Free Edgewater by Courtney Sheinmel Page A

invited us to the New Year’s display over the Statue of Liberty a couple years before. Her dad’s law firm did the deal, so we had VIP passes and shook hands with the Grucci brothers themselves. And now they’d be in the Copelands’ backyard.
    â€œYou’ll be able to see them from the beach,” he went on.
    Lennox had been the first of the two of us to notice that Jeremy had a crush on me. I sloughed it off, telling her I was sure he was nice to me simply because I was nice back—which was more than you could say for a lot of the girls who boarded their horses at Oceanfront. But even after I came around to agreeing with her, she didn’t push me to pursue it. There was an element of “us and them” when it came to Jeremy Gummer and the Oceanfront regulars; not just because he was the only guy at the barn—most riders were girls—but also because he wasn’t wealthy like the rest. From my end, I liked Jeremy a lot, but not
that
way; besides, I didn’t want to get too close to him. Getting close to him would be something everyone around us would notice. It’d be yet another thing they’d talk about.
    From down the corridor the horse whinnied again and stomped a foot. “I think you’re being paged,” I told Jeremy. “And I’ve got to get going. But tell Naomi I can start Monday.”
    â€œMonday,” he repeated. “See you then.”

8
    GRAVESIDE CHAT
    ON MY WAY BACK HOME I RAN ALONG THE ROAD instead of the beach, figuring pavement versus sand would make the running easier. The houses I passed looked like paintings in their perfection, but I only got as far as the Point before I had to stop and drop to my knees, my breaths coming in short, ragged bursts. My legs felt like they were made of Jell-O. It was a few minutes before I stood back up and walked over to the guardrail. The ocean was roaring below, and there on the lip of the cliff was a bouquet of flowers—roses, at least a couple dozen of them, tied together with a satin ribbon, the petals browning from being left out in the sun. I knew it wasn’t the smartest idea to walk out to the edge of a cliff to get them, but we’d seen that guy out here in the same spot the night Lennox had picked me up from the airport. God, that seemed like ages ago.
    If he could do it, then I could.
    Just as I stepped forward, a gust of wind came up and swept the bouquet off the rocks. The water below was too rough to hear a splash. I stepped back again. Why did I want withered flowers anyway? We had more than enough things that were dead and dying back at Edgewater already.
    Behind me, a car was coming down Break Run, and I heard the sound of gravel crunching as it slowed, and then a honk. “Lorrie!” Lennox called.
    â€œHey.”
    â€œYou looked like you were thinking of going over.”
    â€œThere was a bouquet of flowers,” I told her.
    â€œHuh. Maybe the freak put them there.”
    The breeze blew again. It was pushing ninety degrees, but a chill suddenly went up my spine. “Oh my God,” I said. “You don’t think someone left them here for him, do you? Like, because he fell or something?”
    â€œOh, no,” Lennox said quickly. “If that had happened, we would’ve heard all about it.”
    â€œYeah, maybe.” I paused. “So where are you headed?”
    â€œJust coming back from the nail salon.”
    I looked at her hand on the steering wheel, nails free of polish. “Going for the natural look?”
    â€œDiana double-booked, if you can believe it. And the only reason the other customer got there first was because I held the door open for her. Which just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished. Diana doesn’t have another opening today, but she said maybe,
maybe
she could squeeze me in later this afternoon—like she’d be doing me a favor. I’d have to go all theway back there, and she