I understood him. He preferred Tristan to be on the wrong track than to do the right thing and die because he was too stupid to get his own life under control.
I nodded.
“I have to go. Laurent is waiting for me.”
Whatever mission the two of them were on, he wouldn’t let me know anyway. Professional secrecy, as he always called it. Although, he often did things on his own. I never questioned it, because it was none of my business. We all had our private missions, I learned that early on. But with him, I always wondered what was going on in his head, what had made him this quiet yet determined man.
He never talked about his past and even when he seemed closest to me, he kept his secrets to himself.
Each DeLoughrey kept his own dirty little secrets. Secrets that could ruin the whole family if they came to light.
Bastien said goodbye to me before getting back into the car to meet Laurent.
When he was gone, another icy breeze blew in my face. It had become even colder. Almost too rapid a drop in temperature at this time of day. There was something ironic, almost symbolic, about the way the weather changed with Bastien’s bad news.
The wind blew through my hair and the dark crowns of the oak trees swaying in the breeze cast huge shadows over the terrain.
Then, for a brief moment, I felt as if a shadow was scurrying past the walls. Too quickly.
I scanned the surroundings, looked more closely at the spot. But there were only the shadows of the trees. Slow and quiet. As if the approaching storm had only just arrived, ready to envelop the town in a thick wall of clouds.
Chapter 49
Larissa
“How do you always manage to drag me into things like this?”
Bay looked around in all directions as if there would be someone else around at this time of night, while I was busy trying to open the little iron lock decorated with stone tendrils and snakes that just wouldn’t open.
The last time I had broken in somewhere was three months ago. It must have been a ring store, yes. And the locks of jewelry stores were always harder to pick than the conventional ones anyway. So, I was all the more annoyed that this damn lock from the last century wouldn’t open.
“Now, relax and try to help me,” I sighed, frustrated.
Bay stood next to me with her arms crossed. “Which one of us is the one with the criminal background?”
I ignored the comment.
Bayla thought she knew my whole story, but she didn’t know the half of the shit she’d been spared as the child of a rich scientist.
“This lock is weird. I’m only used to those cheap things or jeweler’s locks... What this is...” I hit the stupid snake again, half of which was covering the lock. “I absolutely can’t tell you.”
“Let me see.” Bay pulled me aside as if she actually had a clue.
“Whoever this professor is, he seems to want to protect himself well... For whatever reason!” I let out in frustration.
He couldn’t seriously expect someone to think of breaking into his office. A boring university director.
“Maybe he has good reasons,” Bay muttered in thought.
“Do you think he’s involved in this drug thing?”
All those things Grace said every day about the Copelands made no sense at all. It felt like everyone was dangerous if it was up to her or Vivienna’s clique.
Who could you trust if even the director of Vanderwood was a mafia member?
Bay looked at me for a moment, as if she wanted to get something important off her chest, but then looked back down at the lock.
“If you know something, you should tell me now.”
I leaned against the wall and gave my best friend a scrutinizing look.
It was a wonder I’d managed to follow the Adams all the way to Blairville without them seeing me. I’d driven right behind them a good five times, and that was on a motorcycle.
“I don’t know, Larissa, I wouldn’t trust anyone here if I were you. This town is the embodiment of a rumor mill, and maybe not without reason.”
There we had it. You couldn’t trust anyone. Still, it was a dull little town. Nothing remarkable.
I could hardly imagine anything being worse than the streets of Sacramento. At least I had a roof over my head now, and a very nice one as well. I didn’t want to go back to that stinking hole, that old life on the streets without a permanent home.
It really felt like a new chapter, as I had had the opportunity to take my best friend with me and leave all the garbage of the past behind me. Jackpot indeed.
It was horrible how hard it had been to get rid of all those toxic relationships and gangs, because they had always found me again. Sacramento had never been safe. Even for someone like me who had been born into it, where mums did drugs, drunk dads beat their kids and disappeared to the cigarette machine, never to return. The place where homeless children struggled on the streets for everything they were denied.
I had already seen a few people die. And I was glad that I had made it this far.
I deeply hoped that everything would change from now on, and I hoped that things would work out with my studies. I simply had no other choice.
Bayla paused and looked at me.
