A little pang hit me mid-chest. Sophie used to say similarly validating things to me. Listening to the way Sara spoke of Amber made me wonder if I’d ever talk like that about Sophie. Would I regret never speaking to her again? Looking at the glint of tears in Sara’s eyes, I knew that somehow, some way, I’d have to find a way to forgive Sophie, because I didn’t ever want to look that sad when speaking about my best friend.
“After she died,” Sara said, brushing away one stray tear, “well, I went into a tailspin. I drank myself out of school my freshman year of college. Drugs followed. I nearly died twice. But one day when I was in rehab, I had a dream about Amber. She came to me looking so pretty, wearing her prom dress, and she said those same words to me again. She asked me why I was settling for mediocrity. I didn’t have an answer for her, but I felt such sadness. Such hopelessness. She told me to get help. To go back to school. To start building things. And then she said, ‘I’m gonna see you again, girl. And when I do, I want you to have done something with your life.’”
I felt a chill travel up my spine and my arms tingled with goose pimples. Something about the story of Sara’s dream tugged at the back of my mind. Almost like I remembered having that exact dream, but I knew I hadn’t, and I wondered at what Amber had said to Sara in her dream. That she’d see her again. Was Amber seeing Sara again through my eyes? The goose bumps on my arms got bigger.
“The next morning,” Sara continued, “when I woke up, I knew what I had to do. So I got clean, went back to school, got my associate’s in architecture, then my master’s, and finally my PhD.”
“You’re an architect?” Cole asked with admiration.
She smiled. “I am. I’m also a professor at UVA, and I own my own firm, but only because I did exactly what Amber told me to do, and it saved my life and built this one. And that’s really what you need to keep in mind when you’re writing about her. That she was a good person who saw the potential in everybody.”
“So you don’t believe she could’ve killed Ben Spencer, right?” I asked, knowing we’d found another ally.
Sara surprised me. “Oh, I didn’t say that. I do believe Amber killed Spence. But I couldn’t really blame her. I mean, I knew how much she loved him, and how deep a betrayal he’d committed against her. It’d make anybody crack.”
Cole and I both sat forward. “Ben betrayed her?” I said, shocked by the statement. “Did he cheat on her or something?”
Sara sighed sadly. “No, I don’t think so, Lily. It was much bigger than that. I don’t know what happened between them other than he lied to her about going away with her to UCLA in the fall. He strung her along to the bitter end, making her believe that he had every intention of going with her to California. The night of prom, I suspect he finally confessed that he’d be staying home, and he broke it off with her. I think she just snapped.”
I sat there, stunned, and my heart felt like it was breaking. Amber’s best friend believed she was capable of murder. It hurt as deep as when I’d found out that Sophie and Tanner were dating. It felt like a terrible betrayal.
Cole said, “See, we’ve been digging into the murder a little, and we don’t think Amber was responsible.”
It was Sara’s turn to sit forward. Eyeing him curiously, she said, “Why do you say that?”
“There’s a rumor going around that a teacher might’ve murdered them both. Some guy named David Bishop.”
Sara’s brow furrowed. “Bishop?” she said, and then tapped her cheek with her finger. “Huh.”
“Did you know him?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. “I didn’t. But I had heard that one of the freshmen math teachers had been fired. I think his name was Mr. Bishop.” She seemed to think on it some more and said, “But what would he have to do with Ben or Amber?”
Cole and I exchanged a look, and I nodded to him to tell her. “We think it had something to do with the SATs,” he said. “And someone said that maybe the Bennetts were involved.”
“Oh, that!” she said with what sounded to me like a forced laugh. “Yeah, I heard a little about that, too. Did Britt tell you about it? She knew more about it than I did.”
“Britta Cummings?” I said, remembering the name from the yearbook.
“It’s Schroder now,” Sara said. “Britta Schroder. She married a plastic surgeon. If you guys don’t know that then I guess you haven’t talked to her?”
“Not yet,” I said. “She was next on our list.”
Sara nodded. “She lives in Ashland now. Her and her husband have a couple of kids from what I hear.” She seemed about to say something more, but hesitated.
“What?” Cole asked her.
“I’d be careful with anything that Britta tells you about Amber,” she said. “She was very jealous of her, because Britt was in love with Spence. She and Amber got into it at prom. And, while they were arguing in the ladies’ room, Spence left the dance. Amber went looking for him a little later, but neither of them was seen for at least forty-five minutes after that. By then, Spence was dead.”