Chapter Nine

Whitney Allen smoothed her pink ruffled dress and then leaned down to straighten her white socks. The dress had been almost brand-new when her mother bought it for her. “For twenty dollars, this isn’t a school dress, you hear? It’s for church and maybe a party, and that’s it.” But Whitney hardly ever went to parties where she could wear the dress, and wearing it made her feel like a princess. Whitney swore she’d be extra careful in it today. She was just going down the street to see Molly. Molly’s mom had died, so Whitney wanted to look nice.

She puckered her face like her mom did when she was putting on lipstick, and then smiled into the mirror. “Perfect,” she whispered, just like her mother always did.

Tiptoeing to the door, she took a deep breath and then opened it a crack and peeked out into the hall. Since her stepbrother left to visit his mother, the house had been like the library at school. Every time she said anything, her mother or stepfather said, “Shh.” She didn’t miss Randy. He was a twit. But it meant there was no one to order around, and Whitney was bored.

Her mother and stepfather were still in their room, and Whitney knew she needed to be quiet. Her stepfather worked at night and slept all day, so Whitney could never make noise in the house. Only Randy got to make noise. “He’s a boy,” her mother would say. “Plus, Randy doesn’t know he’s making noise.” Randy was deaf. Whitney thought if he couldn’t hear, he should be quieter, but Randy was the loudest kid she knew.

Whitney hurried down the hall and tore down the stairs, making as much noise as possible before skittering out the front door. The street was quiet, but Whitney knew there’d be someone around somewhere. Halfway down the block a car thundered past her, music blaring. Whitney covered her ears and cringed. She hated those loud cars. She reached down and pulled up the sock on her right foot. It had managed to fall around her ankle again. She wiped at the scuffed patent leather shoes that had belonged to someone else and wished that for once she could have something brand-new. Someday she would. She was going to marry someone very successful so she could have all brand-new dresses. Her mother said it didn’t matter that their clothes were used. “It’s how you wear them that matters,” her mother would say.

Molly was sitting on her doorstep and without hesitating Whitney approached. “What are you doing?”

Molly squinted into the sun and shrugged. “Nothing.”

Whitney twirled around. “Do you like my dress?”

Molly nodded without really looking at it.

Whitney smiled. Of course she liked it. It was beautiful. “May I sit down?” she asked, curtsying.

She shrugged again. “Sure.”

Whitney frowned at the girl’s response. It wasn’t very polite. “Do you want me to stay?”

“I don’t care.”

With her hands on her hips, Whitney let out a long sigh like her mother did when she’d done something wrong. Then, pointing a finger, she said, “You should invite me to sit. It’s only polite, you know.”

Molly looked up at her and frowned. “Fine. Sit down.”

She rolled her eyes. What could she do if Molly was rude? Her mother always told her that some people just weren’t raised right. Brushing off the step, Whitney sat down, spreading her dress around her and then crossing her legs and settling her hands in her lap.

Molly pulled her knees to her chest and rested her arms on her knees.

“I heard about your mom,” Whitney said, trying to raise the subject nicely.

Molly didn’t answer.

“What’s it like?”

Molly frowned. “What’s what like?”

“Not having a mom.”

She shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Are you sad?”

Molly nodded, chewing on her lower lip.

“You can cry if you want to.”

“I’m not going to cry.”

Whitney shrugged. If her mother died, she would cry. She would cry and cry and cry. And then where would she go? She couldn’t live with Randy and her stepfather. They wouldn’t want her. She’d probably get shipped back to her father’s house in Michigan. She scrunched her face at the thought of living with her stepmother. No, she would definitely cry if her mother died.

Whitney straightened her back and smoothed her pink skirt. A small brown stain caught her eye and she picked at it. It was chocolate—from her cousin Teddy’s birthday party.

“Why are you here?”

Whitney looked over at Molly, who was watching her. “I came to see how you were doing.”

The little girl narrowed her gaze. The streaks of dirt on her face made tiny cracks when she did. “Why?”

“Because I thought you might want someone to talk to.” Whitney paused. “Do you?”

Molly shook her head. “No.”

“We can talk about who killed your mom.”

“No,” Molly said again.

Every day since Molly’s mom died, Whitney’s mom had warned her to be very careful going outside. Whitney would look out the window at night and watch the cars go by and wonder if the killer was in each one. But once, in the middle of the night, she’d woken up and heard noises and thought the killer was in her house. It was only the wind blowing the screen door open and shut. That was scary.

Her stepbrother was outside playing when Molly’s mom was last seen. He could have been a hero if he had been paying attention. But Randy never paid attention, especially when he was playing.

Whitney smoothed her skirt and turned to Molly, watching the other girl frown. Her mother always told her that her face would freeze in that position if she held it too long. Molly’s looked frozen, but Whitney didn’t say that. She stretched out her legs and crossed one over the other. “My mom said it was your dad what did it.”

Molly sat up straight and scowled. “It was not.”

Whitney ran her hand over her skirt again without responding to Molly’s outburst. Molly was only a few months younger than Whitney, but Whitney had always been mature for her age. “Precoshess,” her uncle always said.

“Your mom doesn’t know,” Molly said.

“She knows more than you do.”

Molly thought about that and then shook her head. “I don’t care what your mom said,” Molly said. “She’s stupid if she said that. My dad would never do that. He loves my mom. Your mom’s a liar.”

“Is not,” Whitney scolded. “My mother wouldn’t lie.”

“Well, she did.”

Whitney crossed her arms and stood up, stomping her patent leather shoe hard on the porch. “Don’t you say that. My stepbrother was riding his bike when your mother came outside—he saw.”

“He can’t even hear,” Molly snapped back.

Whitney put her hands on her hips. “He’s deaf, not stupid, and he can see.” It was the first time Whitney had ever stood up for dumb Randy.

“If he’s so smart, how come he’s older than me and still in the first grade?”

Whitney scowled. “He’s not as dumb as you if you don’t think your dad did it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

Molly started to cry. “Not,” she said, her voice cracking as the tears made tiny red paths down her dirty cheeks.

Whitney tilted her nose in the air and gave a light shrug.

Molly stood up and stomped across the porch to the front door. “Go away,” she screamed, as the door slammed shut.

Wiping off her dress, Whitney stomped off the porch. Her mother had said that Molly’s dad did it, but she made up the part about Randy seeing something happen. Hewas outside, though. If she had been outside, she would have seen everything. She would be a great detective—like Nancy Drew in the stories her mom used to read to her when it was just the two of them.

Randy would be a terrible detective. Whitney had wanted to ask him a million questions before he left to see his mom, but he was too busy packing to talk to her. That was a problem with being deaf. You couldn’t talk if your hands were busy doing other things. Plus, she didn’t think he would be much help anyway. Her mother always said men didn’t notice anything important—the same must be true of boys.

Randy was so stupid he probably saw the whole thing and totally forgot it.