Moser scratches his belly and sits in the recliner so he’s level with me. “I know this has been, ah, a troubling afternoon, but I need to know what happened, to make your sister, you know. Snap, this evening.”
I nod. My lips are numb. The words feel garbled between them as I tell Moser about the texts, and the partial DNA match. What she said when I confronted her about everything and asked if she killed Bailey.
“She said someone told her she had to do it,” I say. “She said it was Josephine Leeds. The Red Woman.”
Moser stops writing on his legal pad. Sets down his pen and looks at me.
“Dear Lord,” he says. “This is going to be a doozy.”
He questions me for another hour. No, I had no clue Lauren was involved. Yes, she had been acting strangely. No, I never thought in a million years Lauren was capable of this.
When he’s finished, Moser clears his throat. “Your aunt ought to be here in a bit. Would you like me to have a deputy stay with you until she gets here?”
“I’ll call my neighbor,” I say, even though I know Mrs. Lao will probably come over the second she sees the police cars pull away.
After Moser and his deputy leave, I force myself upstairs. Rummage around in the bathroom for the NyQuil Ashley bought last week. Pause when I see the orange bottle with Andrew’s name on it. Ambien.
I palm two of the sleeping pills and swallow them before I crawl back downstairs and into my bed.
When I wake, the room is dark. Someone is shaking me. I blink and look at Andrew. “What time is it?”
“After midnight. My aunt Christine is downstairs with Mrs. Lao. She picked me up from the station after they let me go.”
I sit up. Rub my eyes so I can see him more clearly. His eyes are red.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” he says. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“It’s all my fault,” I say. “I brought Lauren to the Leeds Barn. We made her think that shit was real.”
I’m sobbing so hard that I start to choke. Andrew climbs into bed next to me. I put my head on his chest and he slides down so we’re resting on the pillow. He lets me cry until his shirt is soaked. Until my sobs peter out into shallow breaths.
“I left my phone here that night,” Andrew says quietly. “I must have left it on the kitchen counter, like I always do. Lauren saw it—she snuck it back onto my nightstand before I even got home from the hospital.”
“What do you think is going to happen to her?” I whisper.
Andrew rubs an eye with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know. I don’t feel like this is real.”
“Bailey would be alive if it weren’t for me.” I press a palm to my cheek. It’s stiff with dried tears. I’m afraid if I make any sort of facial expression, I’ll crack in half. “If I never moved here, Bailey would be alive.”
“You don’t know that.” Andrew’s voice breaks off. I wrap my arms around him tighter. His body stiffens in a way it never has before when I’ve hugged him.
I lift my chin to meet his eyes. “You’re mad at me. For thinking you did this.”
Andrew shakes his head. “Not mad. Just sad.”
I don’t say it, but I think that’s worse. A sob works its way up my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Andrew’s body relaxes a bit. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and squeezes. “I know.”
He keeps saying it, even when the sobs take over my body again.
I know. I know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Andrew and I have been staying at Ashley’s sister’s house for the past three days. The police had to come and search Lauren’s room, comb through all of her things—dissect her life like a frog for signs of trouble—and Ashley thought it would be upsetting to us.
Aunt Chrissy, as I’m instructed to call her, has taken time off work to support her sister. I like her well enough. She’s a padded, less bouncy version of Ashley. She talks on the phone all day and doesn’t make me get out of bed. I spend most of my time online, where the news only says that police have a suspect in Bailey Hammond’s disappearance in custody, but they can’t name her because she’s a minor.
What I do know: Lauren confessed to luring Bailey to Leeds Park. She was going to call her from our house phone, say she needed to meet and talk about something, but she chickened out.
Until she saw Andrew’s phone, left on the kitchen island. She decided to text Bailey, pretend to be Andrew.
Bailey was surprised to see her but let Lauren into her car. That was when Lauren stabbed Bailey—once in the neck, and then in the stomach.
The blood in Bailey’s car corroborated Lauren’s details. But she won’t tell the police what she did with the knife she used.
It’s a little after ten when the doorbell rings; there’s murmuring in the hall, and then Christine opens the guest room door.
“Someone’s here to see you,” she says, like my getting visitors at her house is the most normal thing in the world.
Ellie Knepper is sitting at Christine’s kitchen table. She takes me in—greasy hair, pajamas—as I sit down.
“You look well,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s joking.
I stare back at her.
“I saw Ashley and your dad at the hospital this morning,” she says. “Lauren’s improving. She’s much more lucid.”
“Am I supposed to be happy she’s not delusional anymore? She’s going to go to jail, probably for the rest of her life.”
Ellie frowns. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“She didn’t do this alone,” I say. “Someone her size can’t move and bury a body by herself. And drive it all the way to the border? Lauren can’t even drive.”
Ellie shifts in her seat. “I can’t discuss the details of the case with you. But it is an open investigation, and we’re exploring every possibility.”
“Have you talked to Jade?”
Ellie keeps on studying my face. “She insists she doesn’t know anything.”
“You can’t trust anything she says.”
“Oh, hon, I’ve known that since the day I met her.”
Christine returns with a Disney World mug for Ellie. She smiles, showing off her bottom row of crooked teeth. When she accepts the tea, something on her finger catches the light. Sparkles.
“You’re engaged,” I say.
“Huh?” Ellie looks at her finger, then at me. “Oh, yeah. Still getting used to that.”
I can’t tear my eyes from her hand. She hadn’t had the ring on a few days ago, in the interview room with Burke and Ashley.
While my family was falling apart, Ellie Knepper found the time to get engaged. It puts a funny feeling in my stomach. Not a bad one, exactly. In fact, I’m happy for her. It’s the first thing I’ve felt other than despair since that afternoon on Sparrow Road when Lauren admitted what she’d done.
“Has Jade contacted you at all?” Ellie asks. And like that, the good feeling gutters out.
I shake my head.
Ellie frowns. “I just don’t understand it. Everyone says she and Bailey were inseparable. If Jade really is involved in all this, why would she turn on her best friend?”
“There’s no such thing as best friends,” I say. “Everyone is only out to protect themselves.”
Ellie’s voice is quiet. “You don’t really mean that. The world isn’t as dark as it looks to you right now.”
Maybe she’s right.
“I have to talk to my sister,” I say. “I might be able to help.”