My heart is pounding in my chest. Every bad thought I’ve ever had about Kendall is going through my mind. This past month I’d started to reframe how I thought of her, decided maybe she wasn’t just some vapid rich girl, the way I’d seen her while we were growing up.
And now I know.
She’s so much worse.
“It really isn’t even my fault,” she says. “I was just trying to get what I want. What I deserve. That’s how the world works for powerful men. It’s what I had to do to make it work for me. I’m no worse than anyone who has any power. That’s how they get there. They step on people. It’s what I had to do.”
I swallow down my venom-filled reply.
“I came up with the idea of the ravine,” Kendall goes on. “I told Fiona I wanted to talk to her about it one last time. Made it sound like my dad was getting tired of her, like he’d be cutting her off soon. She was scared, so she came. I wore gloves. I made sure she was dead. Then I ran.
“I thought an accident or suicide would be an easy conclusion for them to draw. And it would have been—but then my stupid fucking brother had to go and get in the way.”
“He saw you?”
“I don’t know how he found out. All I know is he did. And my father knew, too. Thatcher must have told him. But Daddy never would have turned me in. My brother, however—he wanted me to confess.” She makes an annoyed noise. “ ‘I’m sure they’ll go easy on you, K. Dad will get you a good lawyer, it’ll be fine’—what an idiot.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to kill him, too. But he wouldn’t shut up. There was no other way.”
“So you pushed him. The same way you pushed her.”
She lifts her shoulders. “What choice did I have? Things were going well after Fiona died—I gave my dad a couple of months to mourn, and then I invited ‘a friend’ over—and I repeated the scheme. That worked, until he got sick of her. Then a few months later, there was another. And then another.” I can hear the smile in her voice, turn to marvel at it. “I’m a fucking genius is what I am.” The smile fades. “I just had to kill my big brother to make sure everything kept going smoothly.”
I swallow. “How’d you manage that?”
“That night, he brought me to the ravine. To, I don’t know, spook me? He didn’t think he was in danger. He wasn’t afraid of me. Even knowing what I did, he wasn’t afraid. He underestimated me. The way everyone does.” She pauses. “He saw the push coming. He screamed. That was unfortunate. I wouldn’t have done it like that if I’d known you and Seth were fucking right on the other side of the wall—”
“We weren’t—”
“When you came running, I had to hide. Making my way back to the house with the police and the paramedics crashing through the woods—it’s a good thing I know this place like I do. I didn’t get caught. Obviously.” She scowls. “But my dad figured it out. He thinks the cops are in the process of figuring it out, too. And we need to give them a scapegoat. I’m sorry it has to be you. Really, I am. But we agreed you were the best option. That’s why I planted all those theories about you online.”
I turn. “You were—”
“RdHerrng41. And a few other usernames. But that wasn’t enough to get you arrested. I didn’t want to have to kill you. My plan was to try and get Seth to turn on you. Retract his statement that you were together that night. But even with all the seeds of doubt I sowed between you, even when I tried to convince him you were about to turn on him, he never wavered.” She snorts. “Pathetic. And then, when I saw you at my dad’s office—I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out. So this is the solution. You turn up dead. Suicide, from your guilt. It’ll give them a scapegoat. All of this will finally be over.”
“Why would they think it’s suicide?”
“We have a friend on the case.” Her voice is placid. “He’ll make sure that’s what it looks like.”
“Ramsay.” I knew it.
“My father paid him off. It’s easy to get what you want when you have money. It’s so, so easy.”
I know where we are now. Know I only have a few minutes before we’re at the ravine.
“What if someone finds out?” I try. “Seth, or someone else in your family?”
“Seth’s not as stupid as my brother. He knows how powerful my father is. Once you’re gone, he won’t say anything.”
I open my mouth to argue—then snap it shut.
Because I don’t think Kendall is right about that. If Seth found out Kendall killed me, too, I don’t think he’d be quiet about it.
Of course, that’s little comfort if I’m already dead.
“Poor motherless Addie,” Kendall says. “Always jealous of her big sister, Fiona, who was prettier, thinner, more talented than she was. One day, she just snapped. And then there’s Thatcher, the boy who always loved Fiona, who spent a year trying to figure out who killed her. And he did figure it out, in the end—but not in time to tell anyone. She killed him, too.
“But since then, Addie’s having nightmares. She can’t live with the guilt. Plus, the police are on her tail. She’s eighteen now. No juvie for her. So she decides to take the easy way out, in the same place she committed those terrible crimes. Her ex-boyfriend followed her. Tried to talk her out of it. But she shot him, too. Right before jumping. Or shooting herself. Tragic, really. But at least it’s all over now.”
She prods me forward.
We turn at a bend in the trail, and then there’s the stone circle. The biggest rock is centered exactly along the north-south line, according to Seth. It might have been a place of great importance. A place where they made human sacrifices.
This is one of the last things I’ll ever see.
If I don’t fight back.
I touch Fiona’s necklace. Kendall made a mistake. She panicked and showed her hand when she didn’t need to. If Jeremy hadn’t showed up, I’d still be walking along unsuspecting, searching for Davy. It would have been easy for her to push me.
She made a mistake.
And I can use that.
Too soon, I hear the running water of the ravine.
We aren’t at the exact spot Thatcher died, but close to it. I don’t know the exact spot Fiona died.
There’s a rocky outcropping just ahead of me. And from there it’s a straight, sharp drop to the shallow stream and rocky bottom below.
“Stop,” Kendall calls.
