Page 55 of The Players

She smiled vilely. “Easton is handling the cops. It might be the one thing he is good at. I hear he’s got great at convincing them to leave us alone when he was torturing you last month. Howconvenient.”

I stared back at her while attempting to keep my composure. I didn’t care about Easton or any of that. All I could think of was my grandmother freezing in that cooler. Did I want the gang to come in? That would just create more violence. I’d told them not to call the cops, but if I gave them a signal, would they know to do so? If they did call, would the police even come? If Easton had paid some of them off, any call might go unanswered and risk further angering Savannah. That would only put my grandmother in more peril.

As I struggled with what to do, I decided it was best to keep Savannah talking. She seemed to like bragging about her exploits, so I asked an obvious question.

“How did you get away with killing that kid?”

Her icy eyes dipped back to me as a smirk spread across her lipstick-smeared mouth. “It was easy. When you have money, you can afford fantastic lawyers. You can pay witnesses to suddenly forget what they saw. You can bend justice to your whims.

“Your boyfriend, Hector, knows all about that from watching his dad. I’m sure when it’s his time, he’ll apply all the same tricks as Daddy to get what he wants. Tell me I’m wrong.”

I gritted my teeth and said nothing about Hector. I wasn’t dragging him into this unless it was absolutely necessary.

“So that’s it? You just paid people off? That’s so… unimaginative.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her smile solidified into a sneer. “You think you could do it, orphan? Hmm? What if you knew who murdered your parents, but the law wouldn’t do anything about it? They just looked the other way.” She wiggled her fingers into the distance as if the truth were somehow escaping into the ether.

She stalked closer to me, sensing her advantage. “What if you knew who killed them, huh? Would you take matters into your own hands?”

My heart began to pound. The composure I’d worked so hard to maintain was slipping through my fingers as I stared at her. “Don’t talk about them.”

“Who? Your murdered parents? It was you that found them, right? What did that look like? All mangled and bloody? They died by gunshot right? That had to be gruesome.” She peered into my face as if she wanted to know. She was sick and twisted, so she probably did.

I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“My parents have nothing to do with this. Neither does my grandmother.”

Savannah nodded. “They do have something to do with this, Vivian. It all started with them, didn’t it? Their murder. Or ‘murder/suicide’ depending on who you asked.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “And most people think your father killed your mother now, don’t they?”

I bit my lip and averted my gaze. She was toying with me again. If I could just figure out a way to get us out of here…

She leaned forward until her face was only inches from mine, and I was forced to look at her. Her eyes were too wide, crazed. She looked like the videos of people who lost control and shot up their school or workplace.

“But that isn’t what happened, is it? You know in your heart,” she jabbed a finger into my chest, “that someone killed your parents and staged it. And you want to know who did that, don’t you? It haunts you, doesn’t it?”

My eyes snapped to her face as I stared at her defiantly. “This isn’t going to work, Savannah. Everything you’re saying is stuff anyone could’ve read on the news. Yes, my parents are dead, but you can’t torment me about it anymore. Others have traveled that path before, and, frankly, it’s old. It’s boring.”

She smiled like a hyena. “Isthisboring?”

Pushing her phone in my face, she clicked a button.

The video began to play showing a basement,mybasement. I blinked as I took in the carnage. The blood splattered around the concrete floor. My mother crumpled like a child’s discarded doll. Her academy skirt flipped up to show one pale leg, her shoe discarded somewhere else. My father was slumped back in a chair, his chest drenched in blood from the gunshot wound that had taken the top half of his head.

I’d seen this image before. It was in that photo, the one she’d shown me in class, but this one was a video. The image panned around, focusing on first my mother and then my father before finally cutting off.

Bile rose in my throat as I stared at her. My skin prickled as chills raced up and down my arms, but I could not pass out. I would not allow myself the luxury of checking out while my grandmother was in danger. I clenched my fists and took deep breaths as I tried to slow the beating of my heart.

“Where… did you get that?” I whispered, my body trembling.

“Savannah, enough.” Spencer’s hands had grown slack around my arm. “This has gone too far.”

She whirled on him, her finger aiming for his face now. “Shut up, Spencer, or I’ll tell mom the real age of that girl you had in your room the other night. You know how she feels about Statutory Rape charges.”

Spencer’s lips clamped shut. He had his own secrets.

It was Ty, of all people, who spoke next. “Did you really kill those people?”

She regarded him as if she’d just realized he’d been standing here this whole time. Frankly, we all did. I’d forgotten he was even in the room.

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