To Kill a Mocking Girl Read online

  He laughed as they both hopped out of his truck.

  And there stood Trina Pemberley, Tricia’s twin, identical in almost every way. Both had medium-length, bobbed ash-blonde hair and the same wide-set hazel eyes. They favored pastel-palette Chanel suits and long nails painted rose-gold. Quinn once overheard someone say the two coordinated every aspect of their look so as to remain “on brand” for their business. But Quinn remembered them from third grade, when they moved into town, before they became Northern Virginia’s wonder twin–powered real estate team, and they always matched, even then: same clothes, same hairstyle, same hella-awful attitudes.

  Even so, Quinn could always tell them apart. Most who grew up with them could because, although neither was exactly known for being particularly pleasant, Trina was the one with more edge. She was in charge, the sister whose smile never reached her eyes—because something darker already resided there.

  “I’m telling you right now, you’re going to love this place—I just know it!” Trina touched Bash’s arm as they walked inside the building. “By the way, no need to thank me, but FYI? You’re getting the first look-see, except for the other realtors of course. As of right now, you have your choice of units, but I’m telling you, they won’t last. I expect we’ll be sold out in a few weeks.”

  “Appreciate your time.” He gave her his tight, polite smile, the one he reserved for judgy church ladies.

  Well, glad Mom and Dad didn’t raise stupid. Bash may be a flirt, but at least he’s not courting crazy.

  They walked into the elevator, and Trina leaned over to press the button for the top floor, making sure to brush up against Bash in spite of there being plenty of room in the lift. Quinn summoned all her willpower so as not to roll her eyes into the back of their sockets.

  “There are only eighteen units in the whole building, and because of the factory’s structure, most have awesome views of the whole town. You can’t build this high in Vienna anymore—the town council won’t allow it—but back in the forties, they made an exception, for the war effort. It’s a shame because unless the building’s this high up, you can’t get views like this. Personally, I like the top the best. Don’t you agree, Bash?”

  Quinn coughed into her hand. Her brother pretended not to catch Trina’s tacky innuendo.

  The elevators doors opened, and Tricia was waiting for them—same outfit as Trina, only a different color.

  “Hey, Bash!” Her eyes twinkled like a crazed cheerleader’s—until she spotted his sister. “Oh, Quinn. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  At least this one got my name right. “Yep, same here. But my brother asked me to come.”

  Her face brightened. “That means you’re serious, if you’re bringing family along. Am I right?”

  Bash opened his mouth to answer, but the other sister got there first.

  “Well, of course he’s serious. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have called me for a tour,”

  Trina butted in, threading her arm through Bash’s. He went along, being a gentleman.

  “Bash, why don’t I show you around. Let’s start here.” She waved toward the kitchen like a double-jointed Vanna White. “You’re going to love this smart fridge. I swear, it does everything except make you dinner.”

  There were only two apartments on the top floor, which meant the loft space they were touring was mammoth, much bigger than Quinn’s cozy farmhouse. She was about to take a look around, but Tricia placed herself in Quinn’s path.

  “So, we’re all kumbaya-happy over here?”

  Quinn’s head jerked. “Uh yeah—why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You know, you’re not always going to have your big brother around to protect you.”

  Wow. Some people won’t let their high school days—or attitude—die the quiet death they deserve.

  “Are you serious right now? Protect me from what exactly?”

  Tricia breezed by her questions. “Just don’t get any ideas about Scott, and you and I will be fine.”

  Quinn choked on her laugh, whacking her chest with her fist.

  Tricia’s face soured. “I mean it. Leave him alone.”

  Blowing out an exasperated breath, Quinn tried to think how to answer in a way that would finally get through the woman’s thick skull. “Tricia, have I done or said anything to indicate I would go after him … ever?”

  Tricia crossed her arms in front of her, doubt coloring her delicate features. “No, but sometimes an ex becomes a lot more appealing once he’s off the market.”

