Chapter Four
There were a lot of hackers following #JusticeForTyson. So while law enforcement saw Regina as a delusional, grief stricken girlfriend who kept changing her story to stretch her fifteen minutes of fame, there were plenty of tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists who believed every word she said. They thought my parents were behind everything, from the disappearance of Amelia Earhart (before they were even born!) to Tyson Westbrook’s murder. While my mom and dad were the reason Tyson was in danger to begin with, I didn’t believe they ordered the hit. First off, they told me they didn’t do it in Rio (which Regina obviously didn’t know), and secondly whoever hired the killer wanted to send me a message. At that point, if my parents wanted to talk to me, they had easier means, specifically Allen Cross (another fact Regina was missing).
So Regina remained ignorantly convinced and went on YouTube literally holding bloody nooses with my parents’ names hanging from them. I hardly recognized her, and not in the how-could-she-be-so-cruel kind of way. I meant she was physically unrecognizable. Since her last viral video, her hair had become so spiky it looked like it would prick your hand if you touched it. She wore a leather choker with metal studs around her neck, and her lips were painted a shade of purple so eerily dark that black would have been preferable. And her big brown eyes, the ones that used to bat lovingly at Tyson, were now hard to find under a dark ring of shadow.
Shivers covered my skin as she spoke. “Mr. and Mrs. Phoenix, if that’s your real name, you might think you’re some big bad spies, but you can’t hide. Not from the whole world. We’re coming for you! We know where you’ve been—Rio de Janeiro ring any bells? [Regina smirked triumphantly.] And we hear you were in Georgia, not the state, the other one near Russia. Funny how world leaders are making time for you. I wonder why they’d do that? [She tsked, hinting at more conspiracies.] And you know what? I really don’t care what you did in some far off country long ago, because you’re going to burn for what you did to Tyson. I’m gonna make you pay. [She held up the nooses.] So watch your back, because every person you slither by on the street could be reporting back to me. Tell Anastasia we say hi! We’ll try to get you adjoining cells. Or coffins.”
The video went on for another eight minutes, but I stopped listening after she threatened to kill me. We studied for Bio together. She edited the high school yearbook. Now she was putting a hit out on my family.
“Okay, I love you both, so don’t take this the wrong way.” Charlotte stretched her eyes, glancing between Keira and me with a severe frown. “Do you think your parents would hurt Regina to shut her up?”
“No!” I insisted, shaking my head, palms up. But honestly, I wasn’t sure. If Regina knew about Rio, that meant she could find out about Allen Cross’s death, and that would be the end. My parents would fry for that, and everyone would stop caring about Randolph Urban, Marcus’s parents, Craig Bernard, and Antonio Rey. We didn’t want that, at least I didn’t. We wanted normalcy for ourselves and justice for all of them, without the bloody nooses.
“I can’t believe she knows about Rio.” I looked at Charlotte. “And what’s with Georgia?”
“I don’t know. There was some chatter on the dark web a while ago about Georgia, but it said Urban was there. Not your parents,” Charlotte explained, before hiccuping, covering her mouth with her palm. Her nails were painted dark denim blue, and there were remnants of glittery gloss on her lips.
“Do you think they met?” I asked. And for what? They hate one another, they’d kill one another. But it can’t be a coincidence…
“I don’t know.” She wasn’t an oracle. She couldn’t know everything. But somehow Regina found this out, and I didn’t like it. “It’s the part about Rio that’s worrying me. We still don’t know where Allen Cross’s body is or what sort of evidence is on it. If it turns up—”
“If he turns up,” I corrected, with a pointed look. “He was a person.” Despite what Cross did to Marcus, he was also the man who helped me find my sister in Italy when no one else would. My feelings were conflicted. He was deranged because my parents killed his wife. He wanted revenge. He made mistakes. I wasn’t sure how much I could hold him accountable. We were all pretty messed up.
“Forget conspiracies, forget Georgia, forget crimes committed decades ago,” Julian said. “The case of Allen Cross is a simple murder, a crime of passion against a close friend. It’s a lot easier to prove. I have to agree with Charlotte.” Julian opened a button on his solid black shirt. He was wearing a trim black suit that complimented Charlotte’s midnight cocktail dress. Whatever they had been doing before this video debuted must have been fancy. “Do you think your parents are capable of killing your friend to protect themselves? Because if so, it would be irresponsible for us to do nothing. Her life could be in danger.”
I looked at Keira, neither of us wanting to admit the possibility. They were still our parents. Could we really think that?
