Kendall is dressed in black pants, a white sleeveless blouse, and heels. Her dark brown hair is curled to perfection, and she’s wearing the same artfully applied makeup she had on at the wake. But she’s not quite the polished, put-together Kendall I’m used to. She looks thinner than I remember, and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
Eyes that are narrowed, looking at us. “What are you doing?”
I’m not sure if she’s addressing Seth or me, but he answers for us. “Just talking, Ken.” He sounds tired.
Her lips press into a tight line. “We’re not supposed to be talking to them.”
The way she says that—them, like my family and I are some inferior species—makes my blood simmer. So I hadn’t imagined it, she and Marion running away from Davy and me at the wake.
“So sorry to infringe on your territory. I’ll be going now.” I start to walk back toward my house, but Seth stops me.
“I don’t respond well to being told what to do,” he says to Kendall. “Same as you.”
Her eyes go to his hand on my arm, and then she looks from him to me. Judging.
Kendall has never been my favorite person. When we were little, she was always excluding me, pulling Fiona giggling to her side, whispering some secret in her ear, and when I asked what they were saying, she’d say it was for “big kids,” not for me. I hated that.
She and Fiona didn’t have much in common as they got older, but they’d stayed friends. I’d know summer had officially started the day I’d walk into my house and hear Kendall’s voice coming from Fiona’s room, loud and bright, like someone pulling up the shade and the sun smacking you in the eyes before you’re even fully awake. She talked too much, and too fast, about things that didn’t interest me.
Kendall goes to UPenn now, I know from her socials. A couple of years ago, her accounts were all these super-staged photos and videos: Kendall at brunch, Kendall on a beach, Kendall at some park in Manhattan, posing on a picnic blanket in some trendy outfit with a drink in her hand. She has something like ten thousand followers and was clearly trying to parlay that into more. But when she began college last year, she deleted most of her posts. Now the only things she posts show her in glasses, smiling over a stack of books, or sitting on the grass, reading, back up against a tree. I don’t know if it’s part of the same act, Kendall the Serious Student, or if she really doesn’t care anymore about being some kind of rich-girl influencer. To be honest, I haven’t thought about it, or her, very much at all.
Now, with her standing here in front of me, that judgment in her eyes, I can’t help but wonder if she actually has changed or if she’s just pretended she has.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Seth,” Kendall says, “but those accusations all last year about Thatcher? The reason the cops kept calling?” She nods her head at me. “Guess where they came from.”
“He already knows,” I say, which makes Kendall blink.
She glares at Seth. “So what are you doing with her?”
But he’s glaring right back. “If you knew it was her, why didn’t you tell me?”
“My father was trying to contain it, Seth, not spread it around. It wasn’t even a credible accusation—but it was enough to make this past year the worst Thatcher’s ever had.” She looks pointedly at me, and again I feel the shame rising up.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was wrong. Obviously.”
“She’s here to help,” Seth says.
“Help with what?” Kendall’s eyes go from Seth to me. “You have one of the most expensive lawyers in New York City, and you think Addie’s going to be the one to get you off?” She snorts. “You’re not exactly thinking with your brain here.”
Seth flushes. “She wants to find out who did this as much as I do,” he snaps. “And I know for a fact she didn’t do it. I was with her both nights.”
“I’m not stupid. You worshipped the ground your sister walked on,” she says to me. “And I’ve known you my whole life,” she says to Seth. “I think I would have figured out if either of you was a murderer by now.”
“So what do you think?” I can’t help but ask. As Thatcher’s sister, maybe she knows something Seth doesn’t.
“I don’t know. I barely talked to Thatcher this past year, since he was at Oxford and I was at UPenn. I hadn’t even seen him since they flew him home when the whole Caleb thing happened. And after that, we didn’t talk about it. I had the distinct impression he was avoiding the subject, so I didn’t push it.”
“What Caleb thing?” Seth asks.
Kendall sounds surprised. “You know. Thatcher’s alibi?”
Seth looks as confused as I am. “What alibi?” I ask.
She frowns. “Sorry. I thought you already knew.” She shifts from one foot to the other. “At first, Thatcher said he just came home after the parade. But then, later, Caleb Jones went to the police and swore he was with Thatcher during the entire window of time when Fiona could have been killed.”
I blink. Caleb Jones was Thatcher’s best friend when we were little. He was a quiet, skinny Black kid whose family lives a few streets down from mine. He’s the same age as Thatcher, which would make him twenty-one now. He went away to college, I can’t remember which one. I haven’t seen him in a few years.
“Was Caleb telling the truth?” I ask.
“That’s what I asked Thatcher. He told me he was. But then—why wouldn’t he have said that before?”
“Caleb had a…thing for Thatcher,” Seth says. “I don’t know if he still does—did—but I know he said something to Thatcher about it a few years back.”
I look up at him. “Really? What did Thatcher say?”
“He told him the truth. He didn’t see Caleb that way. He was straight, and anyway…” He trails off.
“He was in love with Fiona,” I finish.
We’re all quiet a long moment.
“I kind of thought it sus,” Kendall says, “that the night the girl Thatcher was in love with is killed, the person who was always jealous of her gives Thatcher an alibi—and gives himself one as well.”
I look at her dubiously. “You actually think Caleb Jones killed my sister? He was so nice to us.”
She lifts her shoulders. “Or he pretended to be nice.”
Seth’s shaking his head. “That doesn’t make sense. If he was in love with Thatcher—why would he kill Thatcher?”