Page 74 of Brenna, Brat

He shrugged. “She does. It’s something she’s trying to work on.”

How did he already know that? It had taken me weeks to learn about Campbell’s hatred, deep-seeded and visceral, of ladybugs. They terrified him, just like how I felt about the dark. I happilyremoved them from his vicinity and found better homes for them. And at night, he always walked into the house first and turned on lights for me.

“Anyway, I guess it’s a good thing,” Dion continued. “Her dad is stepping up for her and her brother, no matter what’s his motivation is. By the way, you can tell Campbell that I’m not mad about how he acted like such an asswipe at the lake. I know it was because he loves his sister.”

“Campbell doesn’t care about your opinion, but sure, I’ll tell him.”

He moved the silverware on the table, lining it up on his napkin and carefully adjusting it to be totally straight. “I have to tell you something else. I guess I don’t have to, but I figured I should so you don’t worry anymore.” Then he was silent for long enough that I had to reach across the table and whack his shoulder. “Fuck! That hurt,” he said, sounding more like the Dion of old, when we’d worked together at the gallery.

And that was what he wanted to talk about: the gallery and what had really happened to it. “The thing with the fire, it wasn’t about some girl who was pissed off at me. Yeah, I was getting some calls, but those were about my mom’s debts. It wasn’t some crazy person off the street or retaliation for a drug deal gone wrong, either.”

My heart sank. “Then it really was someone was trying to hurt Campbell? Wait, how do you know?”

He looked at me and swallowed. “I wasn’t supposed to find out, but I saw her. She’s old and she’s slow. Everybody else waslooking at the fire but I spotted her through the window before she got away and you shoved me toward the back door.”

“What? Who?” I demanded.

“Grandma Shyril.” He nodded when I shook my head. “Yeah, it was my grandma, Chic Cathay. She started the fire.”

“Chic Cathay?” Nicola asked me a few hours later. “Turn your head toward the light. Chic Cathay, the clothes designer, set her own building on fire?”

“Yes,” I answered. “She started the fire on purpose while her daughter and her grandson were there. I guess that they weren’t supposed to be around. The plan was for Alecta to go in that day and get Dion to leave, but she messed up the timing because she’s an idiot.”

“But you would have been there.” My sister’s hand clenched on the mascara wand. “Where are these people?” she asked furiously, and I got the idea that she might want to hurt them.

“Alecta is in Laos where, funnily enough, they don’t extradite to the United States. Chic’s other daughter, Dion’s mother, is on the run in his car, which she borrowed from him when her own was repossessed. But she never returned it and now she won’t respond to him.”

“Great. She sounds great.”

“Chic may or may not be in jail right now,” I went on. “I told Dion that he had to go to the police and report this, or I would. He’s talking to Carrington’s lawyer to make sure that he doesn’t also get in trouble somehow.”

“Holy Mary.” My sister expelled a breath. “You could have been killed.”

“But it wasn’t Campbell’s fault, like Jude said it was when he tossed us out of your house at the worst moment of our lives. Remember how he did that?”

“Jude loves you and you’re going to have to give that up.” She grabbed my chin and yanked my face into a different position.

“I don’t understand why you need to do my makeup,” I told her.

“I already explained that I’m practicing for my neighbor’s wedding. Blot. Why did Chic Cathay start the fire?”

“Shannon’s coloring is totally different from mine,” I pointed out, because unlike me, Nicola’s neighbor was a blonde who tanned. “And Chic set the fire for the insurance money. She really was cooking in pot on the fireplace and her house is falling down. The gallery never made anything but the building had some worth, and after the gum sculptures melted and I got the insurance company to offer a settlement, they came up with the idea to burn the whole thing.”

Nicola shook her head. “Close your eyes.”

“Alecta was in on it, but when the police questioned her, she got scared and took off to Laos. She may have been planning to do that all along. But first, she had me pass along a message to her mother.” She’d been involved in the drug stuff for long enough to be careful about texts and calls among criminal collaborators. “It was supposed to let Chic know that Alecta wasn’t going to tell on her, that they were still a team. I bet she’ll flip, though, if push comes to shove.” I blinked open my eyes and pointed to mysister’s makeup brush. “You know, you won’t be able to use this shade on Shannon, no way.”

“Stop talking and moving your facial muscles. So Dion knew about it, but he wasn’t going to say anything? That weasel.”

I risked her wrath and spoke. “He did say it, though. He is trying to be a different guy.”

“Stop talking, Brenna. If that’s true, then I’m glad,” she answered, “and I’m shocked that our mother may have something to do with his transformation.” She nodded in approval when I didn’t answer. My forced silence gave Nic a lot of time to lecture about the company I was keeping and how I was to stay away from that Chic person, and also how she herself would accompany me to the police to make my own report. “It will be my pleasure to lock up the person who tried to hurt my little sister,” she said, and I thought that it would have also been her pleasure to kill the woman.

Her makeup application had become a little violent as she got madder, and I was glad when it was over. “Now it’s time for the dress,” she said briskly.

“You said to bring it because you wanted to see it. Why do I have to put it on?” I asked.

“I want to see it on you,” she told me. “You’ve been thinking about wearing it since New Year’s Eve, when you didn’t go out and you sat here bored and annoyed with me and Jude. You finally finished it and I want you to wear it. Now,” she ordered. She took the dress off the hanger and held it out for me to step in.

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