Pretty as a Picture by Elizabeth Little

Author:Elizabeth Little [Little, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

How many times I’ve made my mother cry.

What people say about me behind my back.

About bugs you can feel but not see.

Where the first jet engine in Donnie Darko came from, because there’s no way the answer is anything but infuriating.

A much better question is: How far am I willing to go for that knowledge? Sometimes, admittedly, it’s a little too far. I won’t just read one book, I’ll read every book. I won’t just click on one link, I’ll click link after link after link after link until my eyes cross and my battery dies and I know I’m going to have to clear my cache in the morning because I ended up in some very, very dark places. I won’t just send an email—I’ll make a phone call.

Other times, I’m not even willing to wait for IMDb to load on a slow network.

“If anyone catches me with you,” I tell Gavin, “I could lose my job.”

“And doesn’t that strike you as suspect? Have you ever worked on a film where the director asked something like that of you?”

“No, but I’ve also never worked on a film where the lead actor tried to spirit me away to some clandestine meeting with a suspected murderer. Did you do this to Paul, too?”

He gives me an incredulous look. “Paul? God, no. He didn’t have time for me. He was too busy pissing into jars in the projection room.”

The branch slips from my fingers and slaps me in the forehead.

“That’s why he got fired?”

“No, of course not, I just made that up. You looked like you needed a laugh.”

“There’s nothing funny about pee jars.”

His smile vanishes. “There’s nothing funny about any of this. Did you know they almost beat Billy to death?”

“Don’t you dare emotionally manipulate me.”

He ignores this and takes a step closer. “When the DA declined to prosecute, a group of guys went down to the docks and confronted Billy. Demanded that he confess. When he wouldn’t, they tried a more . . . physical means of persuasion.”

I draw a breath. “How badly was he hurt?”

“He was in and out of the hospital for months. He had to have plastic surgery, dental reconstruction, everything. It was years before he walked properly again.”

“Did they ever charge anyone with the assault?”

“Officially, no one knows who did it. No one talked. Not even Billy.”

“Unofficially?”

“It was Caitlyn’s boyfriend and a bunch of his friends.”

It whispers out of me: “Goddammit, Gavin.”

He moves closer, pressing his advantage. “Everyone on this island thinks he did it. Including Tony. They’re not even interested in looking at alternatives.” And then he makes his face do something I’ve never seen from it before, not once, not in three movies’ worth of raw footage.

This is what he looks like when he’s begging for help.

“Please.”

“Oh, fine,” I say, pushing past him and stepping out of the hedge. “I’ll do it.”

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