“I didn’t see them.” Keira looked at me like it was my call. It was always my call. I had to fight the police, I had to confront Bernard, I had to lie to Regina. It was always me.
I glared at the ceiling and Marcus grabbed my hand, like he wanted to offer support, like he was so certain what my answer should be.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, my thick hair whipping my cheeks. “I know you all think they have bazookas aimed at Regina’s head right now, but I don’t know. How could they possibly…”
“They killed their best friend,” Julian interrupted.
“Yeah, I know. I was there,” I snapped, eyes firing his way.
Charlotte stepped forward. “We’re not trying to hurt you—hiccup—we just want to stop anyone else from getting hurt.” She hiccuped again.
“You okay?” I tilted my head as I watched her gulp for air.
“You’ll have to excuse us. There was champagne at dinner,” Julian explained, smoothing his jacket.
“It was pink.” Charlotte’s golden-green eyes widened at the detail, and I could see she wanted to brag about her boyfriend. She wanted us to climb into flannel pajamas, huddle around a bowl of Cheetos, and listen to every detail of her first Valentine’s Day date. He opened my door! He held my hand! He paid for dinner! But no, we were discussing whether my parents might murder my best friend, over the death of my other best friend, who they also might have murdered.
“Technically the champagne was rosé,” Julian corrected. “And we may have had another bottle in the carriage.”
“Carriage?” I smiled.
“There was a horse and buggy. The horse was white and named Snowball…” Charlotte hiccuped once more. She really wanted to tell this story, and I wanted to hear it. Damn my freakin’ parents!
“A carriage?” Marcus sounded impressed. “That makes my ring seem shabby, no?”
“You got a ring?” Charlotte beamed, rushing over to me and stumbling in her too-high stilettos. She reached down and ripped them off her feet, chucking them in a corner. “I hate these things.”
“Who doesn’t?” I held out my finger, showing off my new accessory, a warm blush in my cheeks. I knew we were supposed to be talking about something else, but I wanted to be normal for a moment. “It’s a key, and Marcus has a lock.” I bit my lip.
“That’s so sweet!” Charlotte cooed.
“Yeah, it’s freakin’ adorable.” Keira rolled her eyes, still wobbling slightly from the vodka. “Can we get back to Regina now?”
I sighed and turned to my sister. “Regina has no idea what she’s doing,” I huffed, shoving my hand into my pocket to hide the ring from my sister.
“No, she doesn’t,” Julian agreed. “And that’s not fair to her. That’s not safe for her. She’s in Boston, making these videos, with no protection and no idea how bad this really is.” He looked at me like he already knew what I needed to do, and he was waiting for me to catch up.
“We’ve tried to contact her. I tried to warn her,” I pointed out. “She doesn’t want to hear it.”
Charlotte and Julian exchanged a look. Clearly they’d discussed this before they even came into the room, so they might as well tell me their idea. “What?” I asked.
“This isn’t something you put in an email.” Julian’s ocean blue eyes locked on mine. “I think you need to confront her, face-to-face. It’s the only way she might actually hear you. Because if you don’t…”
I’ll have to live with what happens, I finished for him. I didn’t think my parents would murder an innocent kid, but if I was wrong, could I bear the guilt of two dead best friends? No, of course I couldn’t.
But could I really go back to Boston? I swore I’d never step foot in that cursed city again.
“How would this even work?” I asked, pulling hard at my hair as I pictured Regina’s face inches from mine, droplets flying from her mouth as a tornado of words slammed into me, each spin of her tongue more vicious than the next. “She and Keira are all over the internet. If the paparazzi find out I’m in Boston, they’ll turn it into a Phoenix vs Regina Deathmatch.”
Charlotte disagreed, shaking her head as she placed her hands on my shoulders.
I knew I was the reason Regina was in a black hole of grief, and I knew I couldn’t let her quest for (much deserved) answers get her killed—especially not by my parents. But Boston, really?
“Don’t worry,” Charlotte said. “We’ll take care of the press. We just need a diversion.”
…
London Gazette
February 16th
Is Keira Phoenix Dating Soap Star Ridge Utley?
…
It took a series of discussions worthy of a congressional floor, but ultimately I took the journey from London to Boston with Marcus, and we were already en route via taxi to the Villanuevas’ home without so much as a stop for coffee.
“It sucks to be back,” said Marcus as he glared at the city traffic outside our window.
