“I know,” Audrey says, swinging her foot off the motorcycle again and coming to stand beside me. “It’s fucked up. Pierce made sure they dropped the charges—she wouldn’t have been able to get her PI license if he hadn’t—but the arrest record is still there. And I’m sure that fucked up her chances a bit. Anyway, then Katy left and never came back.”

  She wraps one lean arm over my shoulders, her touch comforting and strong.

  I lean into it, resting my head on her shoulder. “That bitch.”

  “Yeah,” Audrey says. “She is.”

  “Why do you think she did it?” I ask.

  Audrey shrugs one shoulder. “You’d have to ask your mom or Veronica,” she says. “Though neither of them seems like the secret-spilling type. But I’m sorry the Anselm family fucked up your family so bad.”

  “Yours too,” I whisper against her shoulder. “I didn’t know…Audrey, I didn’t know that we were the same. That both our families died in that park.”

  “The Anselm family has always been evil,” Audrey says bitterly. “And I—I don’t know why your mom still speaks to them at all. I don’t know why she’s doing this for Pierce. If it were me, I’d want to ruin them all.”

  I lean away from her just slightly. “Audrey,” I say, but then I shake my head. “Come on. We can go over our notes at the motel. I don’t want to be out here after nightfall.”

  She shudders and then helps me back onto the bike. She hesitates, as if she wants to say something more, but then the motorcycle roars to life under her hands.

  And then we’re off, leaving Haeter Lake behind us as we once again take the curving road north of town that goes up, up, up like a roller coaster taking us deeper into the forest.

  Mom is still out, so I text her:

  Audrey is taking me back to the motel.

  Nowhere else, Mom texts back immediately.

  Yeah. Nowhere else.

  We do stop for muffins from the diner—lemon poppy seed for me and cranberry orange for Audrey—but Mom doesn’t need to know about that bit.

  I flop down on my bed and pull out my notebook. Audrey sprawls next to me, her body so close she’s almost touching mine.

  “So,” she says tentatively. “Do you wanna talk about the case? Or do you wanna go burn some of the Anselms’ shit?”

  A laugh bubbles up from my chest despite myself. “Maybe both,” I say. “But no. We can. You think that the Anselms killed Pierce and are trying to frame your mom, yeah?”

  Audrey’s face hardens. “Yeah,” she says.

  “But why would they kill Pierce?” I prop myself up on my elbow. “If it’s Curtis, why now? He’s already hated him forever. If it’s Blake and Veronica, why now when Blake is going to inherit the company?”

  “Maybe Pierce was going to come clean about all the shit they’ve covered up?” Her eyes flick to me. She looks like she wants to say something more, and my heart beats a little faster. Then she shakes her head and leans back on the pillow again. “Maybe stuff that went as far back as your grandparents. Definitely the stuff that happened when my dad died.”

  She takes my notebook and pen, starts writing a list of suspects and reasons and clues.

  Curtis Anselm. Disinherited, bitter, angry. Or maybe lonely, grieving, kind. Or maybe both.

  Blake Anselm. Bitchy is all Audrey writes at first, though when I threaten to steal the pen from her and do it myself, she writes down the rest of it. Power. The family company. Money. Inheritance.

  Veronica. I stop Audrey before she can just write bitchy again, and we write down theories about cover-ups and about what Pierce might have known or not known.

  We write down others, too—Mickey, the diner owner who is an ex of Blake’s, who never really liked Pierce. A former mayor who lost his seat because the Anselms funded his opponent. But no one with recent rage, no one with any new and pressing reasons to push Pierce from the top of his own roller coaster. Just his family, and Audrey’s, and mine, tangled up in one another for three generations now.

  Outside, the shadows are growing long again. The wind is blowing and the trees are groaning outside the motel, and the little rocking chair down the way creaks loudly. But in here, Audrey’s body is warm beside mine and she looks like she could handle anything that comes through that door.

  So I let myself lean back on the pillow. I let my eyes drift shut.

  Eventually, I even let myself sleep.

  And when I do, I dream of it all. Roller coasters and bloodstains and mansions and a grandmother who has my name.

