Read Online The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

get taken away from me. The part that I had almost convinced myself meant nothing, until now.
    My sister knows something about that night. She knows who besides Wyatt Stokes would have wanted to hurt Lori.
    I know, because an hour before we finally went to sleep that night, I heard Lori call Joslin and tell her to stay the hell away from her.

Yes, I am a liar, but there are a couple of things I feel the need to say about that.
    One: I come from a family of liars. My father was probably the worst of us, calling the credit company and swearing his card had been stolen, just to get twenty bucks wiped off his bill.
    My sister was a liar too. I heard her when the police came to our house asking when the last time was that she’d seen Lori. I watched Joslin stand with her hands in her back pockets and tell them she hadn’t talked to Lori since the previous morning, even though I knew she’d talked to Lori the night Lori went missing.
    Two: I was eight years old. I didn’t know much, but I knew that lying to the police was wrong, and that if I said something about the phone call, I would get Joslin in deep shit.
    So when they asked me to tell them
everything
that happened that night, I left out what I overheard Lori say to Jos on the phone.
    What was I supposed to do? She was my sister, and I was terrified of her being taken away from me. I thought she’d go to jail for lying to the police. I had to keep her secret.
    It wasn’t until Joslin left town that something clicked for me, that I was able to entertain the possibility that my sister, who couldn’t even kill a spider without feeling guilty about it, could have been involved in her friend’s murder.
    It was a little white lie, my not telling the police about the phone call. A little white lie that swelled into a monster of a lie that I was too scared to expose, because I was a little coward back then.
    And I can’t bring myself to tell Callie, because I’m still a coward now.
    •••
    Maggie wakes me up at six and tells me there’s breakfast in the kitchen. I throw my sweatshirt on over the tank top I slept in and meet her downstairs. There’s an unsettling feeling in my stomach.
    Maggie drags out the chair across the table and sits down. Her eyes are tinged with red. I take the seat across from her, where there’s a plate of sunny-side up eggs waiting. I can’t believe that after all these years she remembers how I like my eggs. “How was the vigil?” she asks.
    “Hard.” I pop an egg yolk with my fork.
    The coffeemaker beeps, announcing that a full pot is ready. Maggie pushes her chair away from the table and stands up. “Do you need to use the computer to check into your flight?”
    I set my fork down. “Um, I actually wanted to call and change my flight to the end of the week. So I can go to Ari’s funeral. If that’s okay.”
    Maggie looks confused, and my stomach sinks—until I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Callie trudges into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.
    “Look who decided to join us,” Maggie says. “What are you doing up so early?”
    Callie pours herself a cup of coffee. Leans against the counter and shrugs.
    “So, is it okay?” I ask Maggie. “If I stay a couple more days?”
    She turns her attention back to me. “Of course. You can stay here as long as you want. You’re going to need something to wear for the funeral, though. How about the three of us take a trip to Target?”
    Callie eyes us over her mug. “Tessa was actually going to come to Emily’s house with me today. She’s having a hard time with everything.”
    “Oh.” Maggie deflates a bit before putting on a smile. “Okay, maybe tomorrow.”
    “Sure. Tessa can wear some of my clothes until then,” Callie says. She jerks her head toward the stairs. “I’ll show you what I have in my closet.”
    No one comments on the fact that Callie is a size two and I’m a size six. It’s obvious Callie’s just trying to get me alone, but Maggie doesn’t seem to