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.

“What is the lawyer saying?” my dad mutters. “Do they have enough to keep him?”

Ashley sounds defeated. “There’s no use. The DNA under Bailey’s fingernails was a partial match to Andrew’s.”

The blood in my body drains to my feet for the second time that day.

“DNA?” My father’s voice is a controlled shout. “Why the hell do they have his DNA, Ashley?”

“Because he offered it to them,” Ashley shouts. “He’s an adult, goddamn it. I trusted him when he said it would rule him out.”

I stick my head in the doorway. “Does it mean he did it?”

“No—not necessarily. It means he had contact with her before she died, though,” Ashley says.

“Ashley, should you be speaking like this in front—”

“In front of who, Russ?”

“My daughter, goddamn it.”

My dad pinches the area between his nose and shakes. A silent sob.

Ashley doesn’t go to him. I can’t, either, even though he called me his daughter.

My father wipes the area under his eyes. “I’ll stay with Andrew. Get some sleep, Ash.”

When we hear the click of the front door shutting, Ashley collapses onto one of the island stools.

I still feel like I owe my family fucking everything, but I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore. Not for Jade, who said she’d never forgive me—but for Bailey, who no matter what kind of shit she pulled behind my back, is dead and doesn’t deserve to be.

“One of your knives is missing,” I tell Ashley. “I noticed this morning.”

She picks her head up from her hands. “What?”

“One of the nice ones. The big chef’s one. I looked everywhere.”

Ashley re-covers her face with her hands. “Oh God. Oh God.”

There’s a sharp pang in my chest. This is real. He did this. Why did he do this?

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Ashley says, pulling me back down from my thoughts.

I don’t know what else to do, so I fill Ashley’s travel mug with coffee while she calls Mrs. Lao.

“Mrs. Lao says she’ll keep an eye on the house,” Ashley says. “Are you sure you and Lauren will be okay?”

I nod, the ache in my throat creeping down my neck. “You should be there.”

When she’s gone, it’s quiet. I lie on the couch, letting the sobs move to my toes. Bailey is dead. Jade is a liar. Andrew is a killer.

A shadow moves over the couch behind me.

I turn to see Lauren in the doorway. She cocks her head at me. “Kacey?”

“Yeah, Monkey?”

“Is Andrew arrested?”

“Probably,” I answer.

“Why?” she asks.

“They have his DNA. It matches some they found…on Bailey.”

Lauren starts to cry, heavy, ugly sobs. I swing my legs over the side of the couch. Sit up and look at Lauren. Her face is red and splotchy. Twisted with fear.

“What if the DNA came from someone else?” Lauren sniffs. “Could they prove it?”

My head is swimming. Why would Lauren ask something like that?

Something Ashley said burrows into my brain. The DNA was a partial match. Meaning, there’s a chance the DNA on the body wasn’t Andrew’s.

It was just similar to his DNA. I suck in a breath. Fuck.

“Lauren.” My feet are frozen to the floor; I can’t turn to meet my sister’s eyes. When I force my body to face hers, her face is bunched up and red, like a newborn’s. I swallow. “Lauren, why are you crying?”

“Because—Andrew—killed—Bailey—”

My thoughts swarm; I think of the texts Burke showed me.

I don’t want to wake my fam up.

“No, he didn’t.”

I’ve never seen Andrew abbreviate family like that. It’s such a small detail that Bailey wouldn’t have noticed the difference. She’d never notice that she wasn’t texting Andrew.

“You took Andrew’s phone.” As I say it out loud I know it’s true. “He must have left it behind, like he’s always doing—you took his phone and pretended to be him to get her to meet you.”

Lauren shakes her head, her wails reaching a crescendo. “No, no, no.”

“Why did you do it?” My heart is racing. My head is going to explode from trying to piece everything together. Make sense of this.

“She said I had to,” Lauren cries.

I launch myself off the couch and rush over to Lauren. “Who is she? Jade?”

My sister stares at me. Eyes wide. “No. The Red Woman did.”

I grab her by the wrists. “What the hell are you talking about?” Lauren wriggles away from me, letting out a primal scream.

“You don’t understand. I had to do it. She told me I had to do it.”

“Lauren.” I look her in the eyes, evenly, even though my whole body is quaking. “Did you kill Bailey?”

My sister lets out another wail. Balls her hands into fists and beats them against her head.

“Lauren, stop.” I get hold of one of her arms. She throws me off her; something pops under my collarbone. In the split second I take to wince and roll my shoulder, Lauren tears away from me. She’s across the living room and unbolting the front door.

I run after her, holding the wall so I don’t slip on the hardwood. Lauren is already running down the steps. I scream for her to stop, but my voice gets lost in the wind. Snow and ice pelt my face; I’m in my socks, still.

My toes go numb—Lauren’s running around the side of the house, toward the woods. Sparrow Hill. If she tries to run across the street in these conditions, any drivers coming down the hill won’t be able to stop in time.

“Lauren,” I shriek. “Stop.”

She halts at the edge of the road. She turns and looks at me as a car whizzes past, lifting her hair, like a veil, off her back. I kick off the snow and reach her in three steps. When I grab her, she starts to thrash and shriek again.

“Just let me die too.” Her voice is guttural, as if an entity has taken possession of her body. I wrap my arms around her and squeeze. I pull her down to the ground, use my knees to pin her so she can’t get away. My tears drop onto Lauren’s face. “What did you do?”

She doesn’t answer. She continues to shriek and sob as I dial 911 and tell them to send help to Sparrow Road as soon as possible.