  I wake when it’s still dark. Probably because I’m cold.

  Sundress has hogged all the blankets, is practically burrito-d in them, just her wild red hair spilling out at the top.

  I groan and roll over.

  I hadn’t meant to fall asleep here.

  And—

  Fuck.

  There are seven missed calls from Mom. Way more texts.

  Sorry, I text. Stayed at motel with Lucy.

  The dots appear immediately.

  Get your ass home, she responds.

  Lucy’s mom lifts her head when I slip toward the door. “Be safe,” she says softly.

  I acknowledge her with a nod, but by the time I’m out the door I have another text from Mom.

  Never mind. Stay where you are. I’ll facetime.

  Mom looks exhausted when I answer her calls; still in her scrubs, still looking as if she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks.

  “What the hell?” she snaps. “I was worried sick.”

  I shove my keys into the pocket of my jeans. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Mom, I am. I’m sorry. I meant to text. I just fell asleep.”

  Mom’s brow furrows, and with horror I realize she looks closer to crying than she does to yelling at me. “And you were there all night, baby?” she asks. “Do you promise? And Katy and her little girl can vouch that you were?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, of course, Mom. Why?”

  “Do you promise?” A single tear streaks down her face. “You can tell me. You can tell me if you weren’t.”

  “Mom.” I shove my hands uncomfortably into my pockets. “What’s this about? Where do you think I was?”

  “There’s another body,” she answers after a beat. “Baby, there was another body and I think they’re gonna try to pin it on us, too, and I don’t know how yet, but they will—”

  “Mom,” I cut her off. “Mom, whose body? What’s going on?”

  “They found Arthur Joyce, the librarian.” She drops into a chair in our tiny kitchen and puts her head in her hands. “On the dam. They found him just after midnight. Some kids who were out having a bonfire by the river found him. I was at the clinic when they brought him in.”

  “Jesus.”

  Mr. Joyce has always been kind to me. Even after all the shit I did, even after everyone started looking at me as nothing more than that little shit from the trailer, the girl with no future but this, he always had a smile and a book recommendation if I wanted one. I wasn’t even much for reading, at least anything that didn’t have pictures. But he’d find a graphic novel or recommend one I could order.

  And he’s—

  He’s dead.

  “What happened?” I drop onto the curb, my legs feeling suddenly too wobbly to keep me standing.

  Mom leans closer to the phone, her voice dropping. “Cliff will probably be back around asking questions,” she said. “But first, you need to tell Lucy you want to talk. When you’re in person, and Katy isn’t around and listening—and only then—tell her to make sure she tells the cops you were with her all night.”

  My face warms, and I duck my head to hide my blush. “Okay,” I say. “Yeah, okay. But why—what happened to him? Was it an accident? Why would they come after us for it?”

  Mom sighs, her eyes shutting for a brief moment before she opens them again. She glances over my shoulder toward the motel rooms, where the curtains are still drawn tightly. “Last night, Katy took Lucy to the library. And Lucy asked questions about her family. And after that, Arthur called Cliff and said he had some information.”

  Mom’s face twists the way it only ever does when she’s thinking about Dad.

  I gasp. “Mom.”

  “Not about Dad,” she says. “About the old accident, with Katy’s parents. Cliff’s deputy—the new girl, Annika—told me this morning. She has the recording from the nine-one-one call, where Arthur mentioned there was something he should have told Katy a long time ago. And if there was something about that park, something about Katy’s family—then we were probably right about your dad, too.”

  “Of course we were right about Dad,” I snap. “So you think—”

  My words are cut off when lights flash, red and blue and harsh all around Mom, bleeding through the window. I don’t have to see to know that it’s Cliff pulling up in front of our trailer, his sirens off, but those horrible lights flashing the way they have on all the worst days of my life.

  “The Anselms are powerful,” Mom says urgently. “And I’m going to keep us both safe, okay? Just keep your head down. Don’t tell Cliff anything. And trust me, all right? We’re going to get some answers, baby. For us. And for your dad.”

