She draws in a breath, then turns back to the detectives. “The thing is, I’ve always looked out for Zoe. She was the best person in the world, but she didn’t know how to put herself first.”
“Go ahead,” Detective Holloway prompts gently, keeping the conversation going.
“When Caden texted her from the city on New Year’s Eve, ditching their plans for that night, she told me she needed to be alone for a while, that she was going to take a walk on the beach. She’d been crying.” Tears well in Aster’s eyes, and she scrubs a sleeve across them. “I couldn’t let her keep doing this to herself. It just wasn’t fair. So I decided to send Caden a message. Punish him.”
Aster’s lawyer clears his throat but doesn’t stop his client from speaking. Joan’s fingers dance nervously along her collarbone.
“Okay. What did you do next?” Detective Holloway asks.
“I went over to Windermere.”
“Did you have access to the grounds?”
“Like permission to be there? No, but it’s easy to get onto the Talbots’ property,” Aster replies. “All you have to do is squeeze through that overgrown privacy hedge out front. They were still in the city; there was no one around.”
“And where did you go once you’d entered through the hedge?”
“To the stable. Caden used this stall in the back as a kind of hideout; he kept booze there.”
“You’d been inside the Talbots’ stable before?”
“A couple times, when we were all still at Jefferson. I knew about his hiding spot. I would have left the flash drive in his room if I could, but I didn’t have any way inside their house. So I put it right next to his whiskey, where I knew Caden would find it. It was supposed to be an anonymous warning that someone knew—he wasn’t getting away with it.”
“And what happened next?”
“I went home. Zoe got back a little after I did and locked herself in her room. She left for Jacob Trainer’s party around nine that night, as everyone knows. I hung out with my friend Martina for a while, but she had an eleven o’clock curfew, even though it was New Year’s. Her parents are strict like that. After Martina left, I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up in my room watching crap on Netflix. Around one, I got this gut feeling something was wrong. I started feeling guilty about leaving the flash drive in the stable. I still wanted to punish Caden, but it was Zoe’s relationship. I knew she’d be furious when she found out what I’d done.
“I wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway, so I snuck out. Borrowed our parents’ car, drove over to Windermere. I could have walked, but like I said, I had this icky feeling in my gut. I wanted to get there fast.” Aster takes in a shaky breath and looks at her mom. The older woman nods at her daughter, giving her tacit maternal permission to go on.
“When I got to Windermere,” Aster continues, “I knew something was wrong. The stable door was open, and the light was on. I started running, but I was too late.” Aster’s voice catches, and she drops her face into her hands. “Zoe was on the floor, and she was so cold. She wasn’t breathing. There was an empty bottle of whiskey on the floor beside her, and the flash drive was gone.” She looks up, straight into the camera. “Zoe never drinks. I can’t emphasize this enough. She. Never. Drinks. It never crossed my mind she’d go to the stable that night, I swear.”
“But she did,” AD Massey says. “What happened when Zoe arrived, Aster?”
“Don’t answer that,” Aster’s lawyer cuts in. “My client couldn’t possibly know what happened before she arrived, detectives.”
“I’ll rephrase,” AD Massey says. He turns to Aster. “I want you to put yourself in your sister’s shoes. What do you imagine happened when Zoe got to the stable?”
Aster’s lawyer holds up his hand, but Aster speaks anyway. “It’s okay. She went there with that Max guy, like he said she did. It makes sense. She was hurting, looking for a distraction. But then she must have seen the flash drive. It had these yellow and black polka dots; it was pretty distinct. She would have known right away that it was hers. Maybe she thought Caden had found it in her room and taken it to his hiding spot for safekeeping?”