Dead in Bed by Bailey Simms, The Complete First Book Read Free Page A

Whipple hurried to
sweep up the broken glass.
    I bought a Sprite from
the vending machine for Shawn, which he said helped his stomach, but I had to
hurry him out of the locker room before the cheerleaders arrived.
    By now everyone who
had been watching the football game was passing through the parking lot on the
way to the fair. No one seemed to have a clue about what had just happened. My
sister was there with Haley, waiting for Tyler to finish showering.
    “They won! Tyler
scored!” Danielle waved, surprised to see us. “What
are you guys doing here? I thought Ian was taking you straight to the beer
garden.”
    “He got called to the
hospital on the way, so he dropped us off here.”
    Technically, I wasn’t
lying. I just wasn’t sure what Ian did or didn’t want me to say, even to my
sister.
    Haley skipped over to
me, totally hopped up on excitement for the fair. I remembered feeling the same
way when I was a kid.
    “Aunt Ashley!” She
slammed into me and gave me a hug. I hugged her back tentatively. I’d washed my
hands and arms three times in the locker room, but I was still hesitant to
touch my niece after what I’d just done. “Are you going with me to the carnival
tonight?” she pleaded.
    “Tomorrow!” I said.
    It was so hard to say
no to Haley. Over the last couple of years my niece had turned into this
blond-haired, wide-eyed kid who was kind of small for her age, just like I’d
been at nine. I got to play the role of the fun, slightly reckless aunt when I
was with her. Last year at the fair we’d spent hours playing the same pinball horse-racing carnival game I used to be addicted to as a
kid, and I’d taught her how to cheat by tipping the machine.
    But there was no way I
was going to do anything tonight other than have a drink as soon as
possible—an even stiffer one than I’d planned on earlier.
    “But I want to play that
horse game!” Haley whined.
    Danielle cut in,
saving me. “Aunt Ashley and Uncle Shawn are having an adults’ night tonight,”
she announced. “I’ll take you to the horses with Grandma and Grandpa.”
    Haley looked up at me,
pouting. It was annoying, but still I felt guilty for letting her down.
    “Tomorrow we’ll play
the horse game,” I promised. “Just you and me.”
    “You guys want a ride
over?” Danielle asked. “Tyler’s still gonna be a
while.”
    “I feel like a walk,”
I said. “Maybe I’ll see you over there.”
    It felt weird just
traipsing off to the fair after everything that had happened. Someone had died,
and I’d just helped carry his body with my hands. It all felt completely
unreal. I guess the right thing to do would have been to go home, have a sober,
contemplative evening, and try to make sense of what had happened, but I
couldn’t imagine anything worse than being stuck alone with Shawn way out there
in our quiet little house. I needed to be around people—a lot of them. I
needed to get rid of the image of the mutilated body. I could still feel its
weight in my arms. I was also really hoping to catch up with Ian later and find
out if he’d learned anything about who the guy was, or what had happened to
him, or why we’d had to rush the body away so fast.
    Shawn and I joined the
crowd making its way to the fairgrounds. I expected him to object to continuing
on to the fair, but he just walked along beside me silently. He still looked
pretty pale.
    “How are you?” I
asked, folding my arms against the chilly evening air.
    “Fine,” he said. “I’m
fine.”
    He didn’t really look
at me.
    I knew he was
embarrassed that I’d been the one who had to help Ian. That was why he wasn’t
saying anything. I was pretty sure he wanted to just go home but was too ashamed
to insist on it if I wasn’t going to suggest it first. Or maybe he also just
really wanted a drink.
     
    * * *
     
    When
we reached the beer garden, Morgan wasn’t even there yet. She was always late.
I should have known.
    I texted her, and she
replied right