  Lucy 6:14 a.m.

  My alarm goes off for the third time, but this time when I reach to snooze it, my phone is gone, and Audrey is nowhere to be seen.

  I groan and drag my eyes open. Katy is sitting on her bed in the motel, already impeccably dressed in her navy-blue pantsuit and heels, holding my phone and letting the alarm ring and ring and ring, growing in volume as it does.

  “Ugh, Katy.”

  But the expression on her face stops me.

  She looks paler, more tired than I’ve ever seen her.

  “No more of the snooze and reset game, Lucille,” she says. She pastes on a smile, something that’s almost convincing, and finally silences her alarm. “Come on. Up, up. I have a meeting at seven with the sheriff, and you need breakfast first.”

  “Breakfast is a human need, Katy,” I tell her, shoving the thin, fraying motel quilt off me. I stand, groaning again as I stretch. “I refuse to let you make me feel bad for it, just because you consider coffee a meal.”

  We both hesitate, the weight of everything I learned—everything she lost—hanging between us, unspoken as it has always been, but heavier now.

  Then Katy tosses my phone back to me and takes a long sip of her coffee, waggling her eyebrows at me as she does it. “I also have meals,” she teases when she finally sets her disposable coffee cup down. “I just prioritize coffee sometimes. Hurry and get dressed. We’ll grab breakfast from the diner. Though if you take a hundred years to get dressed, that breakfast is going to have to be to-go.”

  So we’re not talking about it, I guess.

  Not talking about any of it.

  “To-go is fine,” I say, shoving down the flash of anger. “As long as I can hang out with Audrey afterward.”

  Katy grins, and my blush is automatic. “I like your new friend,” she says. “She’s outside, by the way. On the phone and pacing like a tiger.”

  I disappear into the bathroom to splash water onto my face and change into a dress, a soft blue thing with yellow daisies that ends just above my knees. I consider the leggings and T-shirt in case the motorcycle is our mode of transportation again today, but who is there to see me if my dress blows around a bit? Besides, I know I look cute in this, and that’s the most important thing here.

  I tuck my notepad and pen into the pocket of the dress and lace up my Converses. I love the look of it, the soft dress and the fiercer tone of the sneakers, but as I’m lacing them up, I catch Katy watching me, a small, amused smile on her face.

  “Who would’ve guessed that it would be Langley’s kid?” she muses, almost as if to herself.

  I huff impatiently. “Ugh, Mom, she’s a friend. Anyway, when do I get the full story of how you’re connected to this place?” I need a distraction from the conversation about Audrey, which is rapidly veering into does-Lucy-have-a-crush territory.

  Even if I do think she’s cute.

  I mean, I have eyes. Of course I can see that Audrey’s pretty.

  But we were brought together by some depressing shit, so it’s not like I have a crush.

  Whatever.

  “Lucy,” Katy says firmly, her eyes meeting mine. “I know…I know you want to talk. Need to talk. I’m sure Arthur told you a lot yesterday, and you have questions. And after all this is over, we’ll go somewhere warm—beach and Wi-Fi as requested—and sit down and have a conversation.” Katy’s eyes go distant, and her thumb grazes the tattoo on her forearm, back and forth, back and forth.

  Memento vitae.

  Remember to live.

  “Can’t you just tell me now?” I ask her. “I’m here. I’m listening. I want to know where we come from, Mom.”

  I want to know who we are.

  I want to know who my grandparents are, to push aside the cobwebs of stories I created for myself as a child and see them. I saw their pictures yesterday. I saw a glimpse of them, and I feel more lost than ever.

  Were they strong and bold like Katy? Did they make each other laugh? Did they love each other?

  Does Katy hate Veronica for the attempted career sabotage? Does she hate Blake and Curtis for being unable to stop her?

  “I will,” Katy promises me now. “But I can’t talk about it here. I—It’s all too close. What happened to—to my parents. It was all so awful, and afterward the Anselms were kind to me. Beyond that…Beyond that, honey, I can’t talk about it here, okay?”

  Kind seems like a weird description when Mom has tried to sneak me away from the Anselms twice now in two days.