  “I promise you, that is never, ever going to happen.” Because those were the longest three weeks of my life.

  Tricia didn’t seem appeased. “I don’t know. Something’s up with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stared at Quinn without seeing her. “Maybe you’re not the one I should be worried about.”

  True story. Your future mother-in-law uses your picture as a personal dartboard.

  Tricia kept talking. “It’s just … Scott is trying to be his own man, and I’m trying to help him with that.”

  Quinn couldn’t believe Tricia was confiding in her. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “I guess that depends on who you ask.”

  What the heck does that mean?

  Trina cleared her throat from the kitchen, glaring daggers at her sister.

  “Forget I said anything.” Tricia grabbed Quinn’s wrist, panic-stricken. “I mean it. We never had this conversation.”

  Quinn placed her hand on top of Tricia’s. “I promise. I won’t say a word. I hope everything works out. Really.”

  Any hardness residing in Tricia’s features melted away, transforming an aesthetic beauty into an actualized vision. “Thank you, Quinn. And I’m …” Tricia gave a quick glance over at her twin across the room, an air of resolve settling in. She met Quinn’s gaze. “I am sorry about before. There’s no reason to drag you into my drama, and I appreciate you not saying anything.”

  Quinn was too stunned to respond, and before she had a chance, Tricia was already halfway to the kitchen. She followed.

  From there, Trina took the lead, weaving together the building’s storied history and the preservation efforts while making sure to highlight all the latest technology the builders had included. She was impressive—Quinn had to give her that. She also noticed Tricia didn’t utter a word the rest of the time, either simply nodding along with what her sister said or staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Either way, she was no longer in the room with them.

  Eventually, Trina was done with her pitch. She did a little twirl in the middle of the room, her chartreuse print skirt flaring out. “So, what do you think? Is this your new home, Sebastian?”

  Her brother’s eyes scanned the loft, his feet moving the rest of him wherever his gaze landed. “It’s worth considering.” He stopped, focusing on the twins. “Give us a minute … alone?”

  Trina’s micro-bladed brows arched. “Uh, sure thing.” She eyed her sister. “Come along.”

  Tricia nodded. “Let us know if you have any questions. We’ll meet you and Quinn downstairs.”

  Bash waited until the Pemberleys were in the elevator. “So, what do you think?”

  Quinn walked over to the windows, taking in the expanse of their town. “Well, Trina was right: you can see everything from up here … there’s Church Street Eats … and there’s Sarita’s Ice Cream Shoppe.” She sighed. “I miss Nielsen’s.”

  Nielsen’s used to be on the corner of Church Street and Lawyer’s Road, and they’d made the best ice cream—or, as they called it, “custard”—in the mid-Atlantic. The shop had closed a few years back, tired of paying Vienna’s escalating taxes and rent, and everyone in town missed them like a phantom limb, especially in summer.

  “Where’s Prose and Scones?”

  Bash scanned the view. With his chin, he motioned toward the left. “Right over there. See the red roof? That’s our bookstore.”

  Quinn pressed her nose against the
window, watching her breath fog the glass. Bash copied his sister, writing “Well?” with the tip of his finger into the condensation.

  She let out a soft laugh and bumped her shoulder with his. “You know, this place is amazing. It’s just a shame those two will get the commission. Feels like we’re supporting the White Walkers in their quest for dominion over the Seven Kingdoms.”

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “I’m thinking someone may be bingeing too much Game of Thrones.”

  Quinn summoned her best fake-British accent. “There is no such thing as too much Game of Thrones, and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to my hounds if you utter such blasphemy again.”

  Then she cocked her left brow, like a super villain, for extra effect. He stared for half a second before they both dissolved laughing.

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Damn, Sis, I forgot how funny you can be.”

  She offered a curtsy.

  “I think I’m going to take it,” he said.

  “Do you have that kind of money?”

  He gave her a look. “Yeah, I have it.”

  “Well, la dee dah. I guess they pay firefighters more than I realized.”

