No One Can Know(75)

She felt like she was going to throw up. Or pass out. But she couldn’t. There was no time to collapse, to feel even a fraction of this betrayal. Nathan was dead, he was dead and it didn’t matter what he’d done, except that every one of his sins would be heaped upon her. Every bad thing he’d done would be a motive for killing him. She knew how this worked. She’d been here before. Every moment she spent on grief and confusion was a moment for the walls to close in around her.

The affair didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Nathan had chosen Addison instead of her, that he had been manipulating her, pretending to want to stay, just to get the money. Because Emma hadn’t killed him, and Addison certainly hadn’t. No, this had nothing to do with Addison, and everything to do with Arden Hills. With Emma and her family.

But it was like a corroded nail stuck straight through her, the thought that Addison had been the last person he talked to.

Her eyes flicked over to the time stamps, and she paused, frowning. The log showed that the call had been nearly fifteen minutes long. Far longer than the one they’d witnessed—and later, too, though only by a few minutes. Long enough that she hadn’t noticed or looked beyond that first entry.

Idiot, she chided herself.

She looked at the next entry down. There—one minute, fifty-eight seconds, to a phone number with a local area code. This one, she didn’t recognize. She plugged it into her phone and hit the call button.

The call picked up almost immediately. “Hadley speaking.”





38

DAPHNE




Then



Daphne sits in the tree house with her sisters, knees knocking against knees, shoulders bumping shoulders. It’s a warm May night, and the earliest bloom of fireflies blink and bob outside. It could be any night like this, except that it is the last night like this they will ever have. In two months their parents will be dead. None of them know it yet, of course, but Daphne feels something in the air where it touches her skin, like a hum.

“Let me see,” Juliette says. Emma sticks out her hand, and Juliette cradles it in both of hers, examining the bruised fingers, the swollen knuckles. She sucks her teeth. “That’s bad.”

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” Emma says, and Daphne can read the lie in the way her lips press together and her other hand closes tight into a fist.

“You shouldn’t provoke her,” Juliette tells her, softly chiding.

Emma pulls her hand back. “What, you’re saying it’s my fault?”

“That’s not what she said,” Daphne objects. They’re not supposed to fight here. “Is it, Jules?”

“I mean that you know what she’s like,” Juliette says. “That’s all. Just try to keep her happy.”

“Easy for the teacher’s pet to say,” Emma replies. “We all know you’re her favorite.”

“I hate her,” Juliette says viciously. “I hate both of them.” She reaches behind her. She pulls a cold can of Sprite out of her backpack and holds it out to Emma. “Here. Put that on it.”

Emma accepts the peace offering. She presses her knuckles against the cold metal. “I’m getting out of here. As soon as I can,” she says. Daphne’s heart gives one big, slushy thump in her chest.

“Where will you go?” Juliette asks.

“UCLA, I hope. I’ve already got my application done, mostly,” Emma says.

“They’ll never pay for it.”

“So I’ll take out loans,” Emma says.

“If you even get in.”

“She’ll get in,” Daphne says. She stares at the floor, her knees up against her chest. Emma is good. Better than good—brilliant. Their parents can’t see that, but Daphne can—she sees all the ways her sisters shine, and all their shadows. “You’ll get in and you’ll fly far, far away, and leave us all behind.”

“I would take you with me if I could,” Emma says, guilt heavy as a stone in her voice. Daphne only smiles a little, shakes her head. Emma and Juliette share a look, and Daphne pretends not to see. She’s the youngest, the baby, but that doesn’t mean she’s ignorant. What it does mean is that while both of them can reach out and wrap their desperate hands around the possibility of freedom, she is trapped for long years yet. Six years before she can escape, and she looks less like her father every day.

Juliette combs Daphne’s golden hair back behind her ears. “Everything will be all right,” she says. “We’ll figure something out.”

There are so few nights like this now. Not so long ago they would be out here every chance they got, but things have changed. Emma runs a finger along the back of her knuckles, and Daphne watches the movement. She knows her sisters would do anything for her.

Anything except stay.

But tonight, they’re here. They lie down on their sleeping bags and whisper late into the night. This is a sacred place. A place that is not out in the world, where they have to keep up appearances, or in the house, where they have to watch their every step. Here, in the dark, they can say all the dangerous true things they keep locked away from the light.

Juliette falls asleep first. She always seems so exhausted these days. Emma drifts off next, but Daphne looks up at the roof. There are gaps in the boards, and through them she can see a tiny sliver of starry sky. She has memorized the constellations, but she can’t see enough to pick them out.