Dad’s voice stops me.
I turn to find his face a mask of misery. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice sounds like it might break at any moment. “Why didn’t you come to me for help?”
I don’t want to put him through any more of this. But I have to know. “You thought I killed Thatcher, didn’t you? As revenge for Fiona.”
He opens his mouth, closes it. Then he sighs. “I didn’t think you’d deliberately plotted murder, no. But the idea of you getting into an argument, it getting out of hand…and the police, coming here with a warrant—I thought maybe it was a possibility.” He meets my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I have so many other emotions in me, I don’t have the space to be angry at him, too.
“I should have come to you,” I say. “I should have told you all of it. But I guess I felt like I had to handle it myself.”
“We’re broken,” Dad says. “This family’s been broken a long time. But once Davy gets back—we’re going to fix this.” There’s a fierce look on his face I don’t think I’ve ever seen there before. “I promise you, Addie. Things won’t be this hard. Never again.”
I’d like to believe him—but if I’ve learned anything, it’s how life can surprise you. How things can get so much worse, so fast.
We still don’t know where Davy is.
“I’m going to shower,” I say instead.
I go to my room. Jeremy’s blood is caked under my nails.
I look at myself in the mirror. I’m dirt-streaked, hollow-eyed. There’s blood on my necklace. For the first time in a year, I take it off. Then I shower.
Afterward, I collapse on my bed, bury my face in Sadie’s fur, and cry.
49
Jeremy is stable.
Gen calls to tell me that the next day. She saw his mom on her way to the hospital, who relayed the news. She’s going to visit him tomorrow, and do I want to come?
I say yes.
It’s been a strange twenty-four hours. Kendall’s arrest has been all over the news, local, national, and everything in between: Millionaire’s Daughter Being Held for Fratricide and headlines like that, twisting the story every way it can be twisted: a Greek tragedy, a jealous best friend, even some hints at incest. I’ve been ignoring messages from journalists, gossip columnists, true crime podcasters. I don’t know how to talk about all of this and what it’s cost me, and I don’t want to try.
Seth texted me last night on my burner phone. I saw it after I finished crying.
How are you was all it said.
I don’t know, I wrote back. You?
Ok. Do you want to talk?
Not yet.
And he’s respected that. It’s the next day and he hasn’t tried to contact me again.
I thought I’d feel better knowing Jeremy’s stable, knowing I won’t be going to jail for something I didn’t do. But the cloud of Davy’s continued absence mars everything. I’m still having bad dreams, waking bathed in sweat. But waking up doesn’t help. It just reminds me that it’s all real.
Dad said he’s taking some time off work. He told me not to worry about dinner, is checking in on me, taking Sadie for her walks when I don’t feel up to it. All that while he’s calling the police for updates on Davy.
Two days after the woods, on the second day of August, Gen comes by to pick me up in her mom’s car.
I get in without speaking. The circles under her eyes are dark.
She glances at me as we pull away from my house. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“I didn’t thank you,” I say abruptly. “If you hadn’t shown up—Kendall was about to shoot us.” I still can’t believe it’s true. “But what I don’t understand is—how did you find us?”
We pull out of my neighborhood, and Gen rubs one eye. “Jeremy,” she says. “I saw him run to his car, and I asked him where he was going. He was already driving away, but he said something like, ‘It was Kendall the whole time.’ I had to think about it for a minute—but then I followed him. When I got to the Montgomerys’ and no one was there, I took a chance and headed into the woods.”
I frown. “But how did Jeremy know?”
“I don’t know.” She lets out a breath. “But I’m glad we get the chance to ask him.” Her voice drops. “If Jeremy died—I don’t think I’d ever get over it.”
“He didn’t. And this isn’t stuff you get over. It’s stuff you live with.”
Gen looks at me. “I lied to you,” she says then. “About seeing an email from my uncle that they were going to arrest Thatcher? That they were looking at Seth? That was all a lie.”
I stare at her. “What? Why?”
“Kendall.” Her face hardens. “She told me—we were hanging out one night, drinking—and she started telling me shit. That she suspected Seth killed Thatcher and Fiona. That she was scared of him. She was so…convincing. Then she told me he had you fooled and she was worried about you but couldn’t think of a way to make you see you’d partnered up with the wrong guy…so I came up with the idea of saying I saw something in my uncle’s things.” She shakes her head. “I played right into her hands. I’m so stupid.”
I lean my head back. “Is that also why you went with me to New York?”
