Page 71 of It's One of Us
“Peyton is going to be so stoked! I wish he’d call me back already.”
A thought strikes Darby. “Have you talked to your brother about the DNA matches?”
Scarlett looks down immediately, and Darby recognizes her daughter’s tell—she is trying to figure out how to answer. Not formulate a lie, just trying to decide what Darby wants to hear.
“Yes?” Darby raises her brows in question.
“I did tell him about the donor thing.”
She tries to keep her tone neutral. “You did?”
“It’s one of the things the Halves are really into, making sure everyone gets their siblings’ DNA into the system. It didn’t seem as big a deal since we have different donors, but they wanted to be sure. I asked and he said he would, but you know him. He’s never been worried about not having a dad, you know?”
Darby ignores that little stake to the heart. “You two talk about this?”
“Sure.” Scarlett pulls her hair up into fluffy ponytail; the scrunchie has trailing ends so it looks like she’s tied a polka dot scarf in her hair. “You like?”
“I do. Cute. Great for the beach. So, what else did Peyton have to say?”
“I mean, I asked him once if he was interested in meeting his donor, and he was like, no, no way, I don’t want to know anything about him. He thought I should leave well enough alone, too, but...”
Darby bites her lip and nods.
“Well, we’ll give him the option again of participating if he wants, but don’t push him. He has never expressed any interest to me either. I don’t want him to feel like there’s something wrong that he’s not interested, especially given how keen you are to find out everything you can.”
“I get it. Don’t forget the towels,” she calls, whirling back into her room, and Darby grabs them from the linen closet and takes them into her own room to pack.
Her mind is whirling as surely as her daughter’s body.
My God, what if Jillian Kemp’s twins are related to Scarlett?
What if we’re closer to this than we know?
Darby paces her room, glances out the curtains, then pulls them closed. Goes to the basement and double-checks the door and windows are locked. The odds of someone coming for her are astronomically low, she knows this, but it makes her feel better to have the house buttoned up. She doesn’t feel foolish at all retrieving the baseball bat she keeps under the bed and setting it against her night table.
Poor Jillian. God, Darby hopes she’s just let the battery die on her phone or had a fight with her wife and took a road trip to clear her head.
They’d hoped that about Beverly, too. Then days turned into weeks turned into months, and they all knew she was dead.
Darby rarely, if ever, watches the local news unless there’s some sort of disaster she needs to follow, but tonight, she and Scarlett set up to tune in together. This almost feels like a luxury, or would, if it wasn’t an enforced home stay and they weren’t trying to track a killer.
After the pizza feast, Darby indulged her daughter further with homemade cocoa, and poured herself a very large glass of wine. Then another.
It feels a bit like the days of old, when both kids were home, and she could appease them with special treats and normal hours. It was hard having a mom on the night shift. Hard to have an overnight babysitter instead of a mother down the hall. When Scarlett declared herself old enough to stay home alone at night, Darby had balked. With Peyton off at school, she didn’t like the idea of Scarlett being alone. But Scarlett did. She always had been so fearless. So independent.
Even with all the drama and arguments, it’s been nice being around overnight again, not having to worry about her baby’s safety—that little gremlin in the back of her mind always reaching out to sayhey, something bad could be happening to her and you let her stay alonehas been silenced.
Of course, nothing did hurt her.
Until now.
Darby feels so ashamed, though she doesn’t know why. She’s done nothing wrong. Winterborn is to blame here. Winterborn is the reason Scarlett has more than two dozen half siblings. Winterborn is the reason one of them is a killer.
This is all going to come spilling out, she knows it. There’s no way to keep it quiet. The waves are getting bigger, crashing further up the beach. They will be swept out with the tide if she’s not careful.
Scarlett is barely awake on the couch beside her. Ten is well past her normal bedtime—her sweet girl almost always turns in early. “News is on,” she says to Scarlett, who mumbles and burrows a little deeper into the couch pillow. Even extreme excitement can’t stop natural circadian rhythms. Darby slops a bit of wine on the blanket as she reaches for the remote to hit Record and turn up the volume. The anchor has been on the air since she can remember and doesn’t look like she’s aged at all.
I want your plastic surgeon, lady.
