“She’s not.” Niklas shrugs. I wait, but he doesn’t continue. Instead he gulps juice straight from the carton, still watching me with that amused look.
I shiver, despite the balmy temperature. Tate was right. He is creepy.
“Morning, my darlings!” Elise bounds in, dressed in her red bikini and tiny white cutoff shorts. She encircles me in a hug, and cold water drips down onto my skin, her hair still wet from the shower. She kisses my shoulder. “Do you see the ocean? Fuck, I never want to leave.”
“Sure, dropout and move here,” I say, and laugh, relaxing at her presence. “Become a professional beach bum. Your parents would love that.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Elise hops up to sit on the counter, swinging her legs against the cabinet doors. “I’ll send them a postcard. ‘Wish you weren’t here’.”
She plucks a couple of grapes from the bunch in the fruit bowl and eats, still sitting with her back to Niklas.
I look over at him, realizing for the first time that Elise hasn’t spoken to him. Hasn’t so much as glanced in his direction.
Niklas must realize it too. His expression darkens for a moment, then the frown is wiped away, replaced with that same bland, smug smile. “I’m out of here. Text you later?”
Elise shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”
Niklas salutes at me, and then saunters toward the front door. A moment later, I hear it slam.
I give Elise an expectant look. She grins. “Keep ’em mean. . . .”
“I know, but that was pretty icy.”
She shrugs again. “He’s kind of full of himself. Going on and on about all his dad’s business deals, and how they own, like, half the island. Still, the boy has his uses. . . .” Her lips slip into a mischievous smile, and I can’t help but laugh.
“What time did he come over?” I ask, going to rinse my glass. They have a maid come here every afternoon, but I still feel bad leaving anything for her to clean up. “I didn’t hear him come in.”
“I had him sneak in round back last night,” Elise replies, sliding down to the ground. “He had to climb up to my balcony.”
“Oh Romeo, Romeo,” I quote, holding a hand to my forehead in a fake swoon. She laughs. “You’re lucky he didn’t fall and crack his head open,” I add.
Elise makes a dismissive noise. “It’s barely fifteen feet; anyone could climb that. Besides, you’ve got to make them work for it, otherwise they think you’re easy.”
“You, the great Elise Warren, easy?” I tease. “Never!”
“That’s me.” She dances around the kitchen, throwing wannabe gang signs, mock-tough. “Rock hard, baby.”
“Like your abs?” I laugh, lightly hitting her stomach.
“Like diamonds, baby!”
There’s a groan. AK comes stumbling in, wearing last night’s crumpled T-shirt and a pained expression. “Noise. Pain. Dead.”
“What’s that?” Elise calls, extra loud.
“I don’t know!” I yell back. “I couldn’t hear!”
AK glares. “I hate you both,” he says, falling face-first onto the couch.
“Aww, don’t be like that,” Elise coos.
“We’re sorry,” I agree. “Want me to make you some coffee?”
There’s a groan.
“I think that’s a yes,” Elise laughs. She turns back to me, then her eyes widen. “You found my necklace!”
“What?” My hand goes to my throat. “This one’s mine.”
“No”—Elise reaches around my neck to unfasten it—“I have that chip in the metal, remember? Right here.” She shows me the crack through the bronze before fastening it around her own throat. “I thought I lost it back in Boston. Cheap piece of crap.” She grins affectionately. “It’s going to give us a rash or something one day.”
Before I can reply, Lamar interrupts us, strolling into the room with his shades on and a beach towel slung over his shoulder. “What are you guys still doing inside? We’ve got a schedule, people. Relaxing! Drinking! Lying in the sun!”
Elise laughs, spinning away from me. “Two minutes!” she promises. “I’ve got to grab my beach stuff, then I’m going to relax so freaking hard.”
She dances away, back toward her room, and I’m left there, my fingers digging into the back of the couch, my breath coming slow.
“What’s up with you?” Lamar’s voice snaps me back. I turn.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
TRIAL
“Miss Chevalier, can you tell us what we’re looking at up on-screen, please?”
I barely turn to look. I’ve been on the stand for hours now, answering his questions, trying to stay calm, and not snap or sound sullen, but it’s hard when I’ve had only a few hours of sleep all week. They took me off the sleeping pills, saying it made me look too robotic and detached on the witness stand, but now all I can do each night is stare at the cracked ceiling of my tiny cell and wait for the peace that never comes.
“Miss Chevalier?” Dekker prompts, and I realize I’ve zoned out again.
“It’s a map of the beach house,” I tell him, tired.
“That’s right,” Dekker agrees. “And can you tell us which room you were sleeping in?”
“The one you’ve marked in black.”
“The one by the front door,” Dekker continues. He’s got an iPad and a pointer, to move around on the screen. “And the victim, Elise, her bedroom was back here, to the rear of the house.”
Her room, of course, is marked in red.
“We can see from the diagram, it’s barely ten feet from your bedroom door to the main entrance to the house. So it’s a fair assumption,” Dekker continues, “that if anyone were to enter or exit in order to get to Elise’s room, they would have to go past yours—which, as you’ve stated on several occasions, you were occupying the afternoon she died, between six and seven p.m.”
“No.”
Dekker stops. “You weren’t in the house at that time?”
“No, I mean, we were. Me and Tate,” I clarify, trying not to trip over my words. “But the front door wasn’t the only way in.”
“But if a stranger broke in to attack Miss Warren, as you claim, then he would have had to have passed your bedroom to get there.”