  “Quinn, I was a wildlife firefighter on the federal level. I made decent money, plus most everything I own I can fit into the back of my truck. You do the math.”

  “Fair enough.” She felt her pocket vibrate. She took her phone out. It was her alarm. “Listen, I gotta get back and walk RBG.”

  “And how is Ruff Barker Ginsburg these days?”

  She shoved her phone into her back pocket. “As long as she gets in her exercise and favorite treats, that’s all she needs.”

  “If only people were as easy.”

  “‘Girl, you know it’s true,’” she teased, quoting vintage Milli Vanilli. They’d played a lot of the ill-fated duo when she lived overseas in Cambodia—early Madonna hits and George Michael too. Now she couldn’t hear most bubblegum pop songs without thinking of her life back in Phnom Penh. Each place where she’d lived and worked had its own soundtrack.

  He fished his keys out of his front pocket. “Ready to go?”

  “No, you stay here. Work out your deal with the blonde Kardashian twins downstairs. I feel like walking anyway.”

  His brows knitted. “You sure?”

  She took a hair tie off her wrist, threading her reddish-brown hair into a ponytail. “Yeah, I need the walk.”

  “All right then.” He opened his arms. “Bring it in for the real thing.”

  She gave him a hug, and he rested his chin on the top of her head. “So happy you’re home for good,” Quinn said.

  He held her for an extra beat. “You being back here meant it was time for me to come home too.”

  She craned her head up. “I don’t want to be the reason you stopped doing something you love.”

  He let go. “I like putting out fires. And I can do that anywhere. Besides, you’re not the only one who got their wanderlust out of their system.”

  Quinn found that hard to believe. Growing up, Bash had always been the one who could never sit still. Their father used to joke he was like a wound-up husky, needing to be exercised several times a day in order to keep him out of mischief.

  “You’re going to be bored silly here.”

  He stared out the window before meeting her gaze. “Please, besides the job, what do you think my life’s been like outside of work?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ll tell you what it was. Two choices: either going to bars in nowhere towns with a bunch of kids in my unit or staying behind in dumpy motels, watching bad TV. It’s nearly impossible to have a real relationship. I’m over it, Quinnie. I want roots and I want family, maybe even one of my own.”

  Bash was all determination and resolve. She could feel the energy coming off him in waves, charging the molecules around them. Quinn could appreciate her brother missing home, longing for family, but no way was either the mitigating factor for his return. She knew him too well.

  “You came back for Rachel.”

  Bash swallowed. “Yeah … it’s her. It’s always been her.”

  Well, it’s about time. She had known Rach was the one for her brother since he first brought her home to meet the family back when they were in high school. Maybe that’s why Quinn had taken it almost as hard as Rachel when he broke off the relationship later on.

  “Winning her back is going to be …” She wanted to choose her words carefully. “A challenge.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, don’t I know it.”

  She looked around the loft. “And this place, while completely awesome, screams bachelor pad, not ‘man who’s ready to settle down.’”

  “You think?” He turned around, looking with new eyes. “I hadn’t thought … she likes to cook. In college, she was the only girl I knew who’d rather host a dinner for our friends than hang at a party. She’d spend days planning the menus around these crazy themes.”

  Quinn remembered. “My favorite was her ‘Lip Sync Mashup Meets Lip-Smacking Mexican.’”

  He smiled. “Yeah, that was cool, but a lot of pressure to come up with a rap on the spot. If that had been a drinking game, I would’ve gotten myself sick.”

  “What about her ode to all things Freddie Mercury and Queen—‘Bohemian Rhapsody Round Table.’ That was awesome.”

  Bash smiled wide. “Yeah, the whole menu was served on those lazy susan spinning serving trays. The woman actually tracked down edible gold to give the desserts ‘Freddie flair.’” He rubbed a hand up and down his face, letting out a groan. “I don’t know. Maybe this place is all wrong. I just … I walked in and I could see her here, see us here.”

