pay for it in a way she’d never do to you. It was a dick move, I know.”
The apology is sincere enough, but the words slide off me. I am slick with disappointment, reeling from his betrayal. He’s a suspect now, I realize.
“I have to go.” I bolt up, wobble on my feet, and curse. Screw period-accurate footwear. I peel off my heels and lace up my Keds. I grab my favorite black cardigan off the back of the chair and slip it on. Inside the double pockets I find tissues. I’m about to need them.
I storm past Ethan, who isn’t even bothering to protest. He’s back to his respectful self, the perfect, passive little liar, who simply watches me go. I slam the door behind me and cut farther into the house. The kitchen is a zoo, and I can’t bear being on display. Instead I duck under the tasteless but effective police line do not cross tape strung across the basement stairs. It’s a rich person’s basement in their mansion in the woods, though, so it’s all high ceilings, sleek wood paneling, and functional living space instead of dank retreat. It’s cool and blissfully empty, the motion-sensor lights sultry and low.
The stairs spill out into a high-tech entertainment space, with a wall-size flat-screen TV and duplicate gaming system to the one upstairs. I fall back onto the leather couch and exhale deeply. I’ll just stay here for the rest of the party. I grab for my phone but realize I don’t have it. I left it upstairs in the guest room. With Ethan.
Ethan. He knew Emma far better than he ever let on. How close were they, really?
I think about everything else Ethan knew. Every way in which he inserted himself into the investigation. How convenient. He was the one who interviewed most people from the party. He created the suspects board. I trusted what he told me.
Ethan was the one who suggested Emma might have a second phone. Did he slip it into my room for me to find? He pushed me toward the supposition that Emma was hooking up with an older guy. Tipton.
But she was. That part was true. Everything with the phone that night at the memorial, that was me. My idea. That was real. Tipton was Beau.
Yes, but what if Ethan and Emma were hooking up, too? I think about how he helped himself to the whiskey at the bar in the secret room. He could have been pretending not to know about it, how to navigate the boathouse. Not to know about the code.
The blackmailer seems young. He didn’t know the age of consent in Massachusetts. Maybe because he’s Canadian?
No, no. I shake my head, shake away these toxic thoughts. Not Ethan. Just because he lied about that one thing doesn’t mean…
He lied about two things, I remind myself. Huge things.
I hop up and begin to pace. Loud music thunders down the stairwell, throbs through the ceiling. I can’t concentrate here. I wander down the dim hallway, past the gym on the left, and find a bedroom. Tyler’s room.
The bed looks tempting, but that would be weird. The entire experience of being in Tyler’s space is strange. To me, he is Emma’s cocky boyfriend, Avery’s model-hot stepbrother. And this is where he sleeps.
I walk the perimeter, getting a feel for it. It’s huge. Fancy-hotel-presidential-suite huge. The California king in the center of the room would fill my Maryland bedroom with only a couple of feet on either side to spare. But in here, the behemoth seems like dollhouse furniture. I cross to a set of patio doors where cold fogs the glass. Press my ear to the gap in the doors, the burble of the Charles River echoing in my ear. Out of curiosity, I pop into the bathroom and find a walk-in shower and a spa tub. Swank. The padded chair in front of Tyler’s Mac setup looks comfy, so I pull it out and plop down. The movement jostles his computer awake.
I’m not trying to snoop, not intentionally, but Tyler’s Mac isn’t password protected, so when it wakes, I get the entire desktop, which is littered with icons. I’m the kind of person who keeps her home screen maniacally clean—limited icons arranged in neat columns—so I can’t help but lean in to peruse the clutter. An icon in the lower right-hand corner catches my eye.
EMMA MURDER SUSPECTS
Why does Tyler have a murder board on his computer?
The urge