the list of last-visited websites, which were mostly school websites or job boards.
Where the hell are you, Annaleise?
I wiped down the keyboard and the rest of the laptop and slid her key into the front pocket of my shorts, the metal still hot from the sunlight. I’d store both in Dad’s closet until it was night again, and the world was sleeping, and silent, and waiting.
* * *
I COULD PROBABLY FIT all of my conversations with Annaleise into the span of an hour, yet I had an odd intangible connection to her, tied to my sharpest memories.
Because in that box, the one I imagined in the corner of the police station hidden just out of reach, her name will forever be tied to ours. The cops had interviewed each of us, asking us about that night—about why Daniel had a broken nose, and why Tyler had scraped-up knuckles, and why I looked like someone had knocked me around. It was Tyler who remembered. “That Carter girl,” he’d told the cops. “Begins with an A. She was there. She saw us.”
I imagine they questioned her, and I imagine she confirmed our story, because they never asked again.
Annaleise had been our alibi.
The Day Before
DAY 13
Everett’s here,” I said. I stood facing the corner of the bathroom, mumbling into the phone, with the shower running in the background.
“Everett’s where?” Daniel responded.
Steam filled the room, the mirror coated with a fine layer of fog. “Here.” I looked over my shoulder. “In my bedroom. I called him about Dad, and he showed up yesterday to help. He is helping.”
I could hear Laura in the background—something about paint fumes and pregnancy and open the damn window, which made me love her a little in that moment.
“Okay, good. That’s good.” A pause, and I imagined him walking away from Laura. “What did you tell him?”
I cracked the door, and the steam escaped into my bedroom, wisps curling up toward the vents. Everett was still sprawled facedown on the bed; I had my money on a hangover. I eased the door shut, walked across the tiny bathroom, out through the other door to Daniel’s old room.
“I told him the truth, Daniel. That the police were trying to question Dad in the disappearance of a girl ten years ago, regardless of his mental state. He marched down to the police station and Grand Pines, threatening legal action if it happened again.”
“It’s done? Is that it?”
“He needs to follow up on Monday. Get some paperwork from the doctor or something. But they’ll back off until then.”
“So he’s staying through Monday?”
“Looks that way.”
I heard Laura again: Who’s staying through Monday? And then everything sounded muffled, like Daniel was covering the phone with his hand. He cleared his throat. “Laura wants you to bring him by for dinner tonight.”
“Tell her thanks, but—”
“Great. Six o’clock, Nic.”
* * *
I DIDN’T WAKE EVERETT until nearly noon, and only then because his work was stacked in the middle of the dining room table and I knew he had to make up for the time lost yesterday. I nudged him on the shoulder and held the over-the-counter painkillers in one hand, a glass of water in the other. He moaned as he rolled over, his gaze roaming around my room as he tried to orient himself.
“Hey there,” I said, crouching beside the bed, trying to hide my smile. I liked Everett in the morning most of all, when he was lazy and malleable, when his thoughts lagged a few seconds behind; he always looked surprised while his mind caught up to what was happening. Before the caffeine hit his bloodstream and he sharpened into focus.
I liked him even better on the rare mornings he’d wake in my apartment and sit up and fumble for the alarm on his phone, misjudging the distance to my nightstand, confused by the studio apartment and the painted furniture.
“Hey,” he said, then winced. He propped himself up on his elbows and downed the painkillers before flopping back onto the mattress.
“Want to sleep it off some more?”
He peered at the clock, threw an arm over his eyes. “Ugh, no.”
He’d been out for nearly twelve hours. Meanwhile, I’d been busy moving all the boxes from the dining room to the newly finished garage. Stacked them against the walls, organized them into piles: For Dad; For Daniel; For me.
Everything else must go. And everything else was heaped in the middle of the floor in garbage bags: cookbooks and glass figurines, magazines from a year ago