Chapter 51: Oh Shit

We pulled into the driveway, and both cars were there. Kevin’s. More importantly, Carrie’s. The search-party joke from ten minutes ago stopped being a joke and became a driveway.

“Oh shit,” I said.

“Oh shit,” Andrew said, almost on top of me.

Then we both laughed, the short, helpless kind you laugh when the universe has decided to be funny at your expense and you cannot even be mad at it yet.

It was just after eight thirty. Carrie was supposed to work until ten. She had gotten off early. Of course she had gotten off early and the afternoon had been too lucky to hold its shape all the way to the porch.

Andrew took my bag. I took my purse and the other bag, the one with makeup and toiletries and the curling iron I had grabbed like a person who still thought hair was the problem we were walking into. We went up the walk wearing the same stupid grin. I could feel mine on my face, and I could see his on his, and I knew, with a clarity that would have been useful an hour earlier, that anyone with half a brain was going to read that look the second they saw it. It was the grin of people who had done something they probably should not have done and had so much fun doing it that their mouths had not gotten the memo to lie.