“Yeah, but your statement was useless,” I say. “The police knew it was impossible for you to have seen anything from the woods behind the Berrys’ house. You may as well have not told them anything.”
“At the time, lying felt like a better option than doing nothing.”
When I don’t respond, Ethan sighs. “I planned on telling you what really happened at the coffee shop. But when I saw you, I chickened out. I’ve never talked to anyone about Jen before.”
I think of the note in Jen’s handwriting. I’m not okay. Sadness needles me. I don’t want to go to the place where I imagine what would have happened if Ethan had told someone about that note right away. “Why wouldn’t you talk about her?”
“Who would believe me? Who would honestly believe that someone like Jen Rayburn and me—” Ethan closes his mouth. Rests a hand on his knee, his leg jiggling again. Jonesing for a cigarette, I realize. Tom did the same thing when he quit ten years ago.
My throat feels tight. “Someone like Jen and you what?”
Ethan shrugs. “I don’t know. She was gone before I could find out.”
All the way on the other side of the lake, I see the outline of a school bus wind around Osprey Road. I check my phone; it’s ten to seven. I need to leave in a few minutes or I’ll be late, but I want to keep sitting here, talking about my sister. I came here to find out why Ethan lied about what he saw that night, and now that I know he didn’t, I’m right back where I started. Sifting through dozens of pieces that might not even belong to the same puzzle—the murders.
Ethan watches me. “What are you thinking?”
My thoughts are racing too quickly for me to fashion them into words. Ethan saw Juliana Ruiz arguing with the person who killed her, who may or may not have been the owner of the pickup truck Mr. Brenner saw. A mystery guy whose name never came up in the investigation—most likely because no one ever had a reason to suspect him. He could be anyone.
“Juliana Ruiz was on your list,” I finally say.
Pink blooms in Ethan’s cheeks. “Are we back here again? You think I killed them?”
“No, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be anywhere near you. But it sounds like Juliana was the real target that night, so I’m just trying to understand why someone would want to kill her.”
“I don’t know,” Ethan says. “She was really popular. Everyone liked her.”
“Everyone except you.”
“I didn’t dislike her. I don’t think Juliana ever said one word to me,” Ethan says. “I can’t tell you why I put her on the list. I can’t even tell you why I made that stupid list except for the fact that a bunch of cheerleaders and football players humiliated me one day and I made a mistake.”
Ethan reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cigarette lighter. He flicks it, but doesn’t motion to dig out a cigarette or whatever he smokes. After a beat, he says, “Juliana seemed cool. It always looked like Jen preferred her to Susan.”
“Did Jen ever say anything to you about them? Apparently Jen and Susan were fighting and it made things weird with Juliana and Jen.”
Ethan sticks his lighter back in his pocket. “Jen didn’t say anything specific. Just that she felt like she was losing her friends.”
“Do you know who Juliana hung out with other than Jen and Susan?”
“I always saw her with the other cheerleaders. Even the older ones. I had gym at the same time as her, and she was always attached to this weird senior.”
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. She was ditzy but always trying to seem tough. She was new.”
“Carly Amato,” I say.
“Yeah. That’s her. You know her?”
“I talked to her a couple weeks ago,” I say. “She told me she barely knew Juliana.”
Ethan flicks his lighter again, eyes watching the flame dance in the breeze settling over us. “Well, that’s bullshit. The two of them were always together.”
I’m speechless. Ethan stares at me. “Does that change things?”
“It complicates things.” My head is swirling. I want to explain, but I’m really going to be late to school. “I’ve got to go.”
Ethan nods. He watches me sling my backpack over my shoulder. It looks like he wants to say something else.
I return his stare. “What?”
Ethan glances down at his lighter again. His voice sounds far off. “When I called her that morning—I asked if she was okay. She said she was, and I believed her.”
I pause, the strap of my backpack sliding down my shoulder. Swallow. “You don’t think she did it.”
Ethan lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Do you?”
“I go back and forth,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t believe she would ever do that to us. Sometimes I think, maybe, if I had gone through what she did…”
“You wonder if you’d feel like you had any other choice.”
I nod. Hearing him say it feels like a gut punch.
Ethan is still studying me as I hop on my bike. “Do you think it would be easier if you found out she was murdered?” he asks.
I think for a moment, the balls of my feet grazing the pavement below me.
“Only if I find who did it,” I say, kicking up the stand on my bike and pedaling into the direction of the high school.
* * *
—
The school day doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes and there aren’t any buses here yet. I lock up my bike on the rack, my nostrils curling at the scent of weed clinging to the air. I can’t imagine the stoners being at school this early, and I wonder if the rumors about Mr. Ward and the other English teachers blazing in the parking lot are true. Before I head inside, I pull up Carly Amato’s Facebook page and send her a new message.
Ginny is waiting for me at my locker.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “For Saturday.”
She picks over her words carefully, as if she’s not sure she’s apologizing correctly. I’m pretty confident it’s not something she has to do often.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t listen to you.”
“Well, I didn’t have to freak out like I did.” Ginny inhales and closes her eyes. Opens them. “My dad left us on October eighteenth. That was a week before the murders.”
All the blood in my body drains to my toes. When I open my mouth to speak, Ginny holds up a hand. “It’s okay. I know how it looks. The week he left, he beat up my mom, and she finally decided to press charges.”
My chest constricts. “Ginny, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“I know. So I don’t like talking about him.”
I want to evaporate on the spot. Anything to get away from the sad look on her face. “I never actually thought—”
“It’s really okay.” She hikes her bag strap up her shoulder. “Let’s forget about it?”
I nod. The knot that’s been in my chest since Saturday has loosened a bit. “What do you have this period?”
“Earth science,” she says. “You?”
“Chem. I’ll walk with you.”
We wend our way through the crowds outside the classrooms. When the clusters of people are behind us, I lower my voice so only Ginny can hear. “I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
I glance down at my phone; Carly’s page is still open. I refresh it, hoping she’ll have responded to my message by the time the page loads.
“There’s not enough time before the bell,” I say to Ginny. “Can we talk somewhere at lunch?”
She nods. “Mrs. Goldberg is out today, but I have a key to her room. We can meet there. Monica? Did you hear me?”
I’m staring at the screen of my phone. The page has reloaded, but Carly Amato’s profile has disappeared and been replaced by an error message.
“What’s wrong?” Ginny asks.
I look up at her, feeling a little shell-shocked. “Carly Amato just blocked me.”
FIVE YEARS AGO
OCTOBER
Tom was always saying there were no such things as accidents. He would come home with stories about teenagers driving into signposts because they were texting, elderly people in Buicks putting their cars in drive instead of reverse and hitting every car in the parking lot.