Page 167 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
“Consider it complimentary for dealing with your ass.”
I owed him as much, especially since I wasn’t sure if I'd ever give up Dad’s location. “Reed asked me not to.”
Nash sliced me with his attention, stopping in the middle of the road this time. “He told you not to go?”
“Yes and no.”
“I know you buried Hank in his hometown, but Reed grew up in Eastridge. He wanted something done there. We obviously couldn’t divide the casket, but he asked me to bury an urn full of Hank’s favorite things in the center of the tree maze. While you guys were burying Hank, I buried the urn. It’s right in front of the Hera statue.”
“What did you bury?”
“His Panthers jersey. The pad of sticky notes he always used to press everywhere.” A smile ghosted my lips. “His favorite sunglasses, the ones he kept ‘losing’ while wearing. The book he’d read to me and Reed when we were younger. The prom king crown you didn’t want, but your dad found hilarious and mounted on the wall.”
“That’s where that went.”
“Are you mad I took it?”
He made me wait a few minutes for his answer. “No.”
Betty’s new house straddled the border between the middle class and filthy rich neighborhoods in Eastridge. I assumed Nash had paid for the home, and it suited her. So much so that every time I looked at it in the pictures Reed sent me, little fissures opened inside my heart at the idea of how happy Betty and Hank would have been there.
We pulled up sometime around eight in the morning, which was the equivalent of noon for Betty Prescott. The scent of breakfast lingered in the driveway. Nash cut the engine, popped open the door, and tilted his nose up.
I swung my door before he could, because as much of an ass as he was, his Southern mother had raised him to open doors for women. “How pissed do you think Virginia would be if I pigged out on Betty’s breakfast instead of the country club brunch?”
“Like a bear witnessing her cub getting kidnapped, only infinite rage and no maternal instinct.”
I grinned. “We should do it.”
Nash let us in with his key, my shoulders brushing his arm near the doorway. The smile on my face died at the sight of Basil and Reed sitting at Betty’s island. They didn’t look happy to see us. Even Betty didn’t look happy to see us.
“Fuck,” Nash muttered beside me.
I recovered quickly, leaping at Reed for a hug. “Reed!”
He returned it with an awkward one-armed pat. “Why are you here with Nash?”
“I needed a ride to Eastridge.”
“Looks like more than a ride, Em.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.”
I distanced myself from him, flicking my attention to a wide-eyed Betty behind me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
This went from zero to a hundred fast, which told me Reed had already been in a mood. I gathered the situation as quickly as I could. Basil looked like herself, but didn’t act like herself. No scowl. No eye daggers thrown at me. Disconcerting.
Betty clutched her thin silver bracelet, an anniversary gift from Hank. Also a clue they were discussing something bound to break her heart. The last time Reed looked like this, he’d been cuffed in my living room.
He edged closer to me, which made Nash shift behind me. I held a hand out to my side, stopping them both.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded, “before hounding me with accusations you cannot take back.”
If this was his reaction at the sight of me and Nash, how would he react upon learning we’d had sex?
On. His. Bed.
