Page 33 of Serenity Falls

Ellis rolls her eyes. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Yep.’

‘Haven’t you had enough of dead bodies?’

Sadie smiles sweetly. ‘I can always find room in my life for one more.’ She picks up her pace.

‘Wait!’

She doesn’t wait.

‘You’re still going the wrong way.’

Sadie stops and turns.

Ellis half jogs to catch up. ‘Look. Sorry. It must have been rough, finding Frankie like that.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Was he like, gross?’

And suddenly Sadie sees him again. Lying by the pool in the sodden armadillo costume, so very pale, those fucking bright balloons bobbing obscenely on the pool’s surface.

‘Not gross,’ she lies. ‘Just dead.’

Ellis nods and squints at Sadie through her glasses. ‘What d’you think happened?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I guess he tripped and fell in – and the costume dragged him down. The sheriff guy said he couldn’t swim.’

‘Yeah, he hated water.’

Sadie’s ears prick up. ‘Did you know him?’

Ellis nods. ‘Most of the kids round here knew Frankie. He worked at the diner—’ She cocks her head as if assessing how much to tell Sadie. ‘You won’t tell your dad this, will you?’

‘Depends on what this is …’ Seeing Ellis hesitate, she adds: ‘But no, not unless you’re going to say you pushed him in.’

‘Funny. Okay, between you and me, he was the go-to guy for weed.’

So, Serenity isn’t quite as perfect as it likes to make out.

‘Did you go to him?’ Sadie asks.

Ellis shakes her head. ‘Nah. That stuff makes me puke. But a couple of my friends did.’

‘Right.’ Sadie frowns. ‘I guess if Frankie was high, that might be why he drowned—’

‘Maybe,’ Ellis says. ‘Still fucked up, though.’

‘Yeah.’

Ellis sticks her hands into her shorts pockets. ‘So, why do you want to go and look at a load of old headstones?’

Sadie appraises her. She’s pretty; the glasses suit her. And she’s obviously not the cheerleader type. Anyone who wears a Bring Me the Horizon band T-shirt is hardly Miss All-American sweetheart. However, the jury’s still out on whether they can be friends. Sadie’s certainly not going to tell her why she really wants to visit the cemetery.

‘Cemeteries can tell you a lot about a place,’ she says. ‘Plus, they’re usually quiet … and I like solitude.’

She pauses. This could be Ellis’s cue to say, You know what, that’s fine. I’ve got better things to do than traipse around a graveyard with some annoying British newbie.