Then there’s the important part: method. A gun is no good, because there’s the matter of obtaining a gun. You could steal your father’s hunting rifle, but they can always trace the bullet if they find the body. And what if someone hears the gunshot? A knife is preferable—a big-ass hunting knife with a long handle so you don’t injure yourself while you’re getting your stabs in. She’ll scream, but there are two of you—one to hold her down and cover her mouth, and one to do the dirty work. You hit a snag when you realize you have to be eighteen to get a hunting knife—so you enlist help from the only person in Broken Falls who has no reason to help you with anything, ever. Except he is a greedy fucker, and when you offer him double what the knife is worth to do an off-the-books transaction, he responds within hours, and you meet up and the knife feels so magical in your hands you feel like Harry fucking Potter, or Gandalf.
Then there’s disposal. Once she’s lured into the barn and the deed is done, you roll her body up in a tarp and drive as far as you can go and still be back before everyone wakes up in the morning and discovers she’s gone. You bury her body under leaves and sticks, and maybe you’ll get lucky and a fresh layer of snow will cover the whole thing by the morning. You have your clothes to think about, too. They’ll be bloody, and almost impossible to truly dispose of. You have to make sure they can’t trace it back to you, so you drive to the shittiest of all the SuperMarts, one that’s twenty miles away where no one will recognize you, one with no security cameras. You buy men’s sweatpants and hoodies to throw off the cops if they ever find the clothes where you bagged them and buried them. No one ever suspects girls, because we’re sugar and spice and everything nice, right? You pay in cash at the SuperMart and nod when the cashier asks if you’re buying clothes for your boyfriend. There’s the issue of her seeing you both dressed in men’s clothing, so you decide to leave the sweats in the trunk and quickly change into them when her back is turned.
And then there’s the phones. You’re paranoid that even if you don’t make outgoing calls from your cells, they’ll be able to trace where you were the night of the murder. So you leave them at home, even though you feel naked going out without them. But you text her first, say you’re coming to pick her up. You know she’ll wimp out like she always does, find some excuse not to come out. You say fine and go anyway, because if you just show up she won’t be able to fight it. But the records will show that your phone was sitting on your nightstand all night, which corroborates your story that you were in bed, asleep, when she climbed out that window, never to be seen again. And as for an alibi, you and Jade have all you’ve ever needed.
Each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It has to be a mistake.
They can’t have found Bailey’s body—she can’t actually be gone.
Even though all the pieces pointed to her being dead, I don’t believe Burke. They must have gotten it wrong.
Girl goes missing. Girl is found dead. I knew the story, but I still wanted it to end differently. I selfishly wanted this nightmare to be happening to some other person, in some other town like it always seems to happen.
The nurse sticks her head in and whispers: “Kacey. Your mother is here.”
My mom? That’s impossible—
I swing myself off the cot and hurry out the door, down to the main office.
Ashley. Of course, it’s Ashley. She’s waiting in one of the chairs next to the secretary’s desk, her face matte with dried tears. She knows—everyone knows by now. She jumps up when she sees me. The way she looks at my face makes the bruise Jade left there pulse.
“They want to talk to you,” she says, once we’re in the car. “Andrew has a lawyer now. She’s agreed to sit in on your interview.”
I swallow. “So I’m guessing the interview isn’t optional.”
Ashley ignores that. “How is your head?”
“Killing me.”
She doesn’t say anything else to me the entire ride to the sheriff’s station.
When we arrive, Ellie Knepper escorts us into an open interview room like we’re VIPs. Detective Burke is waiting inside, and he doesn’t waste any time.
“The lab got partial prints off the blood smear in the barn. Oddly enough, they didn’t match Andrew’s.”
“So you think they’ll match mine,” I say.
“Would you be willing to submit your prints? To rule you out, of course.”
I nod. “Fine. Whatever. I didn’t do it.”
“I want to believe you, Kacey. But whoever killed Bailey—and you’ve gotta understand that it’s looking like that person was Andrew—they had help.”
My blood chills. Jade. But it makes no sense.
“This was a planned effort,” Burke says. “Someone killed Bailey, went all the way to the border to get rid of her body, drove over to Sparrow Hill to make that blood smear, and then dumped the bloody clothes, her phone, and her car. It’s possible to pull it off alone. But I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“It wasn’t me. I can’t help you.”
Burke sets a paper down on the table. It’s a copy of an Internet search history. Leeds Massacre crime scene photos.
“We seized your family computer today. This search was done on it,” Burke says. He sets down two photos: one, a grainy printout of the bloody handprint, the other, the blood smear from the other day. “This was one hell of a distraction. Made us lose quite a bit of search time. Luckily for whoever made that handprint, you were there to find the blood just as our search was ramping up.”
“You think we planned that? I told you I only went to the barn because Chloe Strauss said she saw the Red Woman.”
“See, we talked to Chloe Strauss.” Burke folds his hands together. “And we think she actually did see a female covered in blood around three a.m. The timing would line up—it takes three hours round trip to drive to the border. We know that Bailey left the party around eleven-thirty.”
Burke pushes the paper toward me. “We were able to pull the content of those deleted texts from Bailey’s phone. Why don’t you check them out?”
My heart plummets to my stomach as I pull the paper toward me. At 11:15, Bailey texted Andrew.
Hey. Did you mean to call me?
Yeah. Something I need to talk to you about. talk in person?
My back sweats against my hoodie. I can only imagine what was going through Bailey’s head. The boy she’d loved forever asking to meet her for a late-night confession.
I read on.
Ok. What about??
Kacey.
The blood drains from my head. I feel Ashley’s eyes on me, desperate to see what I’m reading. I stare down at the paper. Five minutes after Andrew’s last message, Bailey responded: ok…I can be at your house in like fifteen minutes
if that’s ok
No, don’t want to wake my fam up. Can you meet me at Leeds Park?
Sure.
Thanks. See ya in a bit.
And then, eighteen minutes later: I’m here.
Burke takes the printout back. “That’s it. The last text she sent.”
“I think I’m done talking to you guys,” I say.
—
They’re keeping Andrew, which means either he’s cooperating with the interrogation or they have enough evidence to hold him. I don’t have the heart to ask Ashley which it is; she sobs silently the entire drive home. I touch the tender spot on my forehead.
My dad is waiting for us in the living room. I can’t look at him.
Ashley lets out a sob when she sees my dad. He rushes over to her, grabs her by the forearms to hold her up.
I’ve never felt more like an intruder.
I slip into the mudroom, straining my ears to hear them as I kick off my boots. They’re arguing quietly—my dad wants to go back to the station with Ashley. Ashley’s response is even, tactical: Someone needs to stay with the girls.