Ghost Flower Read Online Free PDF Page A

matter—how you use utensils, how you sit, how you talk. I hadn’t realized how many little things there were until I was watching you right now.”
    I sat up straight and took my arm off the table. “Is this some kind of
My Fair Lady
thing where you win a prize by turning a guttersnipe into a countess?”
    She smiled. “I love that movie.”
    Of course she did. Girls like Bridgette always loved that movie because it made the world seem pretty and made them believe that even though they were rich and clean, they didn’t have to be morally bankrupt.
    It was, in my opinion, a piece of shit. No one ever handed you a fairy tale.
    “I guess you could say it’s a little like that,” Bridgette went on. She started twisting the triple gold ring she wore on her pointer finger. “We want you to pretend to be someone else, and if you pull it off there will be a lot of money in it.”
    I think I had known all along, somewhere in the back of my mind, where this was heading, but I let myself say it aloud for the first time now. “You want me to be your cousin Aurora.”
    Bridgette sat up straight, and her perfectly shaped brows snapped together. “How do you know about Aurora?”
    “Bain told me. He said she loved thunderstorms like the one we drove through. Because she was like them.”
    She shot him a confused look, then came back to me. “Yes. I guess—” she stopped. “That doesn’t matter. Three years ago Aurora ran away and disappeared. We want you to impersonate her for a few weeks.”
    “A few weeks?”
    “A month or two.”
    “Why?”
    “Our grandmother is very ill, and it would make her last days—” Bain started to say, but Bridgette interrupted.
    “Don’t be an idiot. She’ll never believe that.” She looked at me. “For money. On her eighteenth birthday, Aurora was supposed to inherit a lot of money. We want you to impersonate her until then, stay around long enough to get the money, and then give it to us. We’ll give you one hundred thousand dollars, and you’ll be free to do whatever you want for the rest of your life.”
    One hundred thousand dollars to walk in someone else’s shoes for three months. Mrs. Cleary, my foster mother, would have been so proud of me. I glanced toward the photo I’d been looking at on the piano. I bet they were nice shoes too.
    “Why wouldn’t you do it?” Bain said when he thought I was hesitating.
    “Because it’s stealing?” I said.
    “Not really.” Bridgette shook her head. “In her will, Aurora left the money to Bain and me, so technically it’s ours. But if she’s not there, we have to wait another four years until she can be declared dead.”
    “Is she dead?”
    “She’s either dead or uninterested in the money because otherwise she would have been back by now,” Bain explained. He spreadhis hands wide. “See, no one will get hurt. All you have to do is spend a few weeks playing dress-up and living like a princess, and at the end you get a fortune. Most people would jump at this chance. Or are you worried it will interfere with your career advancement up the Starbucks ladder?”
    If I had seen then what this single-minded focus on money was really about, I would never have agreed to their offer. But at the time, everything they said made sense. And it all led to one conclusion. I said, “I’ll do it.” Bain started to smile, but Bridgette’s face remained impassive. “For two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
    The smile froze on Bain’s face. “You’re crazy.”
    Bridgette’s arm came up in front of him, like a mother protecting her child, and she stared at me. Her gaze was precise and appraising, and I wondered if I’d blown it. I really hoped not—“The best hiding place is in plain sight” was the advice a friend had given me once, and this seemed like the plainest possible. I forced myself to keep meeting Bridgette’s eyes.
    The tiniest hint of a smile appeared on Bridgette’s lips. She said, “Okay. Two hundred and