Detective Sprague gives me a look that is both disappointed and sad. I feel bad for a moment, because she seems like she’s probably a good detective. She seems dedicated to her job, and she actually seems like maybe she cares about me. But then again, all she really wants is to find out what happened to Mrs. Bennett. Her job isn’t to look out for my best interest. She makes it like Nathaniel was manipulating me, but really, she’s doing the same thing. Besides, there’s no proof anything happened between him and me.
“You need to know, Addie,” she says quietly, “that Nathaniel Bennett is painting you to be a stalker who was acting alone. He’s trying to make us believe that you followed Eve Bennett to the commuter lot, killed her, and got rid of her body. If you don’t speak out for yourself, that is the only story anyone is going to hear.”
Is that true? I don’t believe that. She must be lying—he would never do that to me..
Right?
Detective Sprague rifles around in the pocket of her trench coat until she comes up with a small rectangular card. She holds it out to me. “This is my card. I wrote my cell phone number on the back. If you want to talk to me, call me anytime. I mean it.”
I accept the card, but I don’t say anything.
She gives me one last look, then she gets back into her black car and drives away. After she’s gone, I look down at the card she gave me. I turn it around, and her ten-digit cell number is written in black ink. I stare down at the numbers, which blur as the raindrops continue to fall.
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Chapter Seventy-Two
ADDIE
I EVENTUALLY HAVE to return home because the rain soaked my jeans, and also I stepped in a huge puddle and now one of my sneakers is waterlogged.
My mom is sitting on the sofa in the living room, doing something on her phone. As soon as I step back in the house, she looks up at me sharply. “Where did you go?”
“Just for a walk.” I step out of my soggy sneakers. “Nowhere in particular.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You didn’t go anywhere?”
“No.”
“Because if you did…”
“I didn’t.” But I don’t tell her Detective Sprague stopped me on the street. Or about the business card wedged in my coat pocket. “It was just a walk. Seriously, Mom.”
“I’m just worried.” She puts down her phone and stands up to face me. She has started looking so old in the last year. I always thought my mom seemed younger and prettier than most moms, but now she looks like she could be somebody’s grandma. “What they are accusing you of is very serious. You have to understand that.”
“I know.”
Her eyes grow moist. “Addie, please tell me—I won’t be mad. Do you know what happened to Mrs. Bennett?”
The urge to tell her everything becomes almost overwhelming. I remember when I was a little kid, I felt like anything that was wrong, my mom could hug me and make it right again. But there is no way for her to make any of this right again. Part of growing up is figuring out that your parents don’t have that ability anymore. “No, I don’t.”
Deny everything.
She swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Because you know I’m on your side, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what happened.”
I open my mouth, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to say. But anything I might’ve said gets interrupted when the doorbell rings.
Oh no. I bet it’s Detective Sprague. I bet she’s here to arrest me or something.
“I’ll get it,” I say.
I hurry over to the front door, and I open it up without checking who is outside. But when I see who is standing there, my mouth falls open. Of all the people I would have imagined might be at my door, this is the last person I expected to see there.
It’s Kenzie Montgomery.
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Chapter Seventy-Three
ADDIE
KENZIE MONTGOMERY.
Great.
It’s not enough that the police are investigating me for murder. Now my worst enemy from school has shown up at my front door, presumably to torment me. This day just keeps getting better and better.
Kenzie is wearing a white coat that I’ve seen her in before, but now it is drenched by what is becoming fairly heavy rain. Her blond hair is plastered to her scalp, and her cheeks are bright pink. It’s literally the worst I’ve ever seen her look.
“What are you doing here?” I say in a voice that is decidedly irritable.
Kenzie reaches out to wipe a few soggy strands of hair from her face. “I need to talk to you. Can I please come in?”
Part of me is tempted to tell her no. She is the last person I want to deal with right now. But there is something in her blue eyes that keeps me from slamming the door in her face. So I nod and step aside to let her in.
Kenzie is dripping wet. A little puddle forms beneath her in our foyer, and I’m hesitant to invite her further inside. My mother quietly goes over to our hall closet and pulls out a towel, which she brings to Kenzie.
“I’m Addie’s mom,” she says. “How can I help you?”
Kenzie looks between me and my mother. She reaches out and gnaws on her thumbnail, which is a bad habit I’m shocked she would have, but now for the first time, I notice that all her fingernails are chewed to bits.
“Can I talk to you alone, Addie?” she says. “Please?”
I look over at my mother. She seems reluctant to leave, but finally, she nods and heads up the stairs. There’s, like, a fifty-fifty chance she’s going to be listening at the top of the stairs, but there’s not much I can do about that. The walls in this house are thin anyway.
Once my mother is out of sight, Kenzie and I go into the living room and sit down on the couch. I sit at one end, and she sits all the way at the other end. I don’t trust Kenzie. She has put me through hell this semester. I can only imagine she’s here to mess with me some more, and I am really, really not in the mood.
“What is it?” I say.
“Look.” Kenzie flips a few wet strands of her hair behind one shoulder. “I want to apologize for everything I did to you this year. I was a bitch, and I’m sorry.”
That’s not what I expected her to say at all. Why is she apologizing? And why now?
And yet there’s something in her face that looks like she means it. She doesn’t have her usual smirk. There are purple circles under her pretty eyes, and one of her nails is bitten so badly, a drop of blood is oozing from the cuticle.
“Okay…” I’m still not sure I trust her, but I’m not going to throw her apology in her face. “Fine.”
“Also…” She lowers her voice several notches and glances up the stairs, making sure my mother isn’t listening. “I just wanted to tell you that…I know.”
My stomach does a little flip. “Know what?”
“I know…about you and Mr. Bennett.”
Oh no. Of all the people who could find out, she is the worst possible person. If Kenzie knows, soon the whole school will know. And of course, the police. It will be horrible. There’s only one thing to do.
Deny everything.
I squirm on the sofa. “There’s nothing to know.”
“Yes, there is.” She levels her blue eyes at me. “You were sleeping with him.”
I can see in her eyes that she really does know. She’s not asking, she’s not digging, she knows. She must have seen us sneaking into the darkroom together or… I don’t know. Oh my God, this is the worst thing ever. The worst possible person has found out about the worst thing I’ve ever done—well, the second worst. I wonder how she found out.
“I saw the poem,” she says.
That is the last thing I expected her to say. “What?”
“When we were in the cafeteria and you spilled your lunch tray,” she reminds me. That’s a nice way of describing the day when she threw my lunch on the ground. “There was that poem in your notebook. He wrote that and gave it to you. You know… ‘Life nearly passed me by, then she, young and alive—’”
“Stop it!”
I hold up my hand to get her to stop talking before she ruins my favorite poem forever. I will never forget the verses that Nathaniel wrote just for me. I have every word memorized.
Life nearly passed me by
Then she
Young and alive
With smooth hands
And pink cheeks
Showed me myself
Took away my breath
With cherry-red lips
Gave me life once again
I narrow my eyes at Kenzie. “How do you know he wrote me that poem?”
She starts chewing on her fingernail again. “Because he didn’t write it for you.”
“Yes, he did. Trust me.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “He wrote it for me.”
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Chapter Seventy-Four