The Secrets of Lily Graves (19 page)

Even so, Allie went slightly green. “I've never been here before, so I didn't realize . . .”

“I know.”

Like Erin, Cheyenne, and Kate, Allie was one of those girls whose mother politely called with some bogus excuse for missing my birthday parties—a soccer game, an incoming grandparent, possibly a cold.

“Wanna see where the magic happens?” I asked, daring her.

“Really?”

“Sure. Why not?” I opened Boo's door and flipped on the light to the spotless peach-and-white room. “Voila!”

Allie entered and shrank at the sight of the slightly
inclined stainless steel table at the center. “So that's for . . . ?”

“Prep. Usually what happens is Manny, our assistant, brings in the body and lays it on this table, which we keep very disinfected.” I gave it a friendly pat. “We slip off the bag and then wash the body thoroughly. It's convenient because there's a drain right here, see?”

Allie peered at the drain. “That's where you substitute blood with . . .”

“Embalming fluid. We put it into this machine.” I waved at the industrial-looking pump on the counter. “And then hook it up to an artery in the neck, if we're lucky. Sometimes, the body's not so intact and you've got to pretty much soak the remains in preservative.” I waved to the cabinet of plastic Lithol bottles in a pink row.

“Normally, formaldehyde is colorless, a gas, actually. Formalin is the liquid mixture. Embalming fluid is a thicker version, and they add pink tint to improve the corpse's complexion.” I read the bottle's description out loud. “‘Ideal for the autopsied, electrified, frozen, or difficult to firm.'” It was what Boo used on Erin, but I kept that to myself.

“It's so weird that this is what your family does for a living and that you sleep right upstairs,” Allie said, climbing onto the table.

It was the last thing I'd expected her to do. I mean, I would lie there all the time, especially in the summer when Boo cranked the air-conditioning in the prep room full blast. Then, the table was so nice and cold.

But Allie? No.

“I just wanted to know what it's like.” She laid back and folded her hands in the traditional position, left over right. “We'll all end up here someday, right?”

“Possibly.”

Allie closed her eyes and held her breath, a freaky imitation of a dead person. Except the dead aren't usually crying.

“Whoa!” I snatched a tissue and dabbed at the tears spilling from the corners of her eyes. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “No. Not at all. The sickness and sleeplessness haven't gotten any better.” She brought her hand to her brow. “I'm not coping, Lily.”

“Talk to me.” This was my one window of opportunity and I had to make the most of it. “What happened at Erin's house Saturday night?”

Allie sighed feebly. “It was a big mistake that's going to haunt us for the rest of our lives.”

She was driving me crazy. I needed facts, information, not weepy regrets—before someone found us in Boo's room. “Who was there?”

“The usual. Kate, Cheyenne, and me. And Erin, of course. We thought a party might lift her mood. She was a wreck because . . .” Allie hesitated.

“She was pregnant.”

“No, she wasn't.” Allie attempted a chuckle. “Where'd you hear that?”

“I read it on the death certificate—like you said, it was chock-full of mortician information—and Matt told me.”

Allie sprang upright, her eyes wild. “He's not the father, just so you know. Erin and he never had . . .”

“Whatever. I'm not interested in Matt and Erin's sex life.” Though I was, actually. “Go on. Why was she a wreck?”

“Aside from the obvious?” Allie went back to folding her arms. “Because instead of being sympathetic and loving, the guy who got her pregnant was pissed. He said he'd assumed she was on the pill and then he accused her of intentionally getting knocked up to get her hooks into him. He couldn't have been a bigger ass.”

“Where did she meet this Prince Charming?”

Allie rolled to her side. “Maybe at the hospital where she interned last summer or the coffee shop where she used to get iced cappuccinos. I'm not sure. Kate says he was way older and that's why she didn't go public,
because if her parents found out she was dating someone out of high school they would have flipped.”

