Chapter 3

By the time the show was over, all three of them were sitting at 40.

But that night, Dad and Kieran grabbed a toolbox and disappeared into the biggest bedroom in the house.

Mom had told me once that room was mine.

The only reason I hadn't moved in yet, she said, was that they wanted to fix it up first. Make it exactly the way I liked it.

My phone buzzed with a reminder. Boarding in fourteen hours.

I turned it face down on the table and sat there anyway, listening to them hammer.

Then the front door opened, and Vanessa Hale walked in rolling a suitcase.

Mom hurried to meet her.

On her way past me, she gave me a warning look.

"I asked Vanessa to stay with us for a while. It isn't safe for a girl living on her own."

"Don't you dare make a scene about it."

Kieran came out of the bedroom, sweaty and pleased with himself.

He went straight to Vanessa like a kid showing off a drawing.

"Heard you were coming. Dad and I already redid the room for you."

I followed their eyes down the hall.

Everything I'd picked out for that room was gone.

The curtains were Vanessa's color now. Her favorite potted plants lined the windowsill. The whole room already smelled like her.

I thought about the way I'd sat out here an hour ago, listening to the hammering, hoping.

My face burned.

Vanessa took all of it like it was owed to her.

Then she turned and winked at me.

"Sorry, Ivy. Looks like I'm borrowing your family for a while."

She said it like a joke.

Any other time, I would have lost it.

This time I just looked at her.

"Help yourself."

She didn't have to steal them this time.

I was handing them over.

While my family fussed over Vanessa's new room, I packed everything I owned.

I was carrying my bags down the stairs when I ran into Mom.

She stopped and stared at my suitcase. Her mouth opened.

Then Vanessa screamed from down the hall.

Mom's head snapped around. She hurried toward the sound without another glance at me.

Vanessa was sobbing.

The flash drive with all her competition entries was gone, she said.

I watched it play out.

My stomach dropped. I knew this one by heart.

Vanessa lifted her wet eyes and looked straight at me.

"I remember Ivy went in and out of the room a lot earlier."

"I just wonder if she noticed anything."

She hadn't accused me of anything.

She hadn't needed to.

Kieran grabbed my wrist.

"Ivy, this isn't funny. Give it back. Now."

I kept my voice steady.

"I've never seen any flash drive."

"Whatever's missing, I didn't take it."

Mom's eyes went wide.

"If you didn't take it, who did?"

"No wonder you were hauling all those bags around. That was your cover, wasn't it?"

Dad's voice rose until it filled the stairwell.

"Ivy Sterling, give it back!"

"We did not raise you to steal!"

They hadn't raised me at all.

It still went in deep.

I looked up at them, and my eyes filled no matter how hard I fought it.

"I told you about the time I got framed for stealing money when I was a kid. It was exactly like this."

"Did you all forget?"

The three of them went still.

The kid who framed me back then was Vanessa.

When I first told them that story, Kieran had slammed his fist on the table.

"Vanessa, right? She'd better pray I never meet her."

Mom and Dad had held me while I cried. They'd called her a sly, cruel little thing. They swore that from then on, they would believe me first. Always. No matter what.

Now Mom came back to herself.

And what I got was her hand, hard, across my face.