  “I get it,” she told him. “But maybe you should put your energies into learning who she is now. Let me tell you from experience, there’s no place like home, but that doesn’t mean home and the people here don’t change.”

  “Since when did you get to be so smart?”

  She shooed away the compliment. “It’s always easier to give advice than to follow it.” She checked the time on her phone—she was running late. “I’ve got to get going. Text me later and tell me how it all went.” She waved before walking to the elevator.

  “Hey,” he called out. She turned around to see him glancing up at the sky.

  “Yeah?”

  He motioned out the window. “Storm’s coming,” he warned. “You need to be ready for it.”

  Chapter Three

  “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

  —William Shakespeare, MacBeth

  RBG growled, the kind starting low and in the back of her throat. Then came the whining. The combo always meant something had tweaked her.

  “It’s a squirrel, you silly dog. It’s always just a squirrel. In a tree. When I’m trying to sleep.”

  Her girl huffed before giving her a look. People say humans make a bad habit of anthromorphizing their pets, but Quinn swore her dog had about a hundred different emotions and opinions, including the attitude she had just thrown down.

  Then RBG started grumbling again, her eyes laser focused out the open window.

  Quinn squinted at her phone: it was a little after one in the morning. She grabbed a pillow and smooshed it over her head.

  It didn’t help. RBG’s guttural noises turned into barks, and now it was Quinn who was in a tizzy.

  “Fine, fine. I’m awake now.” She threw down the pillow and sat up. RBG didn’t even flinch. Every muscle was rock solid, her whole body at attention.

  She shuffled out of bed. “You know, there’s nothing back there,” Quinn said through a yawn, as she wiggled on a pair of jeans, putting on her sweater. “You’re going to feel so silly when you find out you got all worked up over a lil’ bitty squirrel. Just sayin’.”

  Quinn shoved her feet into her sneakers and patted the side of her thigh, her signal for RBG to follow. Her dog baby bolted off the bed and trotted to the door, nudging the leash w
ith her nose.

  Quinn clipped it on her and grabbed her keys and phone.

  After leaving her home, RBG pulled Quinn down Windover Avenue. She still didn’t know what RBG had sensed, but every time Quinn tried to haul the dog back, she’d strain at the leash until she almost choked herself. And so they continued walking, Quinn thinking the whole time that RBG was leading them on a fool’s errand.

  Until she veered right on Knoll Street. Quinn heard the sound of someone grunting, and then a thud, like something heavy had been dropped. She followed the noise, walking at a faster clip. She turned on her phone’s flashlight feature in order to avoid tripping on the uneven road with gnarled roots busting through the crumbling asphalt.

  “C’mon, where are you?” She swept the range of light left and right. Tree. Branches. An owl. Nothing unusual. Nothing that could have made that sound. Was she hearing things?

  That’s when Quinn noticed something: it had gotten quiet. She slowed her pace, scanning the area with the light. They were in the trees now, on the edge of the manicured section of Sarah Walker Mercer Park, but it was pitch-black. She thought streetlights usually shone around there, but maybe she was wrong. She knew up ahead was a paved area, but she couldn’t see it from where she stood. Quinn peeped down at RBG, and her girl looked up at her. “Huh, maybe it was the wind?”

  That’s when she caught it—the sound of a door slamming shut, followed by a car peeling away, screeching like a banshee through the night. And it couldn’t have been that far away because Quinn could smell burnt rubber on the breeze. She ran toward the sound, hoping to catch a glimpse. The car left a trail of billowy white smoke all the way down Nutley Street. It went so fast, Quinn couldn’t even be sure of the car’s color.

  “Damn it.”

  RBG started to whine.

  “It’s okay, girl.” Quinn fumbled with her phone—her hands were shaking—trying to steady herself in order to shine the light. She was going to find a seat on one of the park benches and catch her breath before heading back home.

  But then her light caught on some pink fabric and something that resembled … hay?