about her. I thought no one had known—I thought Grant had kept it quiet.
“About that. Your work,” he continued, and my stomach dropped. “Luciana Suarez provided us with some interesting details. This was her first summer in town, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. She’d started dating Parker the fall before.”
“Is it true that you took over Sadie’s job?” And there it was. Luce. I should have known.
“Luce said that?” I asked, but he didn’t respond. Just held eye contact, waiting for the answer. I brushed the comment away with a wave of my hand in the air, like Sadie might do. “They didn’t need two people to do it. She was reassigned.” Not fired.
“But, to be clear, you have her role.”
I pressed my lips together. “Technically.”
“You know what else Luciana said?” He paused, then continued like he didn’t expect me to answer. “She said she’d never heard of you before.” A twitch of his mouth. “Said that she didn’t know anything about you until she arrived. No one had seen fit to mention your existence. Not even Sadie.”
“Because Luce was Parker’s girlfriend,” I snapped. “There was no reason I would’ve come up.” I was being blindsided yet again. This was an interrogation, and I’d walked right into it.
“She told us she’d been a friend of the family first.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean she and Sadie were close.”
He looked at me closely, steadily. “Rumor has it you and Sadie were on the outs.”
“Rumors are shit here, and you know it.”
He smiled then, as if to say, There you are. That girl they all remembered. “I just think it’s odd, is all, that Sadie never would’ve mentioned you.”
Luce. She had complicated everything. Always with a quizzical look in my direction—something dangerous that kept me second-guessing myself. Luce became the unwitting wedge that summer, leaving everything off balance. If anyone understood what had happened in that house, it was her. Always there when I thought we were alone. I had no idea what she’d told the police during her interview. It hadn’t mattered then, because of the note.
Detective Collins paced the room again, the floorboards creaking under his feet. “If I had to make a professional assessment, I’d say the friendship was a little one-sided. If I’m being honest with you, it seems a little like you were obsessed with her.”
“No.” I said it louder than I meant to, and I lowered my voice before continuing. “We were growing up. We had other responsibilities.”
“You lived on their property, worked for their family, ran around with her crowd.” He held up his hand, even though I hadn’t said anything. “You considered them family, I know. But,” he continued, lowering his voice, “did they consider you the same?”
“Yes,” I said, because I had to. I trusted them because they chose me. Taking me in, welcoming me into their home, into their lives. What other choice was there? I had been adrift, and then I was grounded—
“I know who you used to be, Avery. What you’ve been through.” His voice dropping, his posture changing. “Shitty hand to draw, I get it. But are you saying you never thought, just once, that you wanted to be her instead?”
I shook my head but didn’t respond. Because I did, it was true. Back then, when I met her, I wanted to crawl inside someone else’s head. Stretch their limbs. Flex their fingers. Feel the blood pulsing through their veins. See if they could hear it, too, the rhythm of their own heartbeat. Or if something else surged in their bones.
I wanted to feel something besides grief and regret, and I did. I had.
“This phone does raise some questions, in more ways than one. Of course, your prints would have to be on it, since you were the one who found it. Right?”
I jerked back. Did he think I was lying?
I wanted to tell him: The note wasn’t hers, the journal wasn’t hers.
But I knew what they would have to ask next: “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” What were you apologizing for, exactly, Avery?
I knew better than to give any more of myself away.
“Well,” he said, “this has been enlightening. We’ll be in touch.” He tapped the bedroom door on the way out.
CHAPTER 15
I was shaking as I watched the detective drive away, looping his car too fast around the cul-de-sac, passing Sunset Retreat on the way down the street.
They would be back. That’s what he was implying. They would be back, and they were looking at