When someone dies mysteriously during a Psych experiment, Rhiannon becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy that includes both the survivors and the killer.
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Short on cash, Rhiannon...
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CHAPTER TWENTY
BYSTANDER EFFECT
( —the way people will wait for someone else to offer assistance when they see something happen. )
— ♡ —
JUDE IS LAUGHING.
Granted, he's also smashed drunk and smiles at anything that moves, so, technically, it shouldn't count that much for most people, but Rhiannon is just glad she gets to witness it, regardless of the underlying motives. She's curled up on a couch, watching him exit the kitchen with two red plastic cups on his hands, held high up above his head, and he laughs at something Zelda says.
After handing Rhiannon her cup, he immediately loses his balance and falls to Matteo's lap, who's sitting on the opposite end of her couch. It's more than enough to send him into a fit of laughter, face buried in the crook of Matteo's neck and his free arm swung around his shoulders. Rhiannon merely sips her beer, the bitter taste scratching the walls of her esophagus as it goes down.
Maybe throwing an exclusive New Year's Eve party for the participants of the experiment wasn't the best idea they could have had, but they're bonding, strengthening the ties between them, and influencing their own behavior, which is exactly what Frances and Beatrice wanted.
The means justify the ends, and they've certainly never specified which means they were looking for.
She has had enough beer to last her for a lifetime, but Jude can hold his liquor, so no one is batting an eye, not even her. They think it's frankly entertaining and it certainly beats watching TV and feeling sorry for themselves, so they let him do whatever he wants . . . partially because no one is entirely sober either.
Rhiannon isn't having fun, regardless. It's been weeks since the Frances Incident during her Calculus exam and the bruises have since vanished from her arm, but the memories remain . . . and so do the feelings of uneasiness. Since she and Jude returned to Crowcrest after Christmas, she's lucky to not have run into Frances that often, but, on the rare times they happened to be in the same room, her heart instantly plummeted down to her feet.
He's hiding something, that's for certain, but Rhiannon isn't sure she wants to know what it is. With so many people insisting he's dangerous and the knowledge of how he (along with Beatrice) is covering for whoever killed Taylor, all she wants to do is keep a safe distance from him, but it's her presence in his experiment that has been helping her get her life back on track.
She's also not sure whether Laura can be trusted or not. She might be friends with Gabriella, Sutton and Hailey, but she's also having private meetings with Frances and Beatrice to talk about Taylor; part of her thinks the secret meeting she eavesdropped wasn't a one-time occurrence, but Hailey is the one who's been pointing fingers at everyone. Friends don't betray each other like this and, if Laura knows anything about what happened to Taylor, perhaps she should speak up instead of keeping everyone in the dark to protect two professors.
