Amy K. Green - The Prized Girl

AMY K. GREENwas born and raised in a small New England town where she was once struck by lightning. She was a practicing CPA before leaving the corporate life to work in film production, write, and wear fewer high heels. She now lives in Los Angeles but spends as much time as she can in Boston.

Amy K. Green

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Amy K. Green 2020

Amy K. Green asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008334482

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008334475

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Chapter One: Virginia

Chapter Two: Jenny

Chapter Three: Virginia

Chapter Four: Jenny

Chapter Five: Virginia

Chapter Six: Jenny

Chapter Seven: Virginia

Chapter Eight: Jenny

Chapter Nine: Virginia

Chapter Ten: Jenny

Chapter Eleven: Virginia

Chapter Twelve: Jenny

Chapter Thirteen: Virginia

Chapter Fourteen: Jenny

Chapter Fifteen: Virginia

Chapter Sixteen: Jenny

Chapter Seventeen: Virginia

Chapter Eighteen: Jenny

Chapter Nineteen: Virginia

Chapter Twenty: Jenny

Chapter Twenty-One: Virginia

Chapter Twenty-Two: Jenny

Chapter Twenty-Three: Virginia

Chapter Twenty-Four: Jenny

Chapter Twenty-Five: Virginia

Chapter Twenty-Six: Jenny

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Virginia

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Jenny

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Virginia

Chapter Thirty: Jenny

Chapter Thirty-One: Virginia

Chapter Thirty-Two: Jenny

Chapter Thirty-Three: Virginia

Chapter Thirty-Four: Jenny

Chapter Thirty-Five: Virginia

Chapter Thirty-Six: Jenny

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Virginia

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jenny

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Virginia

Chapter Forty: Jenny

Chapter Forty-One: Virginia

Chapter Forty-Two: Jenny

Chapter Forty-Three: Virginia

Chapter Forty-Four: Jenny

Chapter Forty-Five: Virginia

Chapter Forty-Six: Jenny

Chapter Forty-Seven: Virginia

Chapter Forty-Eight: Jenny

Chapter Forty-Nine: Virginia

Chapter Fifty: Jenny

Chapter Fifty-One: Virginia

Chapter Fifty-Two: Jenny

Chapter Fifty-Three: Virginia

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five: Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Five Days After

WHEN MY HALF SISTER, Jenny, was killed, it was all over the news—national news, not just the local paper that had to use an offensively large font to fill its pages. Strangers drove great distances to be part of the fanfare. Reporters and their vans lined the street in front of the church hosting her funeral. I parked my dented Jetta along the side of the road about a quarter mile away. There was no reserved parking space for me.

St. Bernard’s Cathedral was the only church aesthetically pleasing enough for my stepmother, Linda, to hold the funeral in. It was too large for the community; even Christmas Eve Mass couldn’t fill more than half the pews. Not today, though. Today, the local police were turning people away.

Men and women were milling around crying, consoling each other. No one was smiling, not even the polite forced smile you use to mask pain. Just hordes of people looking truly devastated by Jenny’s death. I didn’t recognize any of them, and I highly doubted they had ever set foot in this town before.

A dopey uniformed officer named Brett stood at the base of the church stairs. We went to high school together. It was the type of town where no matter the age, it felt like we all went to high school together in some shape or form. He looked exhausted, and his buzz cut was useless to sponge up the beads of sweat multiplying across his forehead. He just let them grow until they dripped off and splashed onto his shirt.

Brett was a bouncer without a list, making gut decisions about who he could let into the church. I was fourth in line, an actual line that I had to wait in patiently to attend my own sister’s funeral. It was my choice. I didn’t deserve special treatment. I was not a good sister.

I watched Brett turn two people away before recognizing the couple in front of me and allowing them inside without hesitation. When I stepped up for my turn, he looked up carelessly, locked on my face, processed who I was, and straightened his spine.

“Virginia … hi. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“This is crazy, huh?” He finally wiped his brow, altering the trajectory of his sweat beads.

“Was I supposed to RSVP?” I joked. I probably shouldn’t have. No jokes at funerals.

“Of course not,” he said, too nervous to get it. “Please go on in.” He stepped aside and extended his arms with such flourish it was as if I had the last golden ticket.

IT WAS LOUD INSIDE. Churches were supposed to be quiet. The noise was unsettling. A group of sobbing women who must have gotten in just before Brett took the helm filled the last two rows. They looked like they were attending the Kentucky Derby. Are funeral hats a thing?

The next few rows were a mixed bag of strange faces and town staples. It was easy to tell who the out-of-towners were because they ignored me. The people from town gave me intrusive pitying looks followed by immediate avoidance of continued eye contact. It was the same way when my mother died.

Wrenton was one of those old New England towns where the founding families all spawned from some combination of people from the Mayflower , and for a long time it was just the same names swapped around over and over again. Even though there were a lot more surnames now, it still felt to me like we were all from the same litter, destined to live and die where our ancestors had. Someday, I was going to leave and never look back—just not today.

I could see Linda in the front row amidst a few distant relatives of hers. Her outfit wasn’t as on point as I’d expected. Her black skirt was wrinkled in the back, and her pleated blouse was, dare I say, frumpy. She hadn’t touched her curling iron, which was a real shocker. Linda always curled her hair for events. Instead, the blonde strands, too long for her age, just fell flat against her back.