Pretty Girls Don't Lie [coming soon]

one

Sometimes, without even really looking at a person, you can just tell they are trouble. I knew from the moment the smell of pomegranate shampoo drifted towards me and the swish of her honey highlights that Everley Shine was a force to be reckoned with. But I can promise you one thing Detective Andrews, out of all the things I believed Everley to be, this was not one of them.

It all started on the same mundane Saturday morning I seemingly always had. Mom had me in the front porch, digging around in some of her flowerpots when the sound of a moving truck rattled down the road towards the vacant house that has been collecting dust next door for almost a year now. I remember Mom mentioning something about the house being sold – finally – but I didn't really have a think about the prospect of new neighbors until now.

I would have to start being more careful. I couldn't get undressed beside the corner window that looks right into the empty bedroom across from me. I would have to stop rummaging around next doors back yard for any unattended gardening supplies for Mom. But more importantly, I would have to make sure Ralph, our new and excitable puppy would stop shitting on our neighbor's doorstep.

I blow the fallen strands of black hair away from my face and look over my shoulder as a soccer mom style car lugs behind the sizable moving truck. I can see from here – which isn't much considering I am positively blind, even with my contact lenses in – that a woman is driving and a teenage girl around my age has her feet up on the dashboard. I can't make out any more people until the car edges closer and then a tuft of blonde hair pokes out from the backseat and I can make out a toddler strapped into their car seat. I crane my neck but quickly snap my head back down to the flowerpot, my cheeks burning at my obvious nosiness.

ABBA is blaring out the speakers of the car, almost like they have installed a boom box because I'm fairly positive that cars like that did not have speakers that grew this loud. Only now as the car edges closer, I notice all four windows are down and the movie version of Super Trouper is blasting out, Meryl Streep's voice likely being heard for miles. I peek over my shoulder and make out the car pulling up the driveway and the sound of the speakers cutting out as the engines dies. A younger girls voice rings out and even though my hands are buried in soil, I'm not paying any attention to what I am doing.

"Mommy!" The little girl's voice whines and I notice now she can't be more than two, her blonde hair piled in ringlets on top of her head.

"Alright Josie, Mommy only has two hands." I hear her mutter. The teenager hasn't got out the car yet, but I can see with a small squint that she's on her phone, her feet still lazily sprayed across the dashboard.

I watch the mom pull something heavy-looking from the trunk and only as she comes round the side closest to me do, I realize it's a small wheelchair. She opens the car door and lifts the little girl – Josie into her wheelchair and fetches something from across the seat, her leg propped up on the leather as she strains.