Read Online Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender - Free Book Online Page A

must not have latched it all the way.
    I started toward it.
    As I approached, the door slowly opened a few more inches.
    “Kasey?” I asked. Maybe she was messing with me. I’d heard her thump up the stairs, but she could have sneaked back down.
    In theory.
    I could hardly force myself to take another halting half step.
    A cool puff of air seemed to move across my legs, and a faint, bitter smell drifted into my nose.
    “Kasey,” I said in my best jokey voice, “present yourself.”
    “I’m right here.”
    I spun around to see Kasey looking at me from the kitchen doorway.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    I turned back to look at the basement door—
    It was closed.
    “. . . Nothing,” I said. “I guess.”
    “Come help me,” she said.
    I went back to the kitchen table and sat down. She’d brought a shoe box full of pens and markers and a giant piece of poster board. One nice thing about a mom who works in the office supply industry, you always have plenty of art supplies on hand.
    “You do the trunk,” she commanded, passing me a brown marker. I obeyed and found that drawing eased the fluttery, nervous feeling in my stomach.
    “Sorry about what happened with Mom,” I said.
    Kasey shrugged.
    “That’s why I’m not ever having kids,” I said. “It sucks to have to pick between your job and your family. Besides, I can live without drooling rug rats hanging off me.”
    She didn’t even crack a smile.
    “Mimi’s mom stays home, right?” I asked. “And look how horrible Pepper turned out. So it’s just as well.”
    Kasey sighed. “I don’t care.”
    “So if you don’t hang out with Mimi, who do you eat lunch with now? What about Devon?” I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Devon was best known as the kid who could name every Star Trek episode ever made—including all the spin-offs.
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” Kasey said, looking away.
    A thought nagged at me. “Kase,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “That day . . . did Mimi try to . . . do something to one of your dolls?”
    My sister’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Yeah, well, I did. And I’m the big sister.
    Kasey’s eyes lit up.
    “Look, time to put the noodles in,” she said, pointing to the pot on the stove.
    The water bubbled enthusiastically in a roiling boil.
    My hands immediately turned clammy and cold.
    “Kasey,” I said, “I didn’t turn the burner on yet.”
    Her face went white.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    Kasey stared at the stove, then leaped off the stool and grabbed the pot by its handle. I staggered backward, thinking for a moment that she was going to throw the hot water on me. Instead she poured it in the sink and dropped the pot in too.
    She turned and stared at me, but it was as if she wasn’t really looking at me . Like I was a stranger who looked vaguely familiar.
    “I don’t understand,” I said.
    Kasey’s wide eyes got wider.
    “Something really weird is happening,” I said.
    I thought about the story, the way it poured out of my mouth without permission. About the basement door swinging open. The cloud of cold air in the dining room.
    With a start I remembered the lights we’d seen outside the night before.
    “What could it be?” I whispered.
    Kasey wrinkled her forehead. “Lexi, don’t be mad, but . . . I think . . . maybe you’re just tired,” she said.
    “No!” The burner! “The water was boiling and I—”
    “Lexi,” she said, putting her skinny arm around my shoulder, “ I turned the burner on.”
    “But . . . when? Why didn’t you say something?”
    She swallowed. “When you were in the dining room a minute ago.”
    “Yeah, but . . .”
    “You need to relax,” she said. “You’re getting yourself all worked up.”
    I glanced around the kitchen, which was lit warmly and smelled pleasantly of the spicy beef I’d just thrown away.
    “Maybe you’re right,” I said.
    “I know I am,” she said.