“There.” I point to the Volkswagen. “That’s her. Let’s go.”
Ginny and I climb out of her mom’s car and follow her, darting between cars. I signal for Ginny to go around the SUV blocking our view of Carly. I run around the other side, cutting Carly off.
“Hi,” I say.
Carly Amato jumps back. “What the fuck?”
“We just want to talk to you,” I say. “Ten minutes. Please. And you’ll never see us again.”
Carly shoves a hand into her bag, and I shrink back into the car behind me. Squeeze my eyes shut, bracing against a shot of pepper spray to the face. But she pulls out her vape stick and puts it to her lips.
“I’ve got nothing to say.” Carly blows smoke through her nostrils.
“You were friends with Juliana,” I say. “So why did you say you barely knew her?”
“You don’t get it,” Carly says. “I did a lot of stuff I regret in high school. I have my life on track now, so excuse me if I have a problem with you two digging up old shit.”
“We know you hung out with Allie’s boyfriend and his best friend,” I say. “You introduced them to Juliana, didn’t you?”
“So what if I did?” Carly’s eyes dart between Ginny and me, like a hamster’s. “What does it even matter?”
“It matters if Allie’s boyfriend or his friend drove a pickup truck.”
Carly’s lips part. “Why?”
“Because someone saw Juliana get out of a pickup truck the night she was killed. Someone else heard her yelling, ‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’?”
Something flashes in Carly’s eyes. She swallows. I glance at Ginny.
“Carly,” she says. “We don’t care if you did drugs. We just want to know who really killed Juliana.”
Carly folds her arms across her chest, burying her hands in her cardigan. “That big creep next door killed Juliana.”
“You don’t believe that,” I say. “We just want the name of the guy who drove the pickup truck.”
“Fuck no. I bought from one of those guys. I saw him beat the shit out of a kid who told his parents he bought Oxy from him.”
I balk, even though I’m not sure why anything surprises me anymore. “You bought pills from your cheer coach’s boyfriend?”
“Not him. His friend.” The small of Carly’s throat twitches. “She attacked me, you know. Allie. She thought I was screwing her boyfriend. I would have loved to throw it in her face that his best friend was pulling in thousands selling pills.”
“This guy. Did Juliana buy from him?” I ask.
“Juliana didn’t do drugs.” Carly takes another pull from her vape. “She didn’t want to hang out with him anymore once she found out he was selling. We were hanging out one night, just drinking, the four of us. He had to stop to do a deal, and Juliana kind of freaked.”
“And you didn’t think to tell anyone this when she was murdered?”
Carly snorts. “Who the hell would believe me? These were Hamilton guys.”
“Hamilton?”
“The college. Preppy and rich and shit. And I didn’t have any proof that they even knew Juliana. Aside from the party where I met them, we never hung out with them in public or anything.”
A blood vessel under my right eye pulses. “What are their names, Carly?”
She blows a stream of smoke into my face. “The neighbor killed Juliana and Susan. That’s all I got to say.”
“And what if Jack didn’t kill them?” Ginny blurts.
I look over at Ginny; her face is scarlet, and she’s breathing heavily. “How can you live with yourself if those guys are guilty and you helped them get away with it?”
For the first time, Carly Amato actually looks sad. “Guys like that always get away with it. Sorry to be the one to tell you that.”
* * *
—
We did it—we found out who else would have wanted Juliana and Susan dead. Allie’s boyfriend and his friend must have gone to the Berrys’ house that night to confront Juliana. Maybe they wanted to reason with her, or intimidate her into being quiet about the drug deal.
Instead, she fought back.
Ginny and I are in her room, sitting on her bed.
“It makes sense,” I say. “They got into a fight with Juliana downstairs, and they killed her—and when Susan heard the commotion, she got out of the shower. So one or both of them chased her back upstairs.”
Ginny sits butterfly style, pressing the bottoms of her feet together. “It definitely makes more sense than Jack Canning sneaking into the house and killing Juliana just to get to Susan.”
I press my fingers to my eyelids. “This is infuriating. We have two guys with a motive and no idea what their names are because Carly Amato is a coward.”
Ginny’s eyes blaze. “No. We’re going to find them.”
The forcefulness of her voice takes me aback. I stare at Ginny, unsure of when this happened to her. Maybe she was always like this and no one bothered to pay attention.
“And then what?” I say. “Who would believe us if we accused two random guys of a five-year-old crime?”
“Ethan could testify.” The pink in Ginny’s cheeks deepens. “If they can tie the pickup truck to the guys—”
“No one is going to believe Ethan.”
Ginny goes quiet. “I hate this.”
“Me too,” I say.
I don’t just hate this—I feel completely wrecked. The idea that Juliana and Susan’s killer is alive and walking free and there’s nothing we can do about it is worse than not getting answers at all.
Is this where Jen found herself? Did she figure it out? She was closer to Juliana than anyone.
Did Jen find out something she wasn’t supposed to? Did they get to her?
I need to know what happened to my sister.
FIVE YEARS AGO
NOVEMBER
“I can’t do this.”
Jen lay balled up on her side, the pillow beneath her stained with tears and drool. Her mother was sitting on the bed next to her, stroking her hair.
“You have to, baby. For her.”
Jen’s throat felt like it was closing. Her mother never called her baby, not once in her life. Jen cringed under the bony feel of her mother’s fingers. She had lost so much weight in the past week. They both had.
Her mother had to help her into her dress. Jen didn’t even care that her mom was seeing her in her bra and underwear. When her mother left to change into her own dress, Jen sat on the edge of her bed. She stared into her full-length mirror, unable to pick up the hairbrush lying next to her.
In the mirror, Jen caught a flash of brown hair in her doorway. She craned her neck in time to see Monica dart back down the hall.
Jen called her sister’s name and Monica slunk back to Jen’s doorway, silent in her black velvet dress. When Jen opened her mouth to ask Monica why she’d been spying, all that came out was a strangled cry.
Monica stepped inside Jen’s room. She silently picked up the brush and began working at Jen’s tangled ends. Jen sat, staring into the mirror, tears rolling down her cheeks as her sister—her little pain-in-the-ass sister—braided her hair with all the care and tenderness she used on one of her dolls.
* * *
—
The line for Juliana’s wake wrapped all the way around the side of Maroney’s and spilled into the parking lot. When Jen got out of the car, she felt her knees go wobbly. I should wait out here for Susan.
She was aware of her mother’s eyes on her, and when Jen looked up, the realization crushed her. Susan was dead too. Her wake was in two days.
Her mother took her hand, but Jen stayed planted to the ground. People were looking over, their eyes lingering on the Rayburn/Carlino family a beat too long.
“They’re looking at me,” she whispered.
Tom put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We can go in the back. No one will mind.”