The tears ran hot down Emily’s cheeks, blurring her vision. She cried for a long time, the sobs convulsive but also cathartic. Finally, once she felt drained, she placed everything back in the box except for the drawing Jordan had saved. She taped up the top, then hefted it into her arms and started downstairs.
A pang hit her halfway down. How could she say good-bye? How did you let someone like this go? She hated that Ali had done this. But she hoped with all her heart that the cops had actually found some evidence—or Ali herself. And that soon enough, Ali would be behind bars. Somewhere dark. And miserable. And totally hopeless.
Something out the window caught her attention. Aria had pulled up to the curb. Spencer’s car was behind hers, and Hanna drove up in her Prius and parked in the driveway. Slowly, the girls got out and stepped toward Emily’s front door with all the sobriety of government officials coming to a family’s door to tell them that their child had died in an overseas battle.
Emily swallowed hard. None of them had announced they were coming. Had they found out something she hadn’t? Was there news about Ali?
She placed Jordan’s box on the steps and opened the front door before they could ring the bell. “What’s going on?” she hissed, stepping onto the porch and shutting the door behind her. Her parents were in the den; the last thing she needed was for them to listen in. They’d already asked her a ton of questions about all the stuff barricading the doors this morning. “What happened? It’s the pool house, isn’t it? Did they find Ali?”
“Slow down.” Spencer caught Emily’s arm. “We haven’t heard anything. We thought you might have.”
Emily stopped and peered at them. “Nothing?”
“Aside from Greg turning up dead at a creek,” Spencer said. “Which was probably Ali’s doing. He told me he knew her, and that was a big mistake. So she killed him.”
Emily’s stomach swooped. “Do you think it was his blood in the house?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Spencer stared down the street. Emily’s next-door neighbors, an older couple named the Gauls, were hard at work setting up sprinklers on their front lawn. When they saw the girls, they waved. Everyone waved back, though not nearly as enthusiastically.
“But we haven’t heard anything about the pool house investigation,” Aria continued. “I even tried calling the local police station, but when someone asked my name, I hung up.” Then she looked at the plastic bag in her hands. “I don’t know what to do with this.” She opened it a little; Emily could see the crumpled dress they’d pulled out of the house the night before. “Drop it off anonymously at the police station? Burn it?”
“Do you think we should go up there?” Emily asked. “What if they have Ali under arrest? What if she’s caught and they haven’t even told us?” That would be just like Fuji, she thought bitterly.
Spencer shook her head. “The place is probably crawling with cops—us being there would complicate things. We’ll know soon enough. But I feel really positive, you know? I feel like this could be it. And now we can go on with our lives for real.”
Emily bit her lip. Tears rushed to her eyes. She had been about to bury her life. She couldn’t imagine blithely moving forward.
A siren wailed down the street, and everyone looked up. Seconds later, a police car appeared from around the corner and began to roll toward them. It was followed by a second police car, then a third. Emily took a quivering step back, momentarily frozen in the lights. Then she realized who was in the front seat of the first car.
Fuji.
The cop cars rolled up to the curb in front of Emily’s house and came to a stop. Agent Fuji, dressed in a crisp black suit and sunglasses, stepped out of the vehicle and strode toward them. The agent’s face was stern and hard as she approached the girls. She came to a stop and looked around at all of them. A few beats passed. Behind her, Emily heard her front door open. She knew without looking that her mom was standing there, staring.
“We need to speak to you,” Fuji said in a gruff voice.
“Of course,” Spencer said quickly. “Whatever we can do to help.”
“This is about the pool house, right?” Hanna asked excitedly. “What did you find?”
Fuji winced. She reached into her pocket and whipped out a ziplock bag marked EVIDENCE and shoved it in the girls’ faces. “We found this.”
The bag shook before Emily’s eyes. Slowly, her vision adjusted. Something pearly and white and tipped in blood was caught in the bag’s corner. Emily frowned, then backed up. A tooth.
“Whose is that?” Aria cried.
Fuji removed her sunglasses and stared at them hard. There was no kindness in her eyes, which surprised Emily. Fuji should be grateful, shouldn’t she? “I think you know whose it is, girls. What I want to know is: Where’s the rest of the body?”
Everyone flinched. Emily’s heart began to pound. “The rest of what body?” Hanna asked.