They'd probably give anything for an older boyfriend to be the worst of their daughter's problems now, I thought.

“You told all this to the police, of course.”

Allie bolted upright again. “No. And don't you, either. My God, Kate would kill me!”

“Who cares about Kate? Your friend was murdered.”

“Except Kate says that if we come forward, the cops will interrogate us like they've been interrogating Matt, searching his lockers and house. And if they do that, then they might find out we were . . .” She balked.

“Drinking?”

“Well, that, but also . . .”

“Smoking . . . weed?”

“Um.”

I wanted slap her for being so coy. This was not a game. Lives were at stake. “Be specific.”

“It was the kind of weed we did. We didn't know any better,” she said sheepishly. “Erin was the only one of us who'd smoked before. And Kate, once, at her cousin's. Me? I never.”

I was lost. “What was so special about this weed?”

“It was powerful, like it had been spiked. It wasn't
our fault. We thought it was Erin's, but she got it from Alex.”

Alex Bone. I made a fist. I knew Stone Bone was somehow involved.

“As soon as we started smoking it, it was scary. It wasn't fun the way everyone said it would be. My skin started itching, like I couldn't stand being in it. I wanted to rip it off—it felt like bugs were underneath.”

I shivered. What kind of pot would make you crawl out of your own skin? “Do you think it had PCP in it? Or, maybe, crack?”

“That's what Kate and I think,” she said, nodding vehemently. “The thing is, we were so freaked, we left Erin alone, high on that stuff. And the next we heard, she was dead in her bathroom with slit wrists.” Allie scrunched up her face into a wrinkled prune. “We killed her, Lily. I killed her.”

I rewound those last two statements. “Did you just say you left her
alone
?”

“I know. We shouldn't have. You don't have to beat me up any more than I already am.”

“No, what I mean is . . . Alex wasn't at the party?”

She wiped snot from under her nose. “Alex . . . Bone? Eww, no. We just smoked his weed. We didn't actually party with him.”

I was so perplexed. Then who was the guy Erin had
been seen arguing with? Mrs. Krezky described someone like Matt. But he could have been the older guy pretending to be younger by wearing a Panthers jacket. A thought was making its way into my head no matter how hard I tried to push it out.

There was a knock on the prep room door, followed by Boo asking if I was in there.

“Just chatting,” I said, shooing Allie off the table. “Come on in.”

Allie jumped to the floor and smoothed down her dress. But not even our big, fake smiles could hide our shock at the sight of Perfect Bob, flanked on either side by uniformed and undercover officers wearing rubber gloves and carrying plastic bags.

“They have a search warrant,” Boo said quietly. “There's nothing I can do to stop them.”

Apparently, Bob had given Mom a heads-up about the search as a courtesy, on the condition that she didn't tell me and we didn't try to remove evidence. All Mom had asked in return was for Bob and his force to hold off until the wake was over, which they did—barely.

Allie went home along with the Donohues and the other stragglers. Boo, Mom, Manny, Oma, and I cleaned silently, sweeping up crumbs and doing dishes while police officers trudged up and down the stairs. I
didn't stage a protest until one headed down the hall to my bedroom.

“What's he . . . ?” I said.

Mom put a finger to her lips. “He has a warrant. My hands are tied.” She went down the hall to check anyway.

“Don't let them take my laptop,” I called after her. “I still have a paper to write tonight.”

“He's not going to take your laptop,” Boo said, dumping a dustpan of dirt into the trash.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Erwin told me.”

Who was Erwin?

Oma shook suds off her hands. “Who's Erwin?”

“Detective Zabriskie.” Boo acted as if this was no big deal. “Of the Pennsylvania State Police.”

“My, my,” Oma teased. “That's an even higher rank than Ruth's beau. She's slumming it with a rinky-dink police chief in comparison.”

Manny laughed. “Undertakers and cops. Just figures. Stiffs like stiffs.”

