What Lies in the Darkness (Shadow Cove Book 1) Read Free Page B

at her and secretly flip her the bird, but the movement offers zilch gratification since she can’t see it. If I did actually grow a pair of lady balls and flip her off for real, she’d probably call the cops on me. That might sound absurd, but she’s already done shit like that a handful of times. Like when we were being too loud out back, and she claimed she thought we were intruders to the police. She knew it was us, though. She freakin’ saw us go back there!
    By the time Kennedy and Embry come wandering out, the wicked witch of a stepmom has glared at me half a dozen times. The second she spots Kennedy, though, she focuses her evilness on her, pulling her aside to say God knows what. When Kennedy walks away, she looks fuming mad.
    Watching Kennedy and Embry hike down the paved driveway is an odd sight. The two of them are completely opposite: Kennedy with her long, blonde hair; white miniskirt; and pink tank top, and Embry with her newly dyed, blazing red hair; heavy eyeliner; black shorts; black T-shirt; and black clunky boots.
    “God, she’s such a bitch,” Kennedy says as she slides into the backseat, glaring at her stepmom through the windshield.
    “What’d she do now?” I ask as Embry gets in.
    “Oh, you know, the usual.” Kennedy fastens her seatbelt. “Told me I look like shit, that I need to lose weight, that I need to stop spending money, that I’m too spoiled.” She rolls her eyes. “Like she has room to talk.”
    “She told you to lose weight?” I ask. “ You ? Jesus, you’re, like, a size two.”
    Kennedy dismisses me with a flick of her wrist. “It’s not that big a deal. I know she’s just jealous because she can’t eat whatever she wants and stay skinny. I heard her bitching about it to my dad the other night. You should’ve heard them. Apparently, he didn’t say the right thing, and she flipped out and started screaming at him. He called his lawyer the other day.” She raises her crossed fingers. “Fingers crossed it was about a divorce. They’re hitting the two-year marker, so I bet it is.”
    “Your dad’s so predictable.” Embry cracks the window, letting the warm, salt-kissed air blow into the cab. “Has he ever stayed married for more than two years?”
    Kennedy nods, staring out the window. “My mom and he were married for almost nine years.”
    The cab grows quiet at the mention of Kennedy’s mom. The woman ditched her and her dad for the pool boy. Kennedy was eight at the time, and we’d been friends for about a year. That day, she broke down on the playground and started crying.
    “My mom ran away,” she sobbed through the tears.
    I was so confused. Parents weren’t supposed to run away, were they?
    “I’m sure she’ll come back,” I told her. “Parents don’t just leave.”
    She dragged her hand across her face to wipe away the tears. “My dad said she’s not coming back. He said she traded us in for a hot, younger piece of ass, took half of our money, ran away to Italy, and is never coming back.” Her hands shook on her lap as she stared at the dirt beneath us. “What if she never comes back, Mak? What if I’m stuck in the big house with my dad, listening to him yell all the time?”
    “He doesn’t yell all the time,” I lied. “Just most of the time.”
    She gave me a really look. “He yells all the time … at me, the maids, the cook. I even heard him yell at the mailman once for leaving a package too close to the door.” Tears bubbled in her eyes. “I’m so scared. I don’t want to live alone with him.”
    I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure how. My parents rarely yelled at me, and my mom and dad had been happily married for as long as I could remember, so I couldn’t relate to her situation. Still, I knew I needed to comfort her.
    I reached over and took her hand. “I know it’s scary, but everything’s going to be okay. I won’t let your dad yell at you, and I won’t let you be alone in that house too much. If you