We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(41)

Kingsley has been gone three weeks at this point, and June’s doing his laundry now. What does that mean? Is he coming home soon?

There are flies buzzing around the room. The breakfast dishes are sticky and the milk in the cereal bowls has gone curdled and lumpy in the heat.

“Ugh,” says Tatum behind me. He’s looking at the dishes. “I thought we’d done them all.”

I begin stacking plates. In terms of her personality, June doesn’t seem the type to leave messes like this. At one time, she covered the castle with labels and suggestions, written out meticulously. Also, she’s so industrious. She makes weavings, does the indigo, makes tinctures, bakes bread and makes jam. She spends almost all of every day up in her workshop. But at the same time, there’s the unmowed lawn, the dirty bathrooms, the growing piles of dishes, the dog crap on the living room rug, the beautiful round swimming pool choked with rotting leaves.

“It’s disgusting in here,” Tatum mutters. “I wonder if there’s a fly strip somewhere in the pantry.”

We head back to the kitchen with our hands full of dishes. “June used to be a nurse,” I say as I run hot water into the bowls. “I think of nurses as orderly. And there are things about her that are very orderly. But—”

Tatum calls from the pantry where he’s hunting for fly strips. “She wasn’t a nurse. She told you that?”

“She said it was a long time ago. Maybe before you knew her?”

“She’s forty,” he says. “I’ve known her eighteen years. She was my mom’s best friend from high school.” He comes out of the pantry with a cardboard box of flypaper.

“Was she something like a nurse?” I ask. “I don’t know, a medical technician?”

“No. When June took up with Kingsley, she had just dropped out of college. She was waitressing in Brooklyn.”

I swallow. “But she injected me with something, because my hands got cut.”

“What? When?”

“The day after we went to Beechwood Island.”

“What did she give you?”

“I don’t know. An antibiotic.”

Tatum bites his lip and closes his eyes for a moment. Then his dark lashes flutter open. “What did it do to you?”

“I passed out again, I think. I was really tired?”

“I think she gave you a sedative,” he says quietly.

“Really?”

Tatum looks at his feet. “Okay, I know she gave you a sedative.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry. It was already done when she told me. She had me carry you upstairs.”

“Why would she do that?” I ask, reeling. “There was nothing to sedate. Did she tell you I was screaming or something? Or that I was violent?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“She doesn’t like me. And she’s angry that Kingsley invited me without telling her. But you don’t just sedate your unwanted stepchildren.”

“Matilda,” says Tatum. “Don’t blow this up into—”

“You carried me up four flights of stairs,” I interrupt. “When I was passed out. What on earth did June say was the reason?”

Tatum lifts his gaze. “She said she felt it was needed,” he repeats. “And I trust her judgment.”

“You do?”

Tatum looks me full in the face. “Yes,” he says. “I trust her judgment.”





39


Late at night, I sit in the Iron Room with my sketchbook on my knees, writing out the possibilities as I think of them. I draw big cartoon arrows between ideas when they connect.

Why would June sedate me? Was there something she didn’t want me to see that she got rid of while I was asleep? Like, could she have moved a painting so I wouldn’t see it, or disposed of some kind of evidence?

I did investigate her house pretty thoroughly. I rummaged through the fridge and asked Tatum if the packets were drugs. Later I scoured the bookshelves and peeked in the empty rooms. I questioned the contents of the tincture drink June made me.

Maybe she sedated me to threaten one of the boys. That is, by drugging me, she was saying look what I can do, without your consent, if you break my rules. And she told Tatum about it, for sure. Was she sending him some kind of message?

Then I have questions about Kingsley.

Have he and June had a falling-out? Is that why he’s not coming back?

Why would he alienate his late patron Tipper Sinclair by painting her as the wicked stepmother in “Cinderella”?

Why won’t he sign off on the sale of Prince of Denmark, when his household is mostly living off groceries bought with Brock’s royalty money and Tatum’s paycheck?

Why is anyone here hurting for money at all?

I need more pieces of the puzzle, and I decide to start with Prince of Denmark. Maybe I can find out why Kingsley doesn’t want it sold.

When I’m sure the castle is asleep, I take a flashlight and tiptoe down the stairs to the mudroom. There, I search until I find the box labeled Spoils of War. It’s an old wooden fishing tackle box, labeled by the boys when they were young. In it are layers of sectioned trays filled with tiny pebbles, shells, beach glass, crab claws, a couple dried-out sea stars, some multisided dice—treasures probably saved by Meer.