Page 156 of Happily Never After

“Brianna,” Claire said when the song stopped. She grabbed Brianna by both shoulders and shook her. “You are a magnificent beam of human sunshine. I’m so glad my dad accidentally knocked up your mom and destroyed our nuclear family. You are a brilliant, talented actress, and I am beyond jealous of your gorgeous complexion.”

“Stop it.” Brianna swatted at her, but she was smiling.

“And you.” Claire rounded on Charlie. She poked her in the arm, where Charlie had applied a temporary tattoo of a butterfly. “You are a fierce, loyal lioness. I’ve looked up to you my entire life. No one can command a room the way you can. I’m pretty sure I’ve actually witnessed a man shit his pants because he was so intimidated by you. And beyond all that, you are an amazing mother. Ryan is the coolest kid ever in a generation of kids who are all-too-frequently little assholes.”

Charlie’s lower lip trembled. “Another song!” she demanded, turning away. Luke’s stereo blasted with a summer pop hit, and they launched into another dance routine. As the song faded out, something clanged against the window outside.

Charlie and Brianna froze. Claire leapt across the room.Scrrrrrtch. A Taser separated from the Velcro on the back of the couch. She threw her shoulders back and pointed it toward the window. Brianna and Charlie fell in behind her.

“Do you think it’s them? ESA?” Brianna asked.

“Turn that down,” Claire barked over her shoulder to Charlie. She couldn’t think straight withBarbie Girlblasting. For once, her older sister twiddled the dial without a fight.

Claire picked up her phone, then pocketed it. Luke was deep in documentary mode. There were three of them. Nobody would be stupid enough to abduct Charlie. In fact, out of the three of them, Charlie had barely been threatened at all. Her vast knowledge of the Hollywood underground must have kept her safe.

Claire twitched the curtain aside. A streetlight illuminated a patch of sidewalk that was in need of repair. No shadows moved across the lawn.

Claire turned to face the other two. “Let’s go see what it was. Weapons first, though.”

Charlie and Brianna armed themselves with a butcher knife and a corkscrew. Claire flipped the porch light on and flung the front door open quickly, as though she expected to see someone casually preparing a murder kit. The porch was empty except for the Adirondack chairs and a bag of vegetables that Mr. Nesbit must have dropped off. Maybe that was the noise she had heard.

She crept down the short flight of stairs to the walkway. Charlie and Brianna followed her. She swung her head from left to right, probing the dark yard.

“Could it have been Olivia?” Brianna whispered.

Claire shook her head. “According to her Instagram, she’s at some wellness retreat in Santa Barbara.”

“She could be lying.” Charlie lofted her butcher knife. “Claire, do you recognize that car?” She nodded toward a dark gray sedan with tinted windows idling on the other side of the road.

“No, I don’t. But I don’t know all the cars in the neighborhood.”

“Then let’s go find out who’s inside.” Charlie drew herself up to her full height of five feet and ten inches. Her bare feet padded over the grass.

Suddenly, something rustled in the buckwheat shrub that had just begun to bloom. Charlie screamed and threw the cleaver at it like a medieval knife-thrower. Claire swung the Taser up and fired without a second’s hesitation.No onewas getting kidnapped today. A crackle of static split the air as the prongs went flying across the yard and buried themselves in the bush. A second later, a very startled-looking squirrel sprinted across the yard. It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but it looked like the end of his tail was slightly singed.

“You just tasered a squirrel,” Brianna said.

“Oh my god. He looked like he was okay, right?” Claire turned and glanced at the upstairs office window. Luke was pressed to the glass, camera at eye level and body heaving with laughter. She flipped him off and turned back around. “You want to see who’s in this creepy car or what?”

She marched across the grass and picked up the knife that Charlie had thrown. The wine and whiskey mix had had a peculiar effect. She felt invincible—dehydrated, but invincible. She’d find out who was in that car. And if it was someone from ESA, she’d punch them right in the face, drag them out of the car, and sit on them until the FBI arrived.

Knife in hand, she stormed across the grass and tiptoed across the asphalt in her bare feet. She rapped on the driver’s side window until it rolled down. Claire gasped.

“Jack! What the hell are you doing here?”

Jack Hartley sat in the driver’s seat, mug of coffee steaming in one hand. Tanya sat next to him, a pair of binoculars and a partially crocheted blanket in her lap.

“Hello, darlings!” Tanya called enthusiastically, even though they had all seen each other two hours ago.

“Charlotte forbade me from installing agents to watch out for you all, so I thought I’d do it myself. Thank you for all being in the same place, by the way, it makes it much easier.”

Claire sighed. “You don’t need to do that. We have a security system. And each other.”

“You’ve also had…” He paused for a moment and sniffed. “Several glasses of wine.” What was he, a booze-seeking bloodhound?

“Forgive me if I have less than complete faith in your self-defense skills while your blood alcohol level is elevated,” Jack continued. “As entertaining as it was to watch you tase a bush. By the way, if you were wondering what hit your window, it was a bird.”

Claire whipped around. Was it injured? She wasn’t versed in bird CPR, but she had quick hands when it came to YouTube.

---