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Not having a pen to jot it down, I asked him to text it to me. In a frenzy, I was barely able to get the words out.
“Natalie, what’s going on?” asked Matt as I ended the call.
“Honey, we need to get to Cedars right away. Tanya’s been in a terrible car accident!”
With all this madness, I hadn’t noticed that Paige had slipped away. She stormed back into the breakfast room, her face red with rage.
“That psycho! She stole my car and probably totaled it.”
I felt my blood pressure spike. Anger rising in me like mercury, I lashed out at my daughter. “How could you care about your car when Tanya’s life is at stake?”
Narrowing her eyes, she gave me a look that could kill. “I hope she dies!”
“How dare you say that!?” Furious, I sprang from my chair and marched over to her, until we were a palm’s width apart. Not flinching, she just stood there, our eyes locked in an angry stare-off. As if she was daring me to hit her. Thank goodness Matt intervened.
“Get dressed, Nat. I’ll drive us to the hospital.”
This was so not how I envisioned my birthday.
It was the birthday from hell.
TWENTY-ONE
PAIGE
Picking at some fruit salad, I was still fuming. I felt like a bomb about to explode with shrapnels of rage. Will was seated across the table, stuffing his mouth with chunks of a crumbly muffin top. My left hand fisted, I was tempted to smash the muffin. Flatten it. That’s how mad I was.
“The nerve of her! Taking my car! It’s probably in some junkyard!”
My brother took a sip of his milk, then wiped off his white mustache with the back of his hand. “Hey, Pudge, it’s not like you could drive it anyway.”
He was right. While I’d gotten my phone back, my dad still had my car keys. I think when he said “an indefinite amount of time,” he meant forever. He could be such an asshole.
But wait! If my dad still had the keys, how had Tanya gotten hold of them? Had she found them, or had he given them to her? If it was the latter, I hated my father even more.
“Willster, I meant what I said. I hope she dies and rots in hell.” This spawn of Satan had made my life a living nightmare. I stabbed a berry with my good-silver fork, and suddenly, one of my grandma’s pearls of wisdom popped into my head. Every cloud has a silver lining.
“Hey bro, we have a window of opportunity.”
“To let Bear back into the house?” Outside in the yard, he was barking.
“Yeah, that too. But also something else.”
“What, Pudge?”
“You can be one of the Hardy Boys and I’ll be Nancy Drew. Let’s go check out her room.”
The spy cam hadn’t gotten us much further. It acted up, didn’t work in the dark, and couldn’t capture Tanya in her closet. Mostly, I saw images of Tanya texting on her phone, taking selfies, and primping in her dresser mirror. Whenever the exhibitionist paraded around her room half-naked, I had to stop watching.
Will’s grin met his freckles. “Only if I can be Sherlock Holmes.”
My precocious brother had read all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective series. Some of the books twice.
“Fine. Then, I’ll be Watson.”
Wow! If I’d known what hellhole we were stepping into, I’d have made us wear hazmat suits. The spy cam footage only gave a hint. The room was a total pigsty. Nothing like how my neat-as-a-pin sister had kept it when she was alive. The day I caught Lance in it, our housekeeper, Blanca, must have been here and straightened it up. I felt sorry for the poor hardworking woman for having to deal with this horrific mess. I hoped my mother was paying her extra.
The canopy bed was unmade. My sister’s treasured stuffed animals were all over the floor. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Drawers were half-open. And along with discarded gum wrappers, skimpy panties in every color littered the carpet.
