Chicken Girls by Brat

Author:Brat
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510742192
Publisher: Sky Pony
Published: 2019-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

“You made all this yourself?” Conrad said, heaping another scoop of pasta onto his plate.

“One jar, one box,” Rhyme said. “Not that difficult.”

“Well, Conrad’s knowledge of cooking ends at dipping pretzels in a peanut butter jar,” Meg said, and Rhyme laughed. She liked feeling like part of their team, their “gang.” They were doing something important, something exciting, and Rhyme was part of that. And she had cooked them dinner to boot. Who said thirteen was so much younger than sixteen? For the first time, she felt like their equal.

“Okay, so Fiske said what again?” Meg said, as if an internal timer had told her they’d spent too long talking about something other than the investigation.

“Nothing, really. Just that he was looking for you guys, which you knew. And that you’d taken something very valuable from him, which I didn’t understand.” Rhyme watched the twins’ intently for any sign of recognition, but they looked as perplexed as she had been. “He said you could be arrested for it. Me too, apparently. For aiding and abetting.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Conrad said, but Rhyme waved him away.

“It sounded like an empty threat. I think he was just trying to scare me or get me to scare you guys.”

“Valuable,” Meg repeated, turning over the idea.

“The money?” Conrad said dubiously.

Rhyme was confused. “What money?”

“Before she died, Betty gave us five hundred dollars,” Conrad explained. “But it’s already running low. That can’t be what Fiske is after.”

“I’m sure he spent more than that on the plane ticket over here,” Meg said dismissively. “No way. That can’t be it.” She scraped her chair away from the table and went into the entryway, returning with her bag.

Slowly, quietly, Meg took out each letter and placed them on the table. Four in total, three of which Rhyme had already seen. She took the fourth and examined it as Meg and Conrad fought over the last piece of garlic bread.

The letter in front of Rhyme was another love letter. Another deeply romantic love letter. But it was different from the other ones. Vinny sounded resigned. Like he had given up. It sounded like he was saying goodbye.

Attaway’s not the sort of place you hang around very long, he wrote. At least if you’re me. To Rhyme, it sounded like he was trying to explain something, why he was leaving. Maybe why he had enlisted in the army? But the way Vinny had phrased it (“if you’re me”) made it sound like he was leaving town on bad terms, and with a heavy heart. He signed off, though, very much still in love. “I love you as much as Arwen loved Aragorn, and would make the same sacrifices for you as she did for him.” Vinny wrote. How romantic …

And tragic.

“It’s Tolkien,” Meg said, suddenly behind Rhyme. “From Lord of the Rings. Betty read it to us at least seventy times. Did you find anything useful?”

“Not really,” Rhyme said. “I just feel so bad for them. That they never made it work, even though …” She shook her head.

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