  Again, there’s that strange flash of anger. I’m not usually an angry person. I’m pretty chill actually if you ask Jules or Amy or Nora or any of my friends back home. But maybe anger is that missing piece of me. Maybe anger is the thing I was meant to find here.

  So I stare back at my mom, my hands balled into fists, because I don’t have the words to tell her that none of what she said is enough for me.

  “I really do have to be at a meeting soon,” Katy says, sighing a little. “Cliff says we’ve got an urgent development. But after this investigation is done, you can ask any question you want, and I’ll answer. I promise.” Katy lifts her briefcase, her gaze snapping back to me. “Are you ready?” she asks. “We need to go.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “Can Audrey just take me to the diner instead? She’s still outside on the phone with her mom. We can hang out together.”

  Katy hesitates, but I glare at her again, and she sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll give you money for food for today. Text me whenever you go somewhere that’s not the diner, okay? Even if it’s just back to the library.”

  I groan, but her look doesn’t waver. “Sure.”

  She’s silent as we gather our things, sometimes running a finger idly over her tattoo again. So I’m quiet, too.

  If she’s not gonna tell me shit, I’m not gonna talk to her, either.

  I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the motel window and stare out into the trees as Katy finishes gathering her things.

  Audrey is out front leaning against her motorcycle.

  Mom presses some cash into my hand for breakfast and lunch at the diner. She rolls down the window when I get onto Audrey’s bike. “Both of you be safe,” she says. “Stay in town. Text me if you need anything.”

  “We’ll be good, Ms. Preston,” Audrey says.

  There’s something reckless, wild, dark in her eyes, and I want to get closer to it.

  I’ve been such a good girl. Nice and charming and funny and endearing. But I like that Audrey isn’t. Like with her, maybe I don’t have to be, either.

  “Was your mom mad at you for staying the night?” I blurt before I can stop myself.

  She was there when I fell asleep, her arm warm where it touched mine.

  She nods. “Yeah, my mom was pissed. She didn’t know where I was.”

  “Oh shit. Are you okay?”

  Audrey nods, hands twisting together. “She was more worried about the poor librarian. And the cops came asking us questions about him, too. There’s some bad shit going on, Lucy.”

  I freeze. “The—what are you talking about?”

  “Your mom didn’t tell you?” She tilts her head. It’s only then that I realize her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying. “They found Arthur Joyce’s body last night, the librarian. On the dam. My mom said she doesn’t know if it’s a homicide or not, but Cliff—the sheriff—came asking us both what we were doing last night.”

  Holy shit.

  Arthur.

  Arthur, who kept calling me Katy and offering me books. Arthur, who unlocked the answers I had been looking for.

  Arthur, who told me to stop digging.

  “That rich family is guilty as hell,” I blurt sharply.

  Audrey nods. Her gaze looks almost blank, too overwhelmed by everything that’s happened in the last few days. She holds out her hands, palms up. “I don’t—Lucy, I don’t know what to do. My mom said that Arthur called the sheriff, said he had something he had to tell them about the accident, and then he…then he died.”

  I straighten. “Okay,” I say. “Okay, okay. So. My mom is scared of the Anselms. We know that. They tried to blame your mom for Pierce’s death. Arthur wanted to tell the police something, and now he’s dead. And both our moms told us to stay away from this case.”

  Audrey looks pale. “Do you think they—do you think they killed him for talking to you?” Her voice is barely more than a whisper.

  A shiver races down my spine. “Holy shit,” I whisper back. “Audrey. Do you think—Oh my god. Oh my god.”

  “Hey, Sundress,” she says softly. “Breathe.”

  I take in a panicked breath, and then another. Only on the fourth breath does it start to feel a little less like I’m on the verge of needing to breathe into a paper bag. “Is it my fault?” I ask her.

  Audrey shakes her head. “No,” she says firmly. “No. Okay? Whoever hurt him, they are the ones at fault. Not you.”

  “What should we do?” I ask her. I’m cold. I’m cold all the way down to my toes, and not because of the weather.

 

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