Bad Girls Don't Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

house like an overprotective boyfriend. It’s lush and vivid in the summer, tangled and bare in the winter. In the fall it turns from green to red to yellow to brown so fast you hardly have time to notice, but right now it was one-third yellow, one-third brown, and one-third bare.
    My sister actually flipped out the day we moved in, eight years ago. She thought our parents had somehow bought the haunted house from Disneyland and transplanted it to Surrey. She spent the whole day screaming. Mom even thought there might be something in the air that was causing her physical pain. But no, as is always the case with Kasey, it was purely mental.
    Trying to appease Kasey’s fear, my parents repainted the house’s exterior with a sunny yellow-and-white color scheme, but it didn’t really cut down on the overall spooky look. We get huge crowds at Halloween.
    Sadly for me, the coolness is diminished by the fact that my family lives here.
    “Home sweet home,” I said.
    “It’s where the heart is,” Carter said, craning his neck to see out the top of the windshield. “This is quite a house.”
    I bent down to pick up my bag off the floor. “Yes, it is.”
    “It’s kind of a mess,” he said.
    I dropped my bag and bumped the back of my head on the glove compartment. “Excuse me?”
    “I mean, it’s really a jumble of architectural techniques.” He pointed to the bay window. “That window is Gothic, and the shingle detailing is all Queen Anne, which kind of go together, but the columns on the front porch are neoclassical, which is just plain . . . wrong.”
    Silence.
    “Really?” I said coolly. But to be honest, inside I was kind of “lights and sirens.”
    I narrowed my eyes and shot him a glare, just so he wouldn’t suspect anything.
    “Yeah, I mean, whoever built this house just kind of picked random elements from all of those styles.” He squinted up at the top of the house. “And don’t get me started on the mansard roof. That’s pure Second Empire.”
    I stared at him.
    “My mom’s an architect,” he said, shrugging.
    I slumped back in my seat. I really, really, really hate to admit it, but I was sort-of-kind-of-maybe the tiniest bit intrigued. It wasn’t often you met kids my age with an appreciation for architecture.
    “I’m Carter Blume, by the way,” he said.
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “Oh.” He sat in confused silence for a few seconds. “Can I ask you a very serious question?”
    “I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.
    He stared straight into my eyes. “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”
    Wait, what? “Wait, what?”
    “It’s a classic icebreaker.”
    “If I were an animal . . . ?”
    He faked a sigh and checked an imaginary watch. “Your inability to answer the question doesn’t bode well for—”
    “I refuse to answer that,” I said. “On the grounds that it’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever been asked.”
    He stared at me, frowning. “I hear your subconscious saying monkey .”
    “Right,” I said. “Monkey.”
    “Are you mad at me for knocking you over with the door today?”
    “Yeah, I’m furious,” I said in a monotone, rolling my eyes.
    He faked a grimace. “I need to be more careful. Do you—”
    “My turn,” I said. “Are you really a Young Republican?”
    “Would that matter?”
    I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”
    “Well, I’m not. I’m not in any political party. I speak for myself.”
    Interesting answer. And suddenly the car felt like it was a hundred degrees, and I would have liked maybe three more bucket seats between us.
    “I have to go,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”
    “Your shutters are goldenrod, not yellow,” he replied. “See you tomorrow?”
    “I doubt it!” I said, but I could feel my lips betray me with a hint of a smile. I ducked my head and turned away.
    The front walk felt like marshmallows beneath my feet as I tried to get to the porch, knowing he was watching every