We’re only sophomores, after all, most of us just on the cusp of nineteen. Even the seniors are barely twenty-one.
“It is important for our parents and students to know that while Ms. Sharpe deeply embedded herself into the Rutledge community, she is not, in fact, a student enrolled at the college,” the dean continues, pulling me back. “She reportedly spent a significant amount of time last year inside Hines Hall, our female-only dormitory, and while we can understand the concern about a nonstudent gaining access to a college-owned building, we can assure you that Ms. Sharpe was only allowed entry from residents she befriended, which does not, in fact, violate any school rules.”
“I knew it,” Sloane says, clapping her hands before pointing at the dean, accusatory, as if he can somehow see her. “I knew he’d deny it.”
“I mean, yeah,” Nicole adds. “What else would he say? She conned her way in?”
“Furthermore, Ms. Sharpe seems to have befriended several members of the Kappa Nu fraternity, including Mr. Butler. At the time of her disappearance, she was living with several Rutledge students in a private house off-campus, immediately adjacent to Kappa Nu, which also does not violate any school rules regarding nonstudents living in college-owned housing.”
“They’re not going to take any responsibility,” Sloane says, an amused smile on her face. “They’re going to play dumb.”
“Good,” I say, pulling my legs tighter beneath me. “Let them.”
“Ms. Sharpe was reported missing on Tuesday, January 22, when she failed to show up for work for the third shift in a row,” he continues. We watch as he pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket, dabs at the sweat dotting his forehead, and stashes it away without peeling his eyes from the podium. “She is employed as a waitress at Penny Lanes Bar and Bowling Alley, and thanks to the cooperation of her employer, police have been able to identify her parents, who were listed as her emergency contacts and are requesting respect and privacy as they work with authorities to help locate their daughter so she can return to the station for questioning.”
I can’t stop staring at the dean, hanging on to his every word, teeth gnawing on the inside of my cheek as this plan we set in motion takes off so fast.
“At this time, we’d like to reassure the public that there is not a warrant out for Ms. Sharpe’s arrest as it pertains to the death of Levi Butler,” he continues, finally looking up from his notes. He removes his glasses, rubs the lenses with his shirt, and replaces them again. “However, police are collecting new evidence every day, and it is of upmost importance that any person, student or otherwise, with information regarding her whereabouts come forward as soon as possible. Thank you.”
The crowd erupts with questions as soon as he stops talking but the dean simply steps down from the podium and walks away without an offer to answer. The three of us continue to watch as a reporter appears on screen next, a picture of Lucy emerging in the left-hand corner, and I suppress a shudder when I see those eyes again: crystalline and kaleidoscopic. So lifelike I think she might blink.
“That’s enough of that,” Sloane says as the screen goes dark.
I turn to look at her, the remote still clutched in her grip before she tosses it onto the couch again, but when I glance back at the dead TV, Lucy’s face is still there, temporarily burned into the screen like she’s right here with us. Smiling at all the things we’ve accomplished, this stunt we’ve pulled because she taught us how.
Lingering, the way she always does, like she isn’t quite ready to leave.
CHAPTER 57
BEFORE
This picture of my past, this snapshot in time.
I remember it being a happy memory—comfortable, at the very least, the two of us in our element like this—but I’ve never actually noticed before how this photo of Eliza and me so blatantly displays our differences: me, self-consciously covered by my towel, eyes looking warily away from the lens. Eliza, all brazen in her little blue bikini. Reveling in the attention of the camera the way she reveled in the attention of everything.
My heart thumps hard in my chest as I stare at it, dissect it, try to wrap my mind around why it’s here, in Lucy’s bedroom, tucked away like a secret. My fingers resting on the glossy paper, Eliza’s face. Blond hair bleached even brighter by the sun and the freckles cascading across her nose like stars, her very own constellation.
I think about the envelope of money I found deep in her dresser; the Fairfield address scrawled across the back. I pull my phone out of my pocket now, opening my pictures, and tap on the most recent image, the one I just took: Lucy’s ID. Then I flip back to the picture of the envelope from Christmas, then back to the ID.
The addresses are the same.
I drop my arm, my head feeling like it’s swimming in a sea of something thick and heavy as I try to process it all. Try to think about what it all means.
Did they know each other, somehow? Lucy and Eliza?
Is this why Lucy chose me? Is Eliza the reason why I’m even here?
Maybe it was blackmail. Maybe Eliza got tangled up in something bad, something she shouldn’t have. Something somehow involving Levi. This seemed to start when they met, after all, all those sullen moods and bad habits she seemed to pick up out of nowhere. All those times she flipped her phone over when I walked by, hiding her screen, or opening her mouth to tell me something before changing her mind and closing it again. Those times when the two of them fell into a whisper as I approached, their conversation cut short by my presence alone. It still feels like Lucy and Levi somehow knew each other, too, long before he got here. The way he clearly recognized her that night at Penny Lanes; the way she was always so drawn to him, so curious, every little detail filling her up like she couldn’t get enough.
I faintly register a noise in the distance—a muted thumping, my own heart in my ears—but my mind still feels like it’s wrapped in gauze, a padded room dulling everything. I feel too detached to react so instead, I stay floating, like I’ve simply left my body behind and I’m watching myself from a distance with cool indifference.
“Margot!”
The sound of my name pulls me back slowly and I wonder where it came from. Sloane upstairs, maybe. Nicole calling down from her room.
“Margot, open up!”
I twist around, toward Lucy’s open door, simultaneously recognizing the voice and realizing the noise is coming from outside. And it isn’t just thumping, either. It’s knocking.
Lucy is knocking at the front door.
“I forgot my wallet!” she yells, banging harder. “Why is the door locked?”
I look down at the picture again, shaking in my grip, before pushing it back in her desk and locking the drawers, terror surging through my chest. I step back, a faint tingling crawling up my neck as I look around, frantic, trying to find something for my hands to grab. Because if Lucy is standing on the porch right now, peering through the windows and into the living room, she’s going to see me walking out of her bedroom. She’s going to be rightfully curious why I locked her out of the house and walked into her room the second she stepped outside.
My eyes dart around, keys still in hand, wildly searching for some excuse to be in here. Some plausible reason that she might buy—and that’s when I spot it. A stack of books in the corner, piled high against the wall.
“One second!” I yell, a cold sweat erupting on my palms. I grab the familiar title on top and walk out of her bedroom, trying to act casual as I register her face through the window, her expression twisted into grim annoyance. I shoot her a smile as I walk to the front door and unlatch the bolt, letting her inside, but she storms straight past me, hands on her hips.