There’s a For Sale sign staked to the grass in front of Owen’s house. The workers have made quick business of the sunroom. The tree has been removed and the glass repaired, although there’s still a roofing truck parked in the driveway.
Maybe our luck has finally changed: Owen, not his father, comes to the door. For a second he just stands there, looking like someone who got a mouthful of salt water instead of soda. Then he splutters, “Mia. Hi. Hey.” As if Abby and I aren’t even there.
“It’s Ms. Gray,” Mia says breathlessly. “She killed Summer.”
“What?”
Abby pushes her way inside first. She hasn’t looked at me once since I got in the car, hasn’t mentioned all the calls and texts she’s been ignoring, is still acting like I’m a giant wart and the best course of action is to pretend I don’t exist. But what am I supposed to say? Hey, Abby, I know we’re about to nail a teacher for the murder that got pinned on me, but in the meantime can I just say I really did mean to kiss you?
The living room where we spent our sleepless night poring over Return to Lovelorn is all boxed up, furniture wrapped in plastic like it’s been swaddled in giant condoms. Instead we go to the kitchen, which is brighter and warmer and still shows signs of life—keys and mail scattered across the kitchen counter, crumpled receipts, a phone charging next to the toaster, still unpacked.
Mia tells Owen about the note and the bouquet of flowers, and I tell him what I found out from Heath Moore. Five minutes into the story the front door opens and closes with a bang and then Wade careens around the corner, panting, his shirt half-tucked into his pants as if he hauled them up while using the bathroom.
“What’d I miss?” he says between gulps of air. Then, grinning at me: “Hey, cuz.”
There’s a long beat of shocked silence. Abby shrugs. “I called him,” she says, by way of explanation.
So we have to start over again. All this time, Owen is frowning, hunched over his phone, like he’s only partly paying attention. And then I get this awful bunched-up feeling: he doesn’t buy it. And if he doesn’t buy it, the cops never will.
Owen shakes his head. “Check it out.” He shoves his phone across the counter, as if it’s something poisonous that’s been clinging to his hand. “She lived in St. Louis. The city with the arch.”
There are dozens of results for Evelyn Gray in St. Louis, including pictures that clearly show Ms. Gray but younger: smiling awkwardly into the camera with her arm around a little girl carrying a big trombone, or arms raised, conducting a band of kids dressed identically in red jackets.
Evelyn Gray, volunteer conductor of the Youth Music Society of Armstrong Grammar School in St. Louis . . .
Evelyn Gray, who graduated valedictorian from her high school in Tucson, Arizona, before attending Washington University St. Louis . . .
Evelyn Gray, pictured here helping the women’s extramural volleyball team spike their way to victory . . .
“She was an athlete,” Mia says, pointing to an image of Evelyn Gray midair, body contorted like a giant comma. “So we know she’s strong.”
Evelyn Gray, pictured here with first-chair student Lillian Harding . . .
“Music,” Wade finishes triumphantly. “That was clue number three in Return to Lovelorn. She taught music.”
“And she lived in Arizona. The desert. That was clue number one,” Owen says.
“Oh my God.” Abby has gone green. “Lillian Harding. I know that name.” For the first time since we kissed, she looks at me directly, and my heart does a sickening flop, like a wet rag slapping in my chest. “Remember that day we found you in the shed? There was a mouthpiece buried there with all that junk. It belonged to Lillian Harding. I googled her to see if there was a connection.”
“You googled Lillian Harding in Vermont,” Mia points out.
There’s an awful moment of silence. Owen reaches for his phone. A second later he stiffens.
“‘Lillian Harding of St. Louis,’” he reads quietly, “‘ten, disappeared on her way home from school on December 2 . . .’”
“Oh my God.” Abby turns away, and I have the urge to put my arms around her, to bury my mouth into the soft skin of her neck and tell her it will all be okay, even though of course it won’t. It’s already too late for that.
“There’s more,” Owen says. It’s so quiet in the moment before he begins reading again I can hear the tick-tick-tick of the old-school hanging clock. Wade no longer looks happy. Even he looks like he might puke on his boots. “‘The body of Lillian Harding, who disappeared on her way home from school on December 2, was found just after New Year’s Day by an ice fisherman in the Mississippi River, where she’d apparently drowned—’” Owen breaks off. He looks like he’s about to be sick. “Jesus. She’s quoted.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. I feel like I did the first—and only—time I took pills. Like my brain has been wrapped in a thick blanket.
“I mean they interviewed her. Listen. ‘“Lillian was a wonderful girl, and everyone loved her’” said Evelyn Gray, who gave Lillian lessons in French horn and has for two years been the conductor of the neighborhood youth orchestra. . . . “I’ll miss her very much.”’” He abruptly stops reading and wipes his mouth with a hand, as if the words have left a bad taste behind. “Christ.”
“She killed Summer,” I say. My voice sounds overloud in the silence. “What do you want to bet she killed Lillian too?”
“And kept the mouthpiece like a—what? Like a trophy?” Abby’s face is white.
“It’s pretty common for murderers to keep something that belonged to their victims,” Wade says. But even he looks sick. “It’s a way of reliving the connection.” I look at him and he shrugs, all bony shoulders and elbows. “I’ve read about it.”
“Holy shit. I saw her.” This occurs to me only as I’m saying it out loud. “The night I spent in the shed—she was there. I woke up and thought Summer was looking at me. All that blond hair . . . I was half-asleep,” I say quickly, because now Abby is staring at me as if she’s never seen me before. “But it was her.”
Owen stands up and then immediately sits down again. “We need to tell the police,” he says. “We need to tell someone.”
“No.” Mia practically shouts the word, and everyone jumps. She’s gripping the countertop like she’s holding herself in place. “No,” she says, a little quieter. “Not yet. I want to talk to her first. I want to know why.”
“It won’t change anything,” Owen says. “Besides, she’ll probably deny it.”
“I don’t think so.” It’s rare for Mia to sound so certain about anything, and for a second I wish that Summer were here to see how little mousy mute Mia grew up: gorgeous and tall and determined. “I think she wants to tell. I think it’s killing her. That’s why she goes back to the long field all the time. That’s why she dropped all those clues into the sequel. And that’s why she kept Lillian’s mouthpiece, I bet. It’s not a trophy. It’s a way of keeping Lillian alive. Of keeping their connection alive.”
Owen’s house suddenly feels very cold. “That’s sick,” I say.
Mia looks at me pityingly, and for the first time in our friendship I feel like the naive one, the girl who just doesn’t get it. “Ms. Gray made Lovelorn for us,” she says. “She made it come true. She must have thought she was doing us a favor. She must have loved Summer, in a way.”
“That’s fucking sick,” I say again, but I’m surprised that the words come out all tangled and my eyes are itchy as hell and suddenly I’m crying.
For a long second, no one moves. I can’t remember the last time I cried. Mia looks as if I’ve just morphed into a nuclear bomb, like any motion might detonate me and exterminate life on the entire planet.
And then, miraculously, Abby comes to me.
“Hey.” She barely touches me, but already I feel a thousand times better. And I don’t care about the fact that everyone’s staring at us, watching as I lean into her and put my head on her shoulder and inhale. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.”
I swipe my nose with my forearm. “I know,” I say. Because I know she’s forgiven me, and so it will be.
“We’ll all go,” Wade announces, nearly toppling one of the kitchen stools as he moves for the door. “We’ll all talk to her.”
“No,” Mia says again, and for the second time we all stare.
She looks at me and then Owen, then back to me again. Her eyes are very dark.
“She was ours to start with,” she says. I know she means Summer. “This is ours to finish.”