Page 96 of Beautiful Sinners

Me: Sounds good.

She attaches an image of a painting with the message:What I’ve been working on.Your hair inspired me.

I laugh when I open the attachment to see a canvas filled with vibrant red slashes of paint.

Me: I love it. Glad I could be your muse. Can’t wait to see you.

I usually write something in my journal in the mornings, and it feels weird not to. Its absence reminds me of my clover and pressed flower I keep inside the front cover. Unique, sentimental items that can never be replaced. I also don’t have a laptop or my textbooks. I took everything with me in my backpack to the Catskills.

“Well, shit,” I grumble.

I’ll see if the guys have a laptop I can borrow until I can get a replacement. I’ll have to purchase new textbooks, though. I like having new books that no one else has marked up or highlighted, but new ones cost two hundred bucks or more each. When we were hanging in her dorm, Raquelle showed me the online store where she rented used copies of her textbooks. May as well take a look and save some money.

Gazing out the window, something in the backyard snags my attention—or the lack of something. The flowering shrub is gone, and in its place is a fresh circle of dirt where it used to grow. It was there last night. I search the ground. Where’s the gun?

About to head downstairs and ask Tristan about it, my phone vibrates with an incoming call from Unknown. No one other than Andie has this number since it’s technically her phone.

“Hello?”

“Synthia?” Alana says from the other end. “Andie gave me this number. What the hell is going on? Where are you?”

Profound relief is the first thing I feel at the sound of her voice.

“Are you at Cillian’s?”

She must be walking because I hear muffled footsteps on the other end.

“We got here a couple of hours ago. Now answer my question.”

I’m not used to her speaking to me with a biting tone. “I’m back at Darlington.”

Her footsteps stop. “Did you explain things to Tristan?”

My relief morphs to guilt. “Not yet.”

She doesn’t say anything for a full minute, but when she does, I have to hold the phone away from my ear.

“Dammit, Synthia! You promised.”

This isn’t my adoptive mother Alana talking. This is a very pissed-off Dierdre Amato.

“I tried but he wouldn’t listen. He was too busy yelling at me about Evan. And then other stuff came up and—”

She hangs up on me.

What in the hell just happened?

Maybe we got disconnected. I wait for her callback and when it doesn’t come, I hit redial. Busy signal. I try again. Getting the same annoying busy signal, I give up and drop the phone on the bed.

“Well, that’s just peachy.”

“You okay?”

I don’t ask Hendrix how long he’s been standing there. I saw his reflection in the window glass and know he heard everything.

I puff my cheeks out and release the air with a quietpop.

“Francesco was going to force Dierdre to marry Gabriel. That’s why she faked her death. She felt that it was her only way to escape. Aleksander recognized her the other night, and he’s going to tell him.”

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