her and ran away so he wouldn’t get caught?”

“Damn,” she says. “I’m glad Lindsey’s not here to hear you talk about her family that way. You really think her dad did it, don’t you?”

“What? No,” I protest, my heart hammering in my chest. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then why do you think her brother and her cousin would be responsible for a girl disappearing, and not the other way around?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, feeling like I might faint. “I just meant, like, it would make sense they’d want revenge for Mr. Dolce framing her dad. Please don’t tell her I said anything.”

“I won’t,” she says. “But you need to be careful what you say. This is serious, Sky. They’ve already tried to frame her dad for murder and her brother for kidnapping one of their kids. I’m sure they’re behind this too.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“Duh,” she says. “Basically, Devlin Darling fell in love with their daughter, and she probably lured him in like a black widow. Either that, or she fell in love with him too, and it’s the most romantic story since Romeo and Juliet.”

I shiver and huddle down into my jacket. “Romeo and Juliet both died.”

“Yeah, but Devlin’s a Darling, and Darlings don’t die,” she says. “So I’m sure we’ll find him, and either they’ll have eloped,or we’ll rescue him from the black widow and he’ll be so thankful that he realizes he overlooked the girl right in front of him all along, and he’ll fall instantly in love with me and we’ll live happily ever after.”

“That is the most un-Daria thing you’ve ever said.”

She cackles and tromps along in her bright yellow, full-body, plastic rainsuit that I would never be caught dead in because I’d be afraid everyone would laugh at me. Daria doesn’t care about stuff like that. Somehow she manages to make even that look good, not to mention that she’s warm and dry while I can feel water squelching between my toes with each step.

“Even goddesses want to ride off into the sunset with a hot guy,” she says. “Especially one with eight figures in his trust fund.”

“Wait, are you really in love with Lindsey’s cousin?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her.

She snorts. “Who said anything about love? I said I’d ride off into the sunset with him. We’d drive off in his Ferrari with aJust Marriedsign on the back and hundies blowing in the wind from the back of the convertible. I’d laugh watching in the rearview while our guests chased after the car showing how much more they care about money than us.”

“Um, sounds like you care about money.”

“Yeah, because I don’t have it,” she says like I’m missing the obvious. “Half of being rich is convincing everyone else you’re just like them, except better because you don’t even notice that you’re rich. Rich people always want you to think they’re too refined to care about pedestrian things like bills and bank accounts.”

“So you’d marry a Darling for money?” I ask. “Even if you didn’t love him?”

“Hello, none of the founding families marry for love,” she says, stepping over a log. “If you’re in an upwardly mobilefamily, and you play your cards right, they might elevate you by choosing you to keep the blueblood from getting too blue, if you know what I mean. Otherwise, they only marry each other.”

“Ew,” I say, wrinkling my nose as I remember Meghan’s assessment. “Are you saying they’re inbred?”

“Of course not,” she says with a wink. “I’m just saying there’s a lot of second cousins with the same last names in the elite circles.”

“Okay, but this isn’t thirteenth century England,” I say. “They don’t actually arrange marriages, right?”

“In the words of the queen mother, call it what you want to. But Lindsey’s already set up with Chase, which is actually a bit beneath her station, since he’s, like,nouveau riche.”

“That’s bad?” I guess.

“Obviously,” she says. “He can’t even get into the country club. And Devlin’s already arranged to marry the mayor’s daughter, so realistically I have no chance, but you never know. Trauma bonding is a thing.”

“You’re diabolical.”

She throws back her head and laughs, then links her arm through mine again as we continue slogging through the gloomy, wet forest. “I’m just saying. It could happen. His dad caused some big scandal by marrying for love. You should hear how the family talks about that—like it’s such a silly move that’s beneath the rest of them, so he’s obviously weak and not to be taken seriously. That could be us.”

“I thought you weren’t interested in love.”

“Yeah, but obviously I need to be worshipped and adored,” she says.

“So you want him to love you, give you all his money, and make you one of the town’s elite, while you give him nothing? Why would he do that?”

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