as anyone seen William Faulkner’s life vest?”

There was a point in my life when the question Aunt Olivia had just called down the stairs would have struck me as odd. Now it didn’t even merit the slightest raise of my eyebrow. Of course the family’s mammoth Bernese mountain dog was named William Faulkner, and of course she had her very own life vest. Hell, it was probably monogrammed.

The mamas of the Debutante set were very big on monogramming.

Really, the only thing surprising about Aunt Olivia’s question was the fact that my aunt, who was type A in the extreme, did not already know where William Faulkner’s life vest was.

“Remind me again why we’re hiding in the pantry?” I asked Lily, who’d dragged me in here five minutes ago and hadn’t spoken louder than a whisper since.

“It’s Memorial Day weekend,” Lily murmured in response. “Mama always gets a bit high-strung when we open the lake house up for the summer.” Lily lowered her voice even further for dramatic effect. “Even her lists have lists.”

I shot Lily a look intended to communicate something about pots and kettles.

“I have an entirely reasonable number of lists,” Lily retorted in a whisper. “And I would have a lot fewer if you showed any inclination whatsoever to get ready for college yourself.”

Lily Taft Easterling was just as type A as her mama, and both of them insisted on operating under the assumption that I was going to State with Lily in the fall. Matriculation at that fine institution was, I had been informed, a family tradition.

I couldn’t help thinking that my specific branch of the family tree had our own traditions. Deception, betrayal, no-bake cherry cheesecake…

“Is it me, or did there use to be a lot more food in this pantry?” I asked Lily, to keep her from reading anything into my silence.

“Mama packs for the lake like a survivalist preparing for the end days,” Lily said in a hushed voice. She fell silent at the sound of incoming footsteps, which stilled right outside our hiding place.

I held a breath, and a moment later, the pantry door flew inward.

“Hasta la vista…Lily!” Lily’s younger brother, John David, punctuated that statement with a cackle and began pelting us with Nerf darts.

Ducking, I noted that our assailant was dressed in camo, had painted black stripes under his eyes, and was wearing an enormous life vest that I could only assume belonged to the dog.

“I try my level best to avoid fratricide,” Lily said pleasantly. “However.” The however was meant to stand on its own as a threat, but I decided to lend a little specificity Lily’s way.

“However…” I suggested, advancing on John David. “Noogies are more of a gray area?”

I caught John David in a headlock.

“You mess with the bull…” John David tried his best to wriggle his way out of my grasp. “You get the horns!”

“And you get a noogie!”

Lily stared at the pair of us like we’d just started mud-wrestling in the middle of Sunday brunch.

“What?” John David said innocently, before trying and failing to bite my armpit.

“You two are bad influences on each other,” Lily declared. “I tell you, Sawyer, there are days when I’d swear he was your brother, not mine.”

That was Lily’s version of teasing, but still, I froze. Lily had no idea—none—what she’d just said.

No idea that it was half-true.

John David seized the moment and managed to wriggle out of my grasp. He was taking aim with his weapon when Aunt Olivia rounded the corner.

I’d swear he was your brother. Lily’s words echoed in my head, but I forced myself to focus on the present—and the stormy look on Aunt Olivia’s face. I stepped in between John David and my aunt and offered her what I hoped passed for a sedate smile.

“Aunt Olivia,” I said calmly. “We found William Faulkner’s life vest.”

John David and I were summarily convicted of “inappropriately timed horseplay” and “wearing on my last nerve, I swear” and sentenced to loading the car. I wasn’t about to complain about a much-needed distraction.

Months ago, I’d moved into my maternal grandmother’s house after she’d offered me a devil of a deal: if I lived with her and participated in Debutante season, she’d pay for college. I’d agreed, but not because of the half-million-dollar trust now held in my name. I’d willingly become a part of this lavish, glittering world because I’d wanted, desperately, to know which scion of high society had knocked up my mom during her Debutante year.

And the answer to that question? The one Lily didn’t know? Her father. Aunt Olivia’s husband, my uncle J.D.

“Are you feeling okay, Sawyer? You’re looking a little peaked, sweetheart.” Aunt Olivia was holding a to-do list that appeared to have taken no fewer than eight Post-its to write. I was willing to bet that not a single item on that extensive list said Find out husband slept with and impregnated my younger sister nineteen and a half years ago.

Also probably not on her list? Realize sister got pregnant on purpose as part of some idiotic, godforsaken teenage pregnancy pact.

“I’m fine,” I told Aunt Olivia, mentally adding that to the list of the lies I’d told—in words and by omission—in the past six weeks.

Under normal circumstances, Aunt Olivia probably would have tried to feed me for good measure, but she apparently had weightier things on her mind. “I forgot the backup avocados,” she said suddenly. “I could run to the store real quick and—”

“Mama.” Lily came to stand in front of Aunt Olivia. The two of them didn’t look much alike, but when it came to manners and mannerisms, they could have been twins. “You don’t need to go to the store. We’ll have plenty of avocados. Everything is going to be fine.”

Aunt Olivia gave Lily a look. “Fine is not the standard to which Taft women aspire.”

Lily gently plucked the list from her mother’s hands. “Everything will be perfect.”

A third Taft female added her voice to the conversation. “I’m sure that it will.” Even wearing her version of casual wear—linen capris—the great Lillian Taft knew how to make an entrance. “Sawyer, honey.” My grandmother let her gaze settle on me. “I was hoping you might accompany me on a little errand this morning.”

That was an order, not a request. I took inventory of all the rules and social niceties I’d flouted in the past twenty-four hours but was unsure what I’d done to merit Lillian wanting to talk to me alone.

“Should we wait for you, Mama?” Aunt Olivia asked, her eyes darting toward the clock.

Lillian dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “You head on up to the lake, Olivia. Beat the traffic. Sawyer and I will be right on your heels.”