the gun in Edie’s slender hands. Maybe she’d pointed it at herself—or at me—just to fuck with me. It felt like something she’d do.
“I bet she’d never even held a gun before,” I added. “New York City’s not exactly a place where you grow up hunting.” Unlike Bumfuck, Wisconsin. Unlike me. And then the thought blared on, so loud I couldn’t stop it: I would’ve known exactly how to use Kevin’s gun. It would have been the most natural thing in the world. And I knew what an uncontrollable surge of anger could cause me to do. Had I…could I…?
With a crack, Tessa snapped another piece of chocolate from the bar. “So whoever had the gun had to know it was there and get it out of the chest to use it?” she asked.
I took a breath. “I’m, like, ninety-five percent sure it was put away. I mean, the living room wasn’t that big and we were all hanging out there earlier that night, and I certainly don’t remember seeing it. But it could have been out, sure.”
Tessa nodded. Her line of questioning, her certainty that it was someone else and had nothing to do with my friend-breakup fantasies, was giving me some relief, so I followed it, haltingly: “If we limit it to people who knew about the gun and where he kept it, it’s still a ton of people. He wasn’t secretive about it. We were more worried about it getting stolen than anything else. God, we were stupid.”
Tessa smiled sadly. “The age of invincibility,” she said.
“Exactly.”
She considered. “I take it you didn’t find anything helpful in your emails?”
“I don’t even know what I was looking for. Obviously I didn’t find one that was like ‘Hey, Lindsay, good thing I spotted you at the concert and not anywhere near Edie’s apartment on Friday.’ ” I shook my head. “I just don’t know, Tessa. I don’t know what I don’t know. And this goddamn video…it means that whatever I don’t know is a lot bigger than I realized.”
Softly: “Lindsay, I’m sure that whatever you’re worried about…that you said something, or saw something…I’m sure that’s not the case. The odds that everybody had it wrong and you’re just discovering this ten years later, based on this one totally inconclusive thing…” She opened both palms.
“Not everyone,” I countered. “Look at Sarah. Look at Kevin.”
“I hear you,” she said. “But at the same time, this seems like something where there’s no obvious way to get to the bottom of what happened. So if you just want me to listen, I’m here. But if you want my advice, I think you should just walk away. Nobody else is even thinking about this stuff all these years later.”
“If you thought someone had hurt your friend, wouldn’t you want to know?” I couldn’t tell her how much I needed to know, how I wouldn’t be able to live with myself until the truth had come to light. A tear slipped out and I brushed it away. “I’m a fact-checker, Tessa. If I’m grossly incorrect about this formative life event, I’d like to know. Besides, I’ve already requested the case files.”
“I understand.” Tessa leaned down and hugged me awkwardly. “Then I’ll help.”
Chapter 6
The next morning I woke up convinced I was overlooking something, something I’d looked at but not seen, a prickly cocklebur riding along unnoticed. Was it a photo on Facebook? A detail from the videos? I’d sent the August 21 clip to both Tessa and Damien, hoping one of them would notice something I hadn’t. Ugh, both of them listening to my voice, drunk and garbled: “I want to push her off this building!” I squeezed my eyes shut another moment and rolled out of bed.
Lloyd buoyed up in my mind, so I searched for him in my old email database. It didn’t take long to find my email to Edie from April, the day after Lloyd and I had finally hooked up, drunken sex three months in the making on my end and perhaps two hours on his:
E—my head is pounding and my insides all hurt and oh my god let’s never ever drink whiskey again, but I don’t even care because I am seriously walking on air. OH MY GOD. I like him so much it’s embarrassing. I am sitting in my cubicle beaming like an idiot even though I’m super hungover and my hair smells like smoke and I clearly didn’t shower before booking it into work. He is sofa king