Page 112 of My Brother's Best Friend

“Did you notice that Piper’s father wasn’t there?” Nicole asked, breaking the silence.

“That’s his own daughter,” Allie whispered. “How could he not show up?”

Jace glanced at Blaise, who grimaced. Vera shook her head, as if she knew what they were thinking. And honestly, I thought we all knew what they were suggesting had really happened. But nobody wanted to say it out loud and make it real.

“Do you think she actually killed herself?” Imani finally asked.

Nobody spoke a word.

“I can find out,” Nicole said after a long pause.

“How’re you going to do that?” Allie asked.

Nicole’s gaze faltered for a moment, and then she swallowed. “Don’t worry about it.”

Allie sat up and shook her head. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it.”

While I didn’t know the extent of what Nicole had done or been through, she had mentioned that she was part of the ring and pimping that the police did with girls at Redwood Academy. And her father was the police chief. She had to have done some … shit.

“It’s the only way to know,” Nicole said, straightening her back. “I’ll do it.”

“At what cost?” Allie asked. “I refuse to let you end up like her.”

“Allie, it’s fine,” Nicole reassured her. “I won’t end up like her.”

I cleared my throat. “How’re you going to do it?”

Nicole dropped her gaze. “My father … likes me. Not in a way that a father should. He’s trained me to get information out of important people at Redwood. Who says I can’t use that against him? That I can’t get the same information out of him?”

Tension sat heavily in the air. She didn’t have to explain any more for us to understand.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said.

After standing, Nicole shook her head. “My mind is already made up. If her own father killed her to hide something, then we need to find out what it is, and we need to take care of them all before something happens to another one of us.”

CHAPTER69

ALEC

Iswallowed down a mouthful of bile and stared through the windshield of my car. The garage door opened, and Mom walked out into the bitter cold with her arms crossed over her chest, her mouth moving, but the words not making it into my ears.

Finally, she pulled the door open and hid behind it to shield her face from the searing wind that had rolled in sometime after Piper’s funeral. “Alec, you’ve been sitting in the driveway for the past fifteen minutes. What’re you doing?”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how long I had talked to Poison, but it must have been a few hours. Maddie had attempted to call me a couple of times, but I’d directed her calls to voice mail and texted her that I’d call her soon.

“Come inside, sweetheart,” Mom said.

After another moment, I shrugged my shoulders forward and slumped out of the car. I couldn’t believe what Poison had told me. I had known that this town was fucked up, but how could … how could someone murder a student?

Sometimes, girls went missing from Redwood Academy—like Skylar last semester—but it was always swept under the rug, and the students found something new to talk about the next day. Must’ve been the police’s doings.

But this time … things were different. This time, people cared.

“So, with all that said?—”

“What?” I asked quietly, kicking off my sneakers at the door.

“Were you not listening?” Mom asked.

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