Most people in Port Gamble seldom used their front yards anyway. If they did, they’d end up having to give a nosy tourist a mini history lesson on their house, the mill, the school, or whatever it was the interloper wanted to know. While it certainly wasn’t Colonial Williamsburg, with its phony blacksmiths and chambermaids running around with beeswax candles and a request for “all ye gather ’round,” it was annoying residing in a living museum like Port Gamble.
The only Port Gamble residents who could escape incessant scrutiny were the 115 people in Buena Vista Cemetery. And, of course, they were dead.
Starla was a hot blonde. Not model pretty, but more like reality-TV beautiful. Most everyone knew that her mother was a colorist and assumed that Starla’s shimmering golden hair had a lot of help. There was more to be coveted than just her pretty face. In fact, in the world of teens at Kingston High, a pretty face was only as good as the boobs that went under it. At least, most girls knew that’s where the boys’ eyes seemed to always land.
Like a fly on a slice of cherry pie.
Starla had hit puberty earlier than her best friend, and by the time they got to Kingston Middle School it was clear that Katelyn was never going to quite measure up. Although she was pretty, she was just a shadow of Starla’s beauty. Nobody had the power that Starla commanded by the mere virtue of just breathing and being. When Starla didn’t have time to have her 7 for All Mankind jeans altered, she rolled up the hems—and all the other girls in her class did the same thing.
Almost all of them. Katelyn resisted.
When Mindee cut Starla’s bangs for the last time, ever, the other girls followed suit. Even the older ones thought Starla Larsen was the real deal. No one could say for sure what direction Starla would go. Music? Acting? America’s Got Talent? There was a reason why they called her Superstarla—and she allowed it.
She was, no doubt, going to put Port Gamble on the map.
It was funny, some would later say, how it was her decidedly lessglamorous former BFF who actually put the place on the map. Yet it would never be funny how she did it.
NOT FAR FROM PORT GAMBLE, Moira Windsor pecked the headline of her story onto her faded keyboard:
DEATH OF A SURVIVOR
It was absolutely perfect. Sensitive. Moving. Even a little shocking. Everything she thought her story would be. If she could just get the interviews. She wasn’t asking for all that much. She needed the story. Why was Kevin Ryan being so damned difficult?
Moira looked at her headline once more. She loved the idea of plucking the heartstrings of her readers—while giving them a story that only she could tell. Plus, she needed to find out more about these girls. The Katelyn story was an entrée into something a lot bigger, a toehold into a tale so fantastic that she was surely going to get Ann Curry off that TV couch with a single flick of her finger. She had been leaked a tip—and if it was true, it would blow Katelyn’s death story out of the water. These stupid twins were all that separated her from her coveted success in uncovering the truth. That job would be hers. She deserved it. She wanted it bad. And Moira always got what she wanted. Always.
She dialed Kevin Ryan’s number. He answered the phone on the second ring.
“Hi, Mr. Ryan,” she said. “Moira Windsor here.”
There was silence for a beat, before Kevin said anything. “Moira,” he said coolly, “I thought I was clear the other day.”
Moira drummed her chipped nails on her out-of-town aunt’s kitchen table, where she’d set up her office.
“You were, but I was hoping you’d change your mind. I really want to do a good job. You were young once. You know the importance of a good story, how it can help you.”
Kevin hesitated again as he contemplated an answer that would shut her down and get her to go away. “I don’t want you writing about something so personal and tragic,” he finally said.
Wrong answer.
“Look who’s calling the kettle black,” Moira retorted. “You’ve made big bucks off writing about crime victims and their families. Always there with the personal detail.”
“This is supposed to win me over? You really need to work on your technique, Moira.”
“How about your wife? Maybe I could talk to her?”
“Maybe you should just go away.”
“Your girls? They’re fifteen, almost adults. They can decide if they want to talk,” she said.
“Stay away from them,” he warned, his voice louder than necessary. “Stay away from my family.”
Moira fired back. “That sounded like a threat.”
“Not a threat. Just a request.”
Kevin hung up. He wondered how many times he’d made someone else feel like Moira Windsor had just made him feeclass="underline" defensive, angry, and worried.
chapter 16
WHEN STARLA WAS CALLED OUT OF Washington State history class last fall, she had no inkling Katelyn Berkley, her soon-to-be former BFF, was responsible for the bomb that would be dropped over her perfectly highlighted head.
After Starla was confronted by the principal, her boyfriend, Cameron Corelli, drove her home and screeched his rebuilt Bimmer to the curb. Starla mashed Cam’s face and jumped out of the car. She strode angrily past Katelyn, who had lingered in the front yard waiting for her return. Starla had no idea Katelyn had wanted to say so many things but couldn’t.
Sorry.
Didn’t mean it.
Forgive me.
Or … You deserve it, bitch.
Starla didn’t even return Katelyn’s gaze. If she had, she might have seen a trace of sadness, remorse. It was as if Katelyn were a sheet of glass and Starla Larsen looked right through her.
Katelyn was nothing.
Starla had no clue when she stomped past her friend that Katelyn would sequester herself in her upstairs bedroom. That she wanted to cry, but no tears came. That she knew her betrayal was so great, Starla would never forgive her. That she loved Starla and hated her.
Starla would never know that Katelyn kept an online journal in which she admitted to giving the principal the incriminating photo out of spite. Because she wanted to be just like Starla, but couldn’t—and was losing her.
Starla would never know any of this because in a few short weeks, Katelyn would be dead.
“SHE DID WHAT?”
Mindee Larsen had just come home from work, smelling of hair product, toxic chemicals, and her pack-a-day menthol cigarette habit. She threw her oversize purse onto the kitchen table and looked directly into Starla’s eyes.
“You heard me, Mom. She reported me to the school cheer coach. It was total crap, and it’s all Katie’s fault.”
“Yes, I heard that. I needed to hear it again because my brain isn’t knitting the information together. Why would she do that? You’re her best friend. Start from the beginning.”
Starla wanted to say something about her mother’s inappropriate knee-high boots and shimmering top, but she thought better of it. She wanted her mother to know what she was up against, and as far as advocates went, her mom was basically all Starla had.
“The beginning of what? When we were best friends?”
“Today. What happened today?” Mindee went to the refrigerator and filled a glass of wine from the boxed sangria that always commanded most of the top-shelf real estate.