All Eyes on Us - Softcover

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Kit Frick is a MacDowell Fellow and International Thriller Writers Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. The author of The Split, the young adult thrillers Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion, as well as the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs, Kit loves a good mystery but has only ever killed her characters. Honest. Visit Kit online at KitFrick.com and on Twitter and Instagram @KitFrick.

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All Eyes on Us

1

AMANDA

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31

Three hours into the party, I’m tipsy on more than champagne. My mother would say that’s the feeling of power, but I think it’s the feeling of being adored. Maybe they’re one in the same. I’m standing at the top of the Shaws’ balcony staircase with Carter, allowing a roomful of eyes to wash over us from below. They’re looking because we light up the room. They’re looking because someday, we’ll run this town.

“Don’t you want to go downstairs?” Carter asks. “Graham and Adele are all alone.”

I follow my boyfriend’s eyes to our friends in the great hall below us. The Shaws live in the most venerable of Logansville’s many Victorian estates. From our vantage point on the balcony, we have an eagle-eye view of the entire party. As always, the great hall is host to Mr. Shaw’s world-class antique art collection, and tonight, it’s teeming with Logansville’s oldest money and most auspicious up-and-comers. Graham and Adele are decked out in their New Year’s Eve finest in the baroque-era corner. He looks suave in a crisp suit and forest green tie, his tight brown curls cropped close to his head. His hand rests lightly on Adele’s back, and her bright gold tube dress really pops against the dark brown of Graham’s skin. As usual, she’s mid-brushing him off.

“Soon,” I promise Carter. “Let’s just take one more minute up here together.” I give his hand a tight squeeze. One more minute with my boyfriend. One more minute before I have to share Logansville’s golden boy with the rest of the madding crowd.

He extracts his hand from mine and trails it slowly across my back before letting it fall to the balcony rail. He’s right next to me, but his mind is somewhere distant. Somewhere I can’t go. The moment of tipsiness is gone, and suddenly I feel more exposed up here than adored. I let my eyes dance across my boyfriend’s broad shoulders, his shock of blond hair, the faraway look in his eyes that makes my skin go cold.

Carter knocks back the last of his champagne, and a college girl in a cater-waiter tux appears to replace his empty flute with a full one. He downs half the glass in one gulp. She offers me a flute as well, but I decline. I need to stay sharp. I glance around the hall, searching for our parents, not that they’d care about Carter drinking. Ever since we became a couple freshman year, they’ve basically treated us like adults. After all, we’re Amanda Kelly and Carter Shaw. We’re their legacy. The thought makes my heart skip a beat, excitement or fear rattling inside my chest.

At seventeen, Carter’s already a rising star in the community. Varsity athlete, senior class president, sharp mind for business like his father. His future is a dazzling display of success and certainty and respect. With him, so is mine.

I keep my eyes trained on the crowd until they land on Krystal, Carter’s mother, who’s talking to my mother beneath the Shaws’ masterfully restored seventeenth-century Flemish tapestry. Linda is gesturing rapidly, a stack of platinum bangles sliding up and down her too-thin arms. She pauses to take a sip of something clear from an almost-empty rocks glass. She’s probably working Krystal to secure the Shaws’ large annual contribution for the upcoming benefit. The Logansville Museum of Fine Arts is one of the organizations for which my mother sits on the board. A bangle catches on the tip of one long powder-pink nail, and it takes her way too long to unsnare it. She’s getting sloppy. Someone should probably cut her off.

I glance around, but I can’t find my father in the crowd. If he were paying attention, he’d know the exact words to say to make her reel it in. But he’s not looking. If it was me guzzling too much champagne and embarrassing myself in front of Logansville’s elite, I’d be grounded until graduation. In moments like this, I can feel the scales tip another notch, the imbalance settling like so many lead bricks across my back. Watching her like this, it feels like my mother has removed herself from the equation entirely when it comes to our family’s future. It’s like she gets a free pass because I’m going to take care of everything.

I draw in a long breath and toss back my hair. My mother should be hosting, not boozing, but I can’t tell her how to act. She leans forward and grips Krystal’s shoulder, too hard. I can feel her grimace reflected on my own face. With my mother rapidly heading out of commission, I’ll have to do double the hosting for us.

I turn to Carter. “Okay, let’s go.” His champagne glass is almost empty again, and he’s running a finger absently along the edge of my dress, right where the delicate red satin meets the outline of my shoulder blades. His touch makes my skin tingle. From the great hall below us, we must look picture perfect. I glance over the rail, down to where one of my mother’s museum friends is waving up at us, the gesture full of fondness for the town darlings. I wave back, then raise my eyes to meet Carter’s. He’s looking right at me now, but the distance is still there, thrumming right beneath the surface. I try to blink it away.

It’s amazing how a change in perspective can transform the whole view.

Downstairs, I stop to exchange pleasantries with the Beaufords and the Steinways while Carter is absorbed into the crowd. Every so often, I catch a note of his rich, rough laugh or see a flash of those deep dimples, white teeth. Everyone wants a minute of his time—it’ll take him all night to reach Graham and Adele. I tell myself it’s fine. I have my own mingling to do. I’m in the middle of laughing at one of Mr. Steinway’s terrible jokes when the cater-waiter from the balcony touches my arm.

“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Kelly, but I couldn’t find your mother.”

I glance around. She’s right. The space below the Flemish tapestry is empty, and Linda Kelly is nowhere to be found.

“We’re running low on the Kobe and Stilton toasts and crab rémoulade, and Carla wants to know if we should run across the street to restock now or after the ball drops.”

I’ve lived directly across the street from Carter since we moved here in second grade. The move had something to do with the fallout from the financial crisis; Dad changed jobs and my mother thought a small town would be a nice change of pace for our family. Carter and I were in school together, and our parents became fast friends. They’ve been cohosting the annual New Year’s Eve party for as long as I can remember.

The cater-waiter clears her throat, waiting for my response. It’s tradition for the Kellys to arrange the catering and host the staging area in our highly functional kitchen across the street; I don’t think anyone has actually prepared a meal at the Shaws’ since the Victorian era. Her question is minor, a detail. But I can’t screw this up. I squint up at the giant grandfather clock at the base of the stairs. The face is so intricately designed, it’s almost impossible to read.

“It’s eleven twenty,” she says, waiting patiently for my verdict. Her bow tie is slightly askew. It’s all I can do to resist...