The Traitors by C. A. Lynch

Author:C. A. Lynch [Lynch, C. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008643935
Publisher: One More Chapter

Chapter Twenty

~NINE O’CLOCK~

Staci

Fewer than forty-five minutes had passed since the confrontation upstairs, but I was still feeling shaken by it. All of it.

I’d been forced to confess—while my scrunchie recorder recorded it all—and tell them about my co-host, Jan. I couldn’t include this part on my channel—it made me look bad. It made me look like a liar, once again, to my viewers.

“It’s not certain that you’re the impostor,” Bonnie said, lifting her fingers in air quotes when she mentioned that term. “You said that the letter was addressed to your channel name, The Forgotten and the Lost, so technically that means you were probably both invited. So, not an impostor, but Jan is missing from our group…”

Bonnie was sitting right next to me on the sofa; I could smell lavender and mint in her hair, and something sweet on her breath. What I really wanted to do was run, get far away from these people … nothing about this experience so far was going as planned.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, remembering something else. “I’m pretty sure they knew I was coming … I received the paperwork and sent it back to them with my name. If I weren’t meant to be here instead of Jan, wouldn’t someone have stopped me by now? But I’m still pretty sure Jan is who they wanted. She is the real face of the channel…”

“Jan,” Bonnie pressed, trying to get closer to me again. “Can you tell me anything about her?”

I shifted farther away, pressing my hip against the armrest to get away from her.

“Not really. I mean, she’s adopted. But I don’t know many details. Jan is kind. She’s smart … we used to be good friends,” I said, a feeling of guilt and sadness blooming in my chest. It was wrong of me not to share the details with Jan, no matter how pissed at me she was before leaving. After all, she had every reason to be angry with me after I made up that whole audio recording to gain more attention for the crime case.

“I would love to meet her after this. I could even give her my portion of the money. She deserves it after what I did to her,” Bonnie said. Her eyes were watching my every move, searing into my soul, and this time when she scooted closer to me, I had nowhere to go. She reached out and touched my arm.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” Bonnie said, her hands cold as ice on my forearm.

“No problem,” I said, trying to pull away but Bonnie only gripped me harder.

“I hate to break up this lovely talk of family, but I’m famished, and I need to go get changed for our drinking hour soon,” Penelope said, rising from the wing-backed chair.

The sun outside had dipped below the horizon, darkness sneaking up on us without us realizing it. Bonnie released her grip on me and moved farther down the couch. I sighed audibly with relief.

“Penelope, wait,” I said, calling out to the snooty writer.

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