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CHAPTER ONE
LAUREN PERKINS’S red Porsche looked as out of place in the parking lot of the Bricksville Correctional Institution’s psychiatric ward as it did in Perkins, Massachusetts, the small town her faht as well have had her nauard and walked to the old building where her sister was being held, bypassing the construction site of a neing After six nized some of the men in hard hats, and as usual, a select few eyed Lauren and her car with a sleazy co was catcalls, but since the actual prison was only a few hundred yards away, she assumed it kept them on their best behavior
Lauren stopped short of flipping the men the bird She had held her own in Third World countries and in the Garment Center of Manhattan Not much could make her uneasy, but this place did, and she hated like hell having to be here
Thanks to her sister Mary Beth and her antics, Lauren had no choice She consoled herself with the promise that her visit to the prison would be like her trip to her grandmother’s home
Short and to the point
Paris aiting and nothing was going to keep her frons debuted under the Galliano label She’d sold the designs, so now she was free for the feeeks she needed to restore her grandmother’s old Victorian into salable condition Then she would fly to Paris and watch the fashion show in person And pray her designs succeeded beyond her wildest dreams
Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris was every designer’s goal and Lauren had been gearing herself up for this for the past five years After taking fashion classes in the city, working odd jobs to pay for theh she was torn between her good fortune and her sister’s situation, there wasn’t anything else she could do for Beth that she wasn’t already doing
She’d had to uproot herself in order to focus on her grandmother’s house because, as usual, her parents felt their humanitarian efforts were more important than Lauren’s materialistic pursuits Never mind that those pursuits had amounted to a successful career
Her parents had never understood why Lauren and Beth hadn’t shared their calling Not even Beth’s breakdown had caused the others on hold They’d only visited their daughter, diagnosed as “unresponsive” by her doctors, once since she’d been incarcerated for arson, aes
Lauren still couldn’t understand her sister’s actions For reasons trapped in Beth’sfull of innocent people about a year ago According to Beth’s own hysterical explanation, the police clai on to the Perkins fa power Since many townspeople had corand blackmail and other forms of fear and randmother’s loyal assistant, had followed in her footsteps
Lauren had had no idea how uilty that she’d been too busy with her own life to notice As for her grandmother’s mental state prior to her death, Lauren didn’t have a clue Except for occasional visits to her sister, Lauren hadn’t had a relationship with the older woman in years
Lauren did know firsthand about her grandmother’s ability to control andpassed away in the aftermath of Beth’s arson atte trial for her own crimes And Beth continued to stare at the walls here in Psych Central
Lauren visited her sister at least once aher life around Beth’s wasn’t much different froer sister Older by five years, she had been Beth’s rew up, because their parents had no tih the sisters were close back then, Beth had still been a handful Even at twenty-seven years old, Lauren was still cleaning up her sister’s messes
She quickly crossed the parking lot and proceeded to the first checkpoint Lauren hated the prison grounds Even though Beth was in a separate building fro psychiatric ward But she hoped that by visiting Beth and keeping her aware of the outside world, her sister would recover faster
Today Beth sat upright instead of lying in bed, but nothing else had changed Before her breakdown, Beth had been a stickler for perfection, if not fashion-that was Lauren’s forte and orange had always been her favorite color But after seeing her sister in the fluorescent prison hue back when she’d originally been processed, Lauren had pulled the color froray with bold writing on the back, an outfit that would have horrified their grand Lauren never mentioned to Beth
Why upset her sister, who’d eagerly earned Mary Perkins’s approval in a way Lauren never had While Beth had pleased Mar
y, Lauren’s one teenage indiscretion had isolated her frorandmother Lauren didn’t care That surandmother’s wrath
Since Beth remained docile, she was never handcuffed for their visits, although guards patrolled the hall outside the rooularly checked in
“Hi, Beth How are you today?” Lauren asked in a cheery voice
No reply, not that Lauren had expected one