Kevin left to go play a show and the rest of us took a bunch of shots—gin or something, something bad—and headed to the show. You got surprisingly drunk, so you said you were gonna go home.”
“So I did go to the concert?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “As far as I can remember. You were there, right? Or did you leave right before?”
“I’m not sure, which is creepy. I know I was out front and a random girl called a car for me.” I shook my head. “If only there were some way I could just go back and look, you know? Something that could tell me what happened.” Would he bring up the camera? Did he even remember it?
He put on his man-laying-out-the-truth voice. “Lindsay, there was nothing any of us did or didn’t do that led to Edie’s suicide. It doesn’t work like that. It sucks, and I know we all wish things had gone down differently, but it just is what it is. She was clearly a very troubled girl.”
So faraway, another cheesy line from a movie. Again, I tried it on: About two months after the breakup, could Alex have walked over to Kevin’s open chest, picked up the weapon, and pulled the trigger? Dropped it in his panic and tapped out some semblance of a suicide note? Absurd. But there had been no signs of a struggle, just Edie in her underwear, high on ecstasy and still frozen—in Alex’s mind—midcoitus with Lloyd.
How well does anyone really know their friends? Edie was proof that the answer is: not well at all.
I let the conversation veer back into normalcy, tapering off the sniffles and throwing in a few snappy jokes to prove everything was all right. He kissed my cheek as we hugged good night, and then we headed in opposite ways in the dank post-rain night.
* * *
As soon as I got home, I poured La Croix over a pile of ice cubes and called Tessa, omitting the detail that stuck out like a blinking light: our fingers, interwoven.
“God. As if he weren’t looking sketchy enough already,” she said, after I brought her up to speed. “Means, motive, and opportunity, right?”
“I know.” I sank into my couch. “God, I really don’t want it to be him. I’ve always liked him, you know? And I always thought it was so noble that he and Edie kept living together after the breakup. Which is ironic, I guess, if that’s what put him over the edge.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said. “If he really did this and he thinks you’re getting close to figuring it out…”
Alex wouldn’t hurt me, right? I stood up and slid the curtains closed. “It’s not like I could go to the police right now. I have no proof.”
“I know. But…maybe it’s time to cool it on pressing him. He knows you met with Sarah, who was the first person to suspect that Edie was murdered, right? And now you get in touch all full of questions…”
She was right, but I told my thousandth lie of the day. “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
We’d said good night and were about to hang up when I blurted it out: “Is everything okay?”
There was a long silence, which told me everything.
“Tessa, what’s up?”
“It’s nothing, we don’t need to talk about it.”
“Are you kidding? I’m here. You can talk to me.”
A swallow, then a sniff. “It’s just…we’re okay. Will just found out he’s not getting his bonus this year, and we were already barely keeping up with the mortgage on the Saugerties place, and now with this baby coming…” Her voice cracked.
“Oh, Tessa, I’m sorry. That’s so stressful.”
“Thanks.” She kind of laughed. “And everything I’ve read about pregnancy is like, whatever you do, do not flood your body with stress hormones because it’ll mess up the fetus, so I’m doubly freaking out about—”
“—about the fact that you’re freaking out,” I finished. “Aw, Tessa. I want to give you a hug through the phone. Should I come over?”
“No, it’s okay. We’re seeing his parents next week and they’ll probably want to help and it’ll all be fine.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I try to be sensitive of whom I’m complaining to. I know it’s kind of shitty to be like, ‘Ooh, my house, and my husband, and my baby.’ ”
Hearing it so bluntly, I teared up, too. I had no idea she’d been shielding me. “Honestly, you really don’t need to think like that,” I said. “This