BIG SIS

9.1 A Bird in the Hand is Worthless if It's a Pigeon

The first thing Iris did when they got home was ask her parents if she could go hang out with a pack of rabid dogs.

"I want to speak to the reporters," was what she actually said.

Her parents would have probably responded better to the rabid-dog thing.

Collin snuck away during the ensuing argument. The house was dark, the drapes pulled over every window. The whir of voices just outside was more intrusive for being muffled, and put Collin in mind of flies buzzing around a covered dish. He chanced a peek once he got upstairs. People in smart clothes had taken over the front lawn, some wandering, others caught still in front of cameras and glaring lights. News vans blocked off the street. The neighbors were gonna be pissed.

"They're not going anywhere until they get their story," Iris said.

Collin's heart kicked up his throat, but he didn't let on, which was something. "Did your parents buy that argument?" he asked.

"Nope," Iris said.

She dropped into Collin's chair. Collin watched her, trying to spot some trace of whatever it was that'd freaked her out at school, but she looked as she always did.

"How often do you get headaches like that?" he asked.

"Like what?" Iris asked.

"With the," Collin gestured at his own face, "nosebleeds, and stuff."

Iris shrugged. "Back me up on the interview thing," she said instead of answering.

Collin snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Why not?" Iris asked, sounding ever so slightly exasperated, in the manner of someone reasoning with unreasonable people.

"Have you looked outside?" Collin gestured at the drapes with more vehemence than strictly necessary.

"I can handle it," Iris said.

"I bet you think so," Collin muttered.

The thing was, Iris made sense. The longer the Weavers held off the press, the juicier the story was gonna seem. Without an official statement of some sort, there was no avoiding bullshit hypotheticals. There was no avoiding that at all, but setting the story straight before it got twisted up beyond help was not a bad way to go.

"If they ask me, I'll tell them what I think," Collin said.

"Thanks, means a lot," Iris said flatly.

Collin debated leaving well alone after Iris left, an internal argument that ended with an open laptop and Miriam Castello's name in the search bar. News stories popped up first. The girl in the pictures floating about the net was still a gangly kid, kinda nerdy-looking, no trace of goth to be found but still very much the Miriam that'd tried to punch Iris in the face. She was, however, not the main story.

Donna Castello's disappearance had rocked the town. She'd been sixteen, someone the media'd dubbed "a troubled teen" - like there was any other kind - but overall a good kid, no involvement in shady business or reason to up and leave without notice. The girl's dad was held as a person of interest. The man'd ended up offing himself, and the investigation never went anywhere useful.

The girl's body had turned up a month later. A fisherman had netted the corpse in, water-swollen and battered. The cause of death was ruled a severe head trauma, some days old. It was clear that Donna Castello had been murdered.

By then, Iris Weaver had been missing for over a week.

Collin ended his search abruptly, throat burning. A restless anger thrummed under his skin for the rest of the day. Thankfully, the Weavers were too worried over Iris to notice. Iris kicked him under the table at dinner. Collin didn't react, and she let him be.