Free Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus Page A

and a barrel chest. Declan doesn’t turn around, but gets up abruptly and pulls out his wallet. “I gotta go,” he says, dropping a ten on the table. “Don’t worry, all right? Everything’s fine.”
    He brushes past the guy, who half turns to call after him, “Hey. You Declan Kelly?” Declan continues toward the door, and the guy raises his voice. “ Hey. I’m talking to you.”
    Declan grasps the doorknob and leans against the door, shouldering it open. “I’m nobody,” he says, and disappears outside.
    I’m not sure what the guy’s going to do—keep coming toward me, maybe, or follow Declan outside—but he just shrugs and heads for to the bar, settling himself back onto his stool. His friend leans toward him, muttering something, and they both laugh.
    It hits me, as I finish my Coke in silence, that Declan’s life is a lot shittier up close than it seems from a state away.
    Half an hour later I’m dragging my ass home, because it didn’t occur to my brother before making his dramatic exit to ask if I might need a ride. I’m rounding the bend toward Lacey’s old house when I spot someone a few feet ahead of me on the road, wheeling an oversized suitcase behind her.
    “Hey,” I call when I get close enough to tell who it is. “Leaving town already?”
    Ellery Corcoran turns just as her suitcase wheels hit a rock on the ground, almost jerking the luggage out of her hand. She pauses and balances it carefully next to her. While she’s waiting for me to catch up, she pulls her hair back and knots it into some kind of twist, so quickly I barely see her hands move. It’s kind of mesmerizing. “The airline lost my luggage more than a week ago, and they just delivered it.” She rolls her eyes. “To our neighbors. ”
    “That sucks. At least it showed up, though.” I gesture to the suitcase. “You need help with that?”
    “No thanks. It’s easy to roll. And my grandmother’s house is right there.”
    A breeze stirs, sending stray tendrils of hair across Ellery’s face. She’s so pale, with sharp cheekbones and a stubborn chin, that she’d look severe if it weren’t for her eyes. They’re inky black, huge and a little bit tilted at the edges, with eyelashes so long they look fake. I don’t realize I’m staring until she says, “What?”
    I shove my hands into my pockets. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been meaning to thank you for the other night. At the fund-raiser? For not, you know, assuming I was the … perpetrator.”
    A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know a lot of vandals, but I have to imagine most of them don’t look quite so horrified by their own handiwork.”
    “Yeah. Well. It would be easy to assume. Most people here do. And that would’ve been … not great for me.”
    “Because your brother was a suspect in Lacey’s murder,” she says. Matter-of-factly, like we’re talking about the weather.
    “Right.” We start walking again, and I have this weird impulse to tell her about my meeting with Declan. I’ve been out of sorts about it since I left Bukowski’s Tavern. But that would be oversharing, to say the least. Instead, I clear my throat and say, “I, um, met your mother. When she came back for Lacey’s funeral. She was … really nice.”
    Nice isn’t the right word. Sadie Corcoran was like this bolt of energy that swept through town and electrified everybody, even in the middle of mourning. I got the sense that she considered Echo Ridge one big stage, but I didn’t mind watching the performance. We all needed the distraction.
    Ellery squints into the distance. “It’s funny how everyone remembers Sadie here. I’m pretty sure I could visit every town I’ve ever lived in and nobody would notice.”
    “I doubt that.” I shoot her a sideways glance. “You call your mom by her first name?”
    “Yeah. She used to have us pretend she was our older sister when she went on auditions, and it stuck,” Ellery says in that same