Boo flung a dishrag at his head, but he ducked, caught it, and tossed it back

Mom returned to the kitchen and placed her hands on her hips. “I can hear you guys on the other side of the house. What's so funny?”

“Barbara has a boyfriend,” Oma sing-songed. “A statie, and you-oo don't.”

“Zabriskie?” Mom said. “I saw you two talking. He's awfully short.”

“Taller than you,” said Boo.

Unfortunately, Bob stepped in just as Boo was accusing Mom of not liking any of the guys she dates. He cleared his throat. “We're done.”

“What did you take?” Mom coldly.

“Not much. A couple of scalpels . . .”

“
My
scalpels?” Boo said, incensed. “What am I supposed to use?”

“I promise you'll get them back,” Bob said. “We just need them for testing. And we wrote down the serial numbers of your embalming fluid.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That's part of the investigation, Lily. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say.”

I didn't understand why he needed the serial numbers of the embalming fluid until the following day.

But by then, regrettably, it was too late to help Allie Woo.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I
stared at the message on my phone in bewilderment. Sara had offered to drive me to school every day since the day her license was six months old. This was so bizarre.

Are you skipping?
I texted back.

I got dressed in a daze, trying to remember the few instances when Sara and I hadn't been attached
in school. On the rare occasions when she was sick, I barely knew how to function. Lunch was downright intolerable without her. That line about skipping school forever . . . She couldn't have been serious, right?

Then again, I'd called her the night before to tell her about the search and what Allie said and she didn't call back. Didn't text, either. So something definitely was up.

“What's wrong with you?” Mom asked when I dragged myself to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

“Nothing.” I listlessly added some cream.

“If this is nothing, I'd hate to see what something's like.”

I put the cream back in the refrigerator and shut the door. “Sara just texted me that she can't pick me up this morning and oh, by the way, she's not going back to school. Ever.”

Mom put her cup down so hard she spilled some over the edge. “You're kidding! What's that about?”

I popped an English muffin in the toaster. “Beats me.”

“Do you think it has to do with the wake?”

“When Carol showed up drunk and started harassing Detective Henderson?”

“Is that what happened?” Mom shook her head.
“Ay yi yi. I thought the McMartins didn't drink alcohol.”

“That's what I thought too.”

My muffin popped up and I immediately slathered it with butter, despite my mother's insistence that her vegan spread was a healthier choice. If there was such a thing as vegan kale-almond butter, Mom and Perfect Bob would buy it by the case.

Mom didn't give my English muffin a second glance, though. She was staring at her manicured pink nails, thinking.

“Might be better if you give Sara some space,” she said quietly. “The family might be having issues.”

“What kind of issues?” I said, biting into the buttery bready goodness.

Mom leaned over and pinched my lips closed. “Grown-up issues. And please, try to remember not to talk with your mouth full.”

With Erin's funeral scheduled for 11:00 a.m. the next day, Mom couldn't spare thirty minutes in her busy schedule to drive me to school, though personally I think she derived secret pleasure in making me walk two miles to the city bus.

I didn't actually mind the walk and, begrudgingly, I admitted that my mother's fanaticism for fresh air and
exercise had its benefits. The air was crisp from last night's snow, and where shadows darkened the sidewalks there were slippery patches. But it was decidedly sunnier, which helped lift my mood as well as improve my ability to notice the silver sedan parked at the bottom of the hill.

It could have been the paranoia that seemed to have seeped into all our pores since Erin's murder. Sure. It also could have been the same car that had been following Sara and me earlier in the week.

At Elm, I took a chance and crossed at the red, not daring to look back as I heard the crunch of gravel and the distinct squeal of wheels turning in a U-ey. A horn beeped. Twice. I ignored it and cut through the backyard of an old red Victorian house and then down a driveway until I ended up on Laurel.

Safe at last, I tugged my backpack over my shoulder and was about to step off the curb when a blue pickup came careening over the hill and braked to a stop.