“She’s okay,” I whispered. “She’s on a play date with Micah and Jared.”
Sarah nodded, a stunned expression frozen on her face. She moved methodically through the kitchen, leaving and returning with peroxide and a roll of gauze. Kneeling in front of me, she poured peroxide into my cuts. They fizzed and oozed, but I did not look at the wounds. Instead, I looked at Sarah with her blood-flecked white t-shirt. I saw drops of red in her blonde hair and realized I did not know what blood belonged to me, and what belonged to the bird.
After she wrapped my wounds, she cleaned the kitchen, meticulously wiping up blood and scrubbing the counters until they gleamed. She disposed of the bird and the blood-soaked paper towels in a trash bag, and walked them to the garbage can outside.
I wanted to run up the stairs and cower in my bed, but no, I couldn’t. I had to face Sarah.
“Corrie,” she breathed when she returned.
I knew what she would say. You’re insane, you need help, but she said none of those things. Her next words were much, much worse.
“The police are here.”
CHAPTER 24
Then
Sarah
“Y ou have a twin?” the woman asked Sarah, eyes huge as if she’d just admitted to having a tail. “Are you identical?” she asked honestly, gazing with round blue eyes from a face heavy with powder and rouge.
Sammy leaned in, “In every way, except I have a penis,” he whispered, a gleam in his eye.
Sarah elbowed him.
“Not identical. I got the looks and the brains in this duo.”
“Ha,” Sammy bent over and guffawed. “And also, the modesty.”
The woman looked uneasily between them, her smile forced.
“Well, nice to meet you,” she said before turning and hurrying back down the aisle.
“That was a prospective client, you shit,” Sarah told him, snatching the bottle of pineapple juice from his hand and plunking it in the cart.
“Client, schmient,” he said. “She had no sense of humor. I just saved you months of design hell. I can tell you right now, she’s one of those ladies who wants marble floors and knotty pine in the same room.”
Sarah cringed and shook her head. She too had the impression the woman would have been a high-maintenance client, but a paying client nevertheless.
“On to the vodka,” Sammy announced.
“Let’s get rum this year. I swear the vodka hangover wipes me out for days.”
“If you drink three cocktails instead of eight, that’d probably help too,” Sammy laughed.
“This coming from the guy who I saw bong tequila last year,” she reminded him, swerving the cart at his feet.
“Hey,” he jumped back. “No carticular homicide, please. You’ll have to run me over like eighty times to get the job done.”
“No death for you, brother. I’m just trying to maim you, so I can take my rightful place as the superior twin.”
“What are you two laughing about?” Corrie asked, carrying several cans of pumpkin as Isis toddled behind her with a bag of tortilla chips half her size.
“Oh, the usual twin stuff. I imagine a color, she tells me what it is,” Sammy said, grabbing Corrie around the waist and nearly sending her cans crashing to the floor.
He leaned Corrie low, kissing her.
Sarah made a gagging noise and relieved Isis of her chips.
“Mommy’s crips,” Isis said proudly.
“Yes, you carried the chips, didn’t you?” Sarah said, picking up her niece and swinging her around.
Isis squealed and yelled more, which sounded like mo.
“Toothpaste,” Corrie added, pointing toward the aisle marked toiletries.
“Umm… Corrie, my queen,” Sammy said cocking an eyebrow. “I swear you came home with three tubes of toothpaste last week.”
“I know,” she said, frowning and making a face as if she tasted something sour. “I can’t seem to get this metallic taste out of my mouth. Like pennies. Ever heard of that?” She directed the question at Sarah.
Sarah shook her head.
“Maybe you have a filling coming loose?”
Corrie shifted her jaw from side to side.
“I don’t think so.”
“Perhaps a visit to the doctor’s in order,” Sammy said, grabbing Corrie’s hand and kissing her palm. “You could ask him about the sleepwalking.”
Corrie nodded dismissively and ducked down the aisle.
Sarah saw Sammy’s face darken. He grinned and shrugged.
“A stubborn mule, that one. But she’s all unicorn to me.”
CORRIE
“CORRIE, pop the champagne, I’m hanging the last of the cobwebs in three, two, one. Done!”
I heard Sammy jump from a ladder and land on the wood floor. He let out a loud moan, and I knew he was likely bending to-and-fro, trying to release the tension in his back.
“On no, you’re not,” Sarah called.
I peeked into the great room, where she arrived with another package of the gauzy webs.
“No, she-devil.” He held his fingers in a cross and hissed at his sister.
She laughed and threw the package at him.
“Corrie, where are those dancing skeletons?” she asked, joining me in the kitchen where the counters and kitchen island were loaded with Halloween-inspired treats including spiked punch with floating jelly eyeballs, cookies shaped like bats, eclairs that looked like bloody fingers, and an array of less creepy appetizers like trail mix and bruschetta.
“Are we feeding the entire Leelanau Peninsula?” Sarah asked, plucking an olive from a tray.
“According to Sammy we are. Instead of creating a guest list this year, he told everyone with a pulse about our party and told them to bring their friends. We may need to run to the grocery for bags of popcorn if half the people he invited show up.
“Don‘t forget the people without a pulse,” Sammy called. “Fear not, damsels. There are fishing poles in the shed if we run out of sustenance. And squirrels in the trees, ripe for picking.”
“Yum,” Sarah grinned. “I love a good fish-squirrel pie.”
I smiled and wrinkled my nose.
“I think I’d rather go hungry.”
“Speaking of hunger, did you bring the singing jack-o’-lantern in from the car?” Sammy asked me.
“I’m sorry, how does that relate to hunger?” Sarah asked.
“What do you think pumpkin spice is made from?” Sammy demanded, hands on his hips.
“Not a plastic jack-o-lantern that sings I like big butts,” Sarah retorted.
“I’ll grab it,” I told him.
The sky, sunny and clear in the morning, had grown cloudy as the day progressed. I shivered and realized I should have put on a coat. I grabbed the plastic pumpkin, a last-minute impulse buy Sammy had insisted we needed for the dining room table, and returned to the house. Sammy and Sarah were talking when I slipped through the front door.
“I’m going to tell her tomorrow,” Sammy said.
“Why are you waiting?” Sarah asked.
“I didn’t want to upset her before the party.”
“Well, I’m happy you’ll be back in Traverse City. This house is too isolated to begin with. I’m not saying it was a bad idea, but seriously Sammy, it was a terrible idea.”
He chuckled.
“Well, don’t expect me to admit you’re right, but I’m relieved too. The other day when I couldn’t find her, I almost called the police.”
I considered listening a moment longer. Instead, I slammed the door hard. I had heard Sammy talking on the phone about a rental property. I knew he intended for us to move out of Kerry Manor. But I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t being honest with me about it. I thought about storming into the room, confronting him. To hell with his stupid Halloween party.