The Bad Sister. Kevin O'Brien

her?

      Of course, she couldn’t let him know how disappointed she was. She swallowed hard, typed in a sad face, and then quickly erased it.

      I’ll miss U! Family emergency? Hope it’s nothing 2 serious. Is everyone OK?

      There was no response, not even a wavy dot, dot, dot. She waited about twenty seconds and then texted:

      U still there?

      Then she waited another few moments, until he finally texted back:

      I got a call here I need to take. Text U back soon!

      Frowning, Hannah texted back OK. Then she clicked off.

      “Shit,” she muttered, glancing out the train window. They sped past trees and phone poles. Some of the houses near the railroad tracks looked slightly neglected and sad.

      The prospect of seeing Riley tomorrow was the one thing that had kept her from being totally homesick today. She wouldn’t see her parents or her brothers again for another three months. She’d never been away from them for more than a weekend—until now. She’d been so miserable at home for the last two years, and yet she’d give anything to be back there now. She particularly longed to go back to that time before the thing that happened, before Eden had come into their lives, before the murders and the headlines—back when they were so happy and didn’t know it.

      Where the hell was Eden anyway?

      Hannah glanced down toward the train car’s doors again. No sign of her.

      Maybe if she wasn’t sitting here all alone, she wouldn’t feel so depressed. She couldn’t depend on her half-sister for anything. Ever since Eden had moved in, the two of them had been at odds. Fortunately, Hannah’s bedroom was in the basement, which had made it easier to avoid everyone—especially Eden, whose room was on the second floor. Their respect for each other’s turf was probably what kept them from killing each other.

      Two weeks ago, in an email from the college, they both received the distressing news that they’d be rooming together in one of the dorm bungalows—along with Rachel Bonner.

      Hannah tried to assure herself that Rachel would be cool. This was one “big sister” she didn’t have to worry about. She had a good reputation and a pedigree background. Unlike Eden, she wouldn’t come with a shitload of problems.

      “Delmar!” the train conductor announced as he walked through the car. “Next stop, Delmar and Our Lady of the Cove University!”

      From the upper level, Hannah glanced down toward the car doors again. Still no Eden.

      “Shit,” she muttered again.

      The train started to slow down.

      Hannah got to her feet and started gathering up the bags.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Thursday, September 3, 4:11 P.M.

      Delmar, Illinois

      “The class lists went out last week, Ellie,” said Jeanne, the clerk in the bursar’s office. She was in her early sixties with close-cropped, beige-colored hair and glasses. She stood behind the counter, where a small, dirty-looking plastic fan was blowing on her. The air-conditioning didn’t seem to be doing much good. “I really wish you’d check your email once in a while,” Jeanne added. She started typing on the keyboard in front of a computer monitor on the counter.

      “Sorry,” Ellie sighed. She had a regular Gmail account for family and friends. But she purposely hadn’t checked her university email account all summer. “I appreciate this,” she said.

      “You’re just lucky I like you,” Jeanne replied—over the sound of the printer running. “How is it out there? Still miserable?”

      “Stifling,” Ellie replied as she leaned against the counter. She pulled the strap of her bulky, cloth purse off her shoulder and lowered it to the floor. Ellie was thirty-three, but looked younger. The tan helped. She taught four different journalism classes at Our Lady of the Cove—and except for teaching one summer school class, she’d spent most of her summer goofing off: swimming in Lake Michigan and working in her garden in back of her townhouse apartment.

      Slim and pretty, she wore her shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair in a ponytail today. Since classes weren’t in session, and it was ninety-nine degrees out, she’d dressed casually in a pink-and-white-striped tee, khaki shorts, and sandals. She had her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head—a look she knew some people hated (including her dad and her ex-husband). But she was too hot and tired to care right now.

      The printer spit out three sheets of paper, and Jeanne handed them to her.

      “Thanks,” Ellie said. She glanced at the enrollment list for her Introduction to Journalism class: twenty-two students. Manageable. She scanned the names, and showed the listing to Jeanne. “I should know this, but what does this double asterisk by Jensen, Nicholas mean?”

      Jeanne squinted at the page. “He’s not a registered full-time student,” she explained. “He’s adult continuing education.”

      This was a red flag for Ellie. “Did he sign up for any other classes in the college or just my freshman journalism class?”

      The printer had churned out four more pages, and Jeanne handed those to her. “Jensen, Nicholas?” she said, pausing at the keyboard.

      Ellie nodded.

      Jeanne typed on the keyboard and checked the monitor. “Nope, just Intro to Journalism.”

      “Do you have an address for him?” Ellie asked.

      Jeanne consulted the monitor again. “Eight-twelve Sunset Ridge Road, number seventeen. Highland Park.”

      That was about fifteen minutes away. Ellie figured maybe it was just a temporary address for this Nicholas Jensen person—if that was even his real name. Then again, if someone was out to get her, would he really go to all the trouble of moving into an apartment in Highland Park and enrolling in one of her classes? It would be a hell of a lot easier just to hang around the liberal arts building, Lombard Hall, one morning. If he asked enough students, he’d eventually find out where she taught her class. Then he could just walk into her classroom and start shooting.

      Ellie told herself that she was being paranoid.

      But sometimes, it was hard not to be. That was why she’d deliberately avoided checking her college email account all summer. Too many people had access to that email address, and too many cranks were out there.

      Ellie decided Nicholas Jensen was probably just some old guy who wanted to write his memoirs. She’d had an adult continuing education student like that last year—a baggy-eyed, gray-haired, middle-aged man who thought he knew more than she did—and he didn’t hesitate to tell her so in front of the class. He was a major pain in the ass, but more or less harmless.

      Ellie glanced farther down the list of students in her freshman class. “Eden O’Rourke... Hannah O’Rourke?” she read aloud. She looked up at Jeanne. “Are they the same Eden and Hannah O’Rourke from Seattle, the half-sisters?”

      She shrugged. “Beats me. Am I supposed to know them?”

      “They were all over the news about two years ago,” Ellie explained. “It was a big story—murders, infidelities, real juicy stuff. Their father is Dylan O’Rourke. Does that ring a bell?”

      Jeanne shook her head. “O’Rourke,” she repeated as she typed on the keyboard again.

      “Dylan O’Rourke—married, father of three, extremely handsome,” Ellie explained. “If you saw his picture, you’d remember him. Quite the looker—or at least, he was. He was also a serial cheater. Two years ago, this sixteen-year-old girl, Eden, dropped in on him and his unsuspecting family. She was the result of a brief, extramarital fling Dylan had with her trampy mother. The woman dumped the baby with a friend of hers