Page 22 of Deadly Little Scandals

The rest of the sentence caught in her throat. I followed her gaze, to the place where the lake met the shore. Water sloshed gently against the rocks, and scattered among them…

…was a skull.

he’s almost here, Sawyer!”

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just do it, Sadie-Grace. Pretend you’re still unconscious. Until we can move, until we can fight back, the name of the game isstall.”

here were numerous downsides to discovering human remains while cliff-jumping, naked, in the middle of the night. For example: explaining to the cops the circumstances surrounding the discovery and becoming acutely aware that your body andthebody had been in the lake—in close proximity—together. Two weeks had passed, and I still didn’t feel like I’d showered enough.

I also hadn’t stopped wondering about the corpse—how old it was,whoit was, how long it had been in the depths of Regal Lake before the storms had dredged it up.

As a bonus, I’d also spent the past two weeks “not grounded.” To say that my aunt had not been pleased when the Lake Patrol had escorted us home that night would have been an understatement. Since Lily and I were legally adults, Aunt Olivia had contented herself with very pointedlynotscolding us andnotpunishing us, while simultaneously foisting so much family togetherness upon us that leaving home without her company had quickly become a fond memory and nothing more.

I’d taken to hiding out on the roof just to get a moment of peace. That was where I was when my phone rang. I answered it quickly, lest it announce my location to the occupants of the house. “Hello?”

I half expected it to be one of the White Gloves.

“Sawyer.” The voice on the other end of the phone paused after saying my name. “It’s Nick.”

The sound of his voice had me flashing back to The Big Bang and the moments after he’d jumped the bar.

“So I’m notMiss Taftanymore?” I asked pointedly, remembering the exact expression on Nick’s face as he’d taken the drunk frat boy off my hands: pissed at him, reluctantly appreciative of me and my ability to damn well take care of myself.

“Once someone starts a bar fight in my establishmentandoffers pointers on my tossing-out-dirtbags technique, we’re pretty much on a first-name basis by default.”

“I didn’t start the fight. I finished it. And if you keep tossing people out like that, you’re just asking for a case of tennis elbow.”

“Message received,” Nick told me. “Loud and clear.”

We descended into silence then. I thought about the way he’d looked tossing Frat Boy out on his ass. The clenched jaw, every muscle in his body tight.

“You still there?” he asked on the other end of the line.

“Yup,” I replied. After another second or two, I issued a reminder. “You called me.”

Another pause, shorter than the last. “I need a favor.”

Of course you do,I thought. Of course he hadn’t called just to reminisce about my endearing knack for self-defense. He’d had my number for months. If he’d wanted to call—at any point in time—he could have.

“What kind of favor?” I asked.

“Before we get into the specifics, I’d like to remind you that you owe me.”

“Debatable.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

He was right. After everything I’d helped Campbell put him through last spring, Ididowe him. “What do you need, Nick?”

He replied, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but I don’t speak incoherent mumbling.”

“There’s a party next weekend,” Nick gritted out. He did not appear to be relishing that statement. “A fund-raiser Davis Ames is throwing at the Arcadia hotel.” He saidAmeslike it was a curse word. “I need you to go with me.”