Page 5 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
“Emery, do I need to send you to Miss Chutney’s etiquette classes?”
Miss Chutney was the borderline abusive lady who’d trained Eastridge’s female population into the La-Perla-panties-up-their-asses women they were today. She didn’t leave bruises, but rumor had it, she walked around with a ruler she used to slap wrists, necks, and whatever sensitive flesh it could reach.
Able pulled out his chair. “I can grab it, Mrs. Winthrop.”
“That’s a wonderful idea!” Virginia cooed. “Able will escort you, Emery. Run along now.” Virginia’s face remained frozen, like someone had slipped plaster into her Botox.
Irritation dilated Emery’s eyes. The gray one darkened, and the blue one brightened. She muttered a few words I couldn’t make out, but they seemed angry. For a split second, I thought she would surprise me.
In fact, something in me needed her to surprise me to restore my faith in a world where people like Gideon could take advantage of the Hank and Betty Prescotts of the world.
Instead, Emery pushed her chair back and allowed Able to take her arm, as if we lived in the eighteen-hundreds and she required a damn escort to go places. The defiance in her eyes had fled.
In this moment, she looked nothing like the eight-year-old girl who punched Able in the face for stealing Reed’s lunch.
I watched with detached interest as Emery submitted to Virginia’s will.
She was just like the rest of fucking Eastridge.
Sometimes, I wondered if Eastridge wasn’t a small, affluent town in North Carolina, but a circle of Dante’s Inferno. Problem with that theory—Eastridgers didn’t limit themselves to one
sin. We were voracious with our sinning.
Lust.
Gluttony.
Greed.
Anger.
Violence.
Fraud.
Treachery.
Even heresy, because let’s face it. Most Eastridgers might have called themselves Christians, but they sure didn’t act like it when they turned up their noses at helping the other half of Eastridge—the half that slept in houses still damaged by the hurricane two years ago as they used the salary from Dad’s textiles factory to pay for food.
Take tonight for example. Cotillions presented debutantes to society, but we’d all lived in this town since birth. A cotillion was no more useful to us than a stack of sequential hundreds.
A bottle of bourbon nearly toppled off Dad’s alcohol cabinet, but Able caught it and held it up like he’d meant to knock it over. “Can I drink this?”
“Do whatever you want,” I muttered, bending over to access the wall safe behind the desk.
I still wasn’t sure if it was Dad’s office or Mother’s, but they had sunk their claws everywhere in Eastridge. Even The Eastridge Junior Society, an offshoot of The Eastridge Country Club.
Able gulped down a generous swig of the bourbon behind me. I pressed the lock combination Mother had whispered to me minutes ago. His footsteps beat against the hardwood before his hand rested on my back.
I pushed it off with a small smack. “Excuse you, I’m entering the combo. Look away.”
Cursing, I pressed the wrong combination and had to try again.
The sound of Able chugging the bottle like a frat house initiate filled the little room. “C’mon, Em, don’t be like that.”
With a voice like Adam Sandler circa Little Nicky, I could give a million and one reasons why Able couldn’t land a girlfriend to save his life. He was my date because his dad was my dad’s lawyer and fighting every ridiculous request Mother sent my way exhausted me into submission some days.
“Dye your hair to match mine.”