At least we weren’t being followed by the press. As promised, Charlotte and Julian devised the perfect media distraction. I had no idea who Ridge Utley was, and had never seen his daytime show; he was chosen purely because his publicist was the most persistent. The woman called Julian every couple of days begging Keira to snap a selfie with her client. It got to the point where we wondered if they’d settle for a cardboard cutout of my sister. So when Keira agreed to not only a photograph but an actual date, Ridge’s “people” had the paparazzi lined up outside a restaurant before my sister even left the compound. Not a single reporter bothered to notice that Marcus and I left the country. After all, it wasn’t me they wanted. I didn’t give interviews. I didn’t pose for pictures. If anything, I tried to look as sullen and unphotogenic as possible when cameras were around.
They wanted The Phoenix Who Rose from the Ashes, the girl who overcame death to “canoodle” with a C-list celebrity best known for being photographed surfing in the nude. To add media interest, Keira met Ridge dressed like a remake of Desperately Seeking Susan, with a cropped black leather jacket and giant black bow headband that was destined to land her on every “Worst Dressed” page. (The paparazzi loved that.)
“Ridge was touching her in that picture, and you’ve seen how she is. What if this makes things worse?” I asked Marcus as a T train rumbled past our car window. The clatter of the dirty green train was once so familiar, we stopped hearing it, like people who lived near the airport. The train was our unassuming background noise. Now, the metallic squeal felt almost deafening.
“She’s tough. And she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t think she could handle it,” Marcus offered.
“We didn’t give her much of a choice. Date this guy or Regina might die,” I said dramatically.
“It wasn’t that bad. And if you ask me, Ridge is probably gay,” Marcus suggested.
“You think? God, I hope so.” My eyes brightened. “He is way too tan for England…”
“Sí.” Marcus nodded.
“But you didn’t hear her on Valentine’s Day, when I brought her upstairs. The things she was saying. She’s in a dark place.” I stared at the gray Boston sky, so reminiscent of London, so fitting for our lives. I missed the sun. I missed summer days at the beach. I missed my legs wrapped around Marcus in the warm waves of Ipanema Beach.
“No, but I’ve seen her on the evening news, on talk shows. Your sister is perfection when she wants to be. She’s strong, you know that.”
She was. When the cameras were around, she took on an alter ego that never drank, never worried, never Googled herself. It was as if she could pull an unemotional face from her purse like a well-used lipstick. Now, she had to wear the face of a flirty girlfriend. She could do it. I just didn’t know what it was doing to her.
“I was so excited when we moved here.” I watched the brownstones zoom by, their stoops so inviting. I could still picture our moving van pulling up in front of our first real forever home. I remembered Randolph Urban greeting us, then I remembered his gift meant to threaten my parents, the coordinates of the meeting where they’d plotted their betrayal. “We were doomed from the start, and I had no idea. I wish we could do it all again differently.”
“If you did, you wouldn’t meet me.” Marcus nudged my elbow.
“Maybe we would. You never know.” I offered a small smile, and he brushed my cheek with his finger. I could see he wanted to kiss me. He did that whenever my thoughts turned dark. I pulled back. I needed to focus. “Part of me still thinks we should have gotten on a plane for Georgia, not here. If we could find my parents, we could stop all of this. Go to the source…”
“How? Where? We can’t go door to door looking for them.” Marcus rubbed my hand in reassurance. “Charlotte will keep searching and when she finds something real, we’ll go. But for now…”
We need to stop my parents from killing my best friend, I thought.
Then we entered Regina’s neighborhood, and I sat up.
The Villanuevas lived in Brookline, on a fairly busy street, within walking distance of the C-line trains and our old school. She was one of seven children, and if that didn’t make for enough family chaos, the majority of her aunts and uncles lived within a T-ride of their Cape Cod–style home.
Our taxi rolled to a stop. There was a collection of cars and SUVs lining Regina’s street like someone was hosting a party. Only there were no balloons, no decorations, no music. No noise at all. My stomach clenched.
“Are they all at her house?” Marcus asked, noticing the scene.
What’s going on? Sweat broke on my neck.
We were arriving unannounced, because we didn’t want Regina to film it and upload it to her YouTube account before I could even say a word in defense. All that time worrying about a virtual audience, I never considered a real one. With so many relatives, the party could be for anyone. But my stomach told me something was wrong. It felt like a wake.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Marcus said, as if reading my mind.
“Mm-hmm.” I nodded.
Even if he was right, that still meant I was about to enter a household full of people who loved Tyson, mourned him, and knew Regina blamed me for his death.
“This was a bad idea,” I mumbled.
“You want to leave?” Marcus asked as the car pulled to a stop.
I tightened my fists. “No. We can’t.”
With that, I raised my chin, opened the door and exited the vehicle.
Then I walked straight to Regina’s front door and knocked.