Lies We Tell (Thistle Cove 3)

Ozzy frowns. “Tell me you don’t think Rose is alive and breaking into your room.”

I don’t confess that I think it’s possible that Rose is alive—somewhere. “No, but what if she told Chandler? Or her parents? It could be any of the Thistle Cove Three.”

“The who?” Finn asks.

“That’s what I’ve started to call them. The Thistle Cove Three. It’s not nearly as nefarious as it should be.”

Once again, we’re back where we started. Everything always circles back to them. I have no doubt one of them was in my room and leaving me those things—probably just to freak me out.

I need to know who and why, and I don’t plan on stopping until I know the truth.

I think I know exactly where to start.

Since we’re officially absent from school, we agree it’s time to deal with one part of the mystery head on.

East Point Suites.

My house is empty when we go back, but I still feel like a sneak when I go through the back door and run up to my room. My eyes immediately fall on the bed, but there’s no new box or a gift. Thank god.

I walk over to the bookshelf and pull out the Eden book. I start to take just the card but decide to bring the whole book with me.

I walk back out the back door, put the key back under the porch decking, and run to the car. The boys wait for me. Ozzy in the front seat. Finn and Ezra crammed in the back. I pass Ozzy the book. “The card’s inside.”

He looks at the cover curiously then flips through the pages. The card falls into his lap.

Ezra reaches over the front seat. “I’ve seen this before.”

“Where?” Finn asks.

I drive down the road, pulling out of the neighborhood, headed for the main highway. I’d found the book and key in Rose’s bedroom with Finn. I never showed it to the other guys.

“My dad keeps this stack of cards in the kitchen. I swear I’ve seen one of these in his things.”

I pull off to the side of the road and slam on my breaks.

“Ken!” Ozzy shouts, seat belt cutting into his chest.

“Sorry!” I turn and pick through the trash in my console. Gum wrappers, change, my “car scissors,” a tube of lavender lotion, three Chapstick tubes…

“What are you looking for?” Ozzy asks.

I look up at him. “Remember a few months ago, we were in the backseat and you found all those cards on the floorboard.”

His forehead scrunches under his cap. “Vaguely.”

“You put them in here.” I toss out a wad of napkins. “I took them from Ezra’s house.”

“What? Why?” Ezra asks, leaning over.

“I was being nosy. You dad walked in—you know the time he gave me a scathing lecture about how you were too busy and focused to have a girlfriend. A fuck buddy, sure, but not a girlfriend.”

“Don’t remind me.”

My fingers brush the stack of cards that had been sitting there for months.

“When he walked in, I shoved these in my pocket. They fell in the backseat of floorboard and Ozzy shoved them in here. I never thought about them again.”

I sort through them. It only takes a second to find the hard, plastic, electronic keycard. It matches the one from Rose’s book. In the corner of hers it has a small stamped #214. Mr. Baxter’s is blank.