This Story Might Save Your Life(57)

“I take it Mom doesn’t keep in touch,” Sarah says.

“Neither of them do. Narcissistic assholes, both of them.”

“That’s a shame,” Sarah says. “Mallory and Xander are super close, though, right?”

Quinn huffs. “Well, like I said, their parents weren’t really around, so they only had each other.”

“But they’re a whole different kind of close,” Sarah presses on. “Benny and I like each other, but that doesn’t mean we’d want to work together full-time.”

I catch her eye, understanding. “We’d be butting heads the first week,” I lie.

We turn left onto a winding road. Our group is a full twenty feet ahead of us now. Quinn squints, chewing on her lip. “Mallory was a pretty sick kid, did you know that?”

I shake my head. “How so?”

“Not like cancer or anything. Chronic ear infections, mainly. But bad ones. Bad enough to make her vomit. Like, all the time. This was after they moved here, so it was just Niels in charge, and he has some sort of panic disorder when it comes to vomit. Or so he says. So guess who ended up taking care of her?”

“Big brother,” Sarah says with a frown. “Wasn’t he just a kid himself?”

“Teenager. But yeah.”

“That’s messed up,” I say.

“Like I said, model parents. Vomit is gross, but also fuck you, it’s your daughter.”

I stare down at the hot pavement passing beneath my feet as I reconcile teenage Xander with the Xander I know. It doesn’t endear him to me, especially now, but after seeing the role he’s taken with Joy’s health, I can imagine him signing on as Mallory’s caregiver. In fact, it makes perfect sense. “I always thought they had an unusual sibling dynamic.”

“Funny you say that,” Quinn says. “She doesn’t see it.”

“But you agree,” I say.

She nods. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we moved here.”

“In what way?” Sarah asks.

Quinn flicks her eyes toward me. “I mean, I get why she’s so loyal to him. You should’ve seen how happy she was when he called to offer her the position. I thought, sure, why not, this will be an adventure. She gets a cushy job with fun coworkers; I get to start the cupcakery I’ve been talking about for ages. We’ll have family to celebrate holidays with. And then we get here.” She sucks on her teeth.

“Not what you thought?” Sarah asks.

Quinn glances briefly at Sarah, then shoves her hands into her pockets. “You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“You’re safe with us,” Sarah says as we round another bend. “This is stressful, what we’re doing right now. It’ll help to let your thoughts out.”

Quinn takes a second, then exhales noisily, like Fine, have it your way. “Xander’s a fucking dick.”

I nearly choke on my spit. “But you just said—”

“I know what I said. That doesn’t make him any less of a dick.” She lowers her voice as the group slows to a stop at the next bend in the road. “I know you agree.”

Sickness swirls through my gut. I’d been genuinely, desperately hoping Sarah and I were wrong, but to hear this now, from Xander’s sister-in-law, while he’s actively missing?

“What were you and Mallory fighting about last night?” I don’t see the point in tiptoeing anymore. “Was it about Xander? About the divorce? Do you know what he was doing to Joy?”

Quinn lets out a surprised bark, between a laugh and a cough. “What the fuck?”

“Tell me the truth. You know something, don’t you?”

“Stop.” She shushes me as the rest of the group forms a loose semicircle ahead of us. “I know as much as you do.”

I pull out my phone and scroll until I find Joy’s text. My hand shakes as I hold it out. “Joy sent this the night before she went missing. Do you know what she might have meant?”

Quinn squints at the screen. “Piece together? XYZ?” She shakes her head.

I don’t believe her. “You’re hiding something.”

“What?”

I widen my eyes at Sarah. That wasn’t a no. “Just tell me, Quinn. Please.”

“Tell you what? Where the fuck is this coming from?”

“Quinn—”

She holds up both hands to make clear the conversation is over, then joins Mallory at the guardrail. My breathing shallows. I stare down the hillside covered in sagebrush, milkweed, and palm, and my legs go weak. I grab Sarah’s arm to steady myself.

“It’s okay,” Sarah whispers to me. “It’s gonna be okay.”

But is it? Until this point I’ve been able to maintain a small but necessary suspension of disbelief, convinced there might still be an innocuous, logical explanation for all of this. I held on to this hope even as I was calling the police and posting the episode begging for help. Even as they were searching Joy’s home, even as the hours passed without a single lead. But now?

Another woman who came prepared with hiking boots and a walking stick offers to go first. Quinn looks over her shoulder at me as she and Mallory follow. The rest fall into line. One by one, they clamber over the guardrail and trudge down the hill, strung hand in hand in a human chain.