My head listed to the side. I watched the sun disappear over the horizon in a red-orange blaze, and stars pop out in a brilliant display of lights. Crickets chirped, and frogs answered. I shut my eyes and wished for the impossible.
The next morning, the crunch of footsteps alerted me to Daniel’s presence long before I saw him.
He paused about five feet away from me, hands thrust deep into his pockets. From the size of the dark shadows under his eyes, I guessed he hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Not that I had, either.
“Lucas told me why you’re here in Philly,” he said. “I’m ready to listen, if you’re willing to talk.”
He grabbed one of the camp chairs and plunked it down right in front of me. He settled into the canvas and crossed his arms.
I hadn’t even started talking yet, and this already felt like the interview from hell.
Before I could utter my first word, he flinched.
“You’re even getting her expressions down now,” he said, half-accusing, half-awestruck.
I didn’t have to ask him whose. Sarah’s. His dead daughter’s. And in spite of everything, I couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity for him. What must it be like, to see a reincarnation of your dead child sitting before you? Moving as she did? Speaking as she did? Knowing that she’d been replaced by a machine that was programmed in her image? Or did he look at me and get confused, his memory saying one thing, his logic another? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even Daniel, who had sold me out to Quinn and inadvertently led to Peyton’s death.
I still couldn’t hate him. Not when my memories conjured up a warm and loving man. He’d been a good father to Sarah, and the strength of her love was hardwired into me along with everything else. None of his actions now would erase that. Not entirely.
But they could hurt like hell.
“Don’t look at me like that. Not when you look so like . . . It’s too much. Too much,” he repeated. He sighed and buried his head in his hands. When he looked at me again, his eyes glistened.
“I know what you must think of me. I turned you over to Quinn; I sold you out. You’re right. I did. What would you do, if your dead daughter reappeared to haunt you?”
Then the fight faded out of him. “If it matters, I had no idea what Quinn had planned. Or how much you’d grow on me. I’d like to think that I’d have chosen differently, had I known what she had planned, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
At his mention of Quinn, a memory flashed into my head. One of mine for a change, not Sarah’s.
Daniel, tied to the chair and pleading, back at Quinn’s.
“No matter what happens, I want you to know—you’re my daughter. I tried to reject that because it hurt too damn much, but it’s the truth.”
A man would say anything when begging for his life. I knew he didn’t mean it. I didn’t even blame him for lying. But the lies didn’t stop me from wanting to believe. To make the words true.
“I need to tell you some things now,” I said.
He rested his elbows on his thighs and waited.
I told him about our visit with Maggie, his old neighbor. About the suspicious man she’d seen before the fire. About Edgar Blythe, the police detective, and his sudden death. About Sonja and the warehouse and the evidence that pointed to arson.
“Arson,” Daniel repeated. “God. Why would anyone do that? Hurt my baby girl?”
I examined my shoes, not wanting to witness his pain. “There’s more,” I continued. Softly. “Maggie also led us to Chloe Nivens. I met with Chloe. She told us that Sarah had a scholarship—a Watson Grant—to a place called Montford Prep. She went there soon before the fire, but she only stayed for a couple of weeks.”
I found myself needing to pause. This next part was going to be difficult.
Daniel rubbed his eyes. “She said she was homesick, and Nicole and I let her come home. If we hadn’t given in . . . she wouldn’t have been there when . . .” He couldn’t finish his sentence.
My head popped up. “Don’t. It’s not your fault. I don’t . . . I mean, she wouldn’t want you to think that. Ever.”
This next part was the worst.
“Sarah confessed something to Chloe, once she got home from Montford. She told Chloe that something about the school had