“Riley,” I say again, my fingers shaking her arm. She doesn’t move; she doesn’t speak. I look at her wrists, at the line of red starting to form across her veins. I look at her neck, preparing myself to see those faint, finger-shaped bruises beginning to marble across the skin—but they’re not there. Not yet.
“Riley,” I repeat, shaking her gently. “Riley, come on.”
I bring my fingers beneath her ear and hold my breath, hoping to feel something, anything. And it’s there—just barely, but it’s there. A gentle pounding, her heartbeat, slow and labored. She’s still alive.
“Come on,” I whisper, trying to lift her up. Her body is deadweight heavy, but when I grab her arms, I see her eyes flicker, a rapid side-to-side movement, and she emits a gentle groan. It’s the Diazepam, I realize. She’s heavily drugged. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise I’m going to—”
“Chloe?”
Immediately, my heart stops—there’s someone behind me. I recognize his voice, the way my name rolls around in his mouth like a lozenge before melting on his tongue. I would recognize it anywhere.
But it doesn’t belong to Daniel.
I stand up slowly, turning around to face the figure behind me. The room is just bright enough for me to make out his features.
“Aaron.” I try to think of an explanation, a reason for why he’s standing here, in this house—my house—but my mind goes blank. “What are you doing here?”
The moon dips behind a cloud, and suddenly, the room goes dark. My eyes widen, trying to see, and when the light streams through the blinds again, Aaron seems closer—by a foot, maybe two.
“I could ask you the same question.”
I turn my head to the side, looking at Riley, and I realize how this must look. Me, kneeling over an unconscious girl in the dark. I think back to Detective Thomas hovering in my office, the way he had glared at me, suspicious. My fingerprints on Aubrey’s earring. His words, accusatory.
The common thread binding all this together seems to be you.
I motion to Riley and open my mouth, trying to speak, but I feel a choke lodge itself in my throat. I stop, clear it.
“She’s alive, thank God,” Aaron interrupts, taking a step closer. “I just found her myself. I tried to get her to wake up but I couldn’t. I called the police. They’re on their way.”
I look at him, still unable to speak. He senses my hesitation and keeps talking.
“I remembered you had mentioned this house. How it just sits here, empty. I thought maybe she might be here. I called you a few times.” He lifts his arms, as if to gesture to the room, before dropping them back to his sides. “I guess we had the same idea.”
I exhale, nodding. I think back to last night, to Aaron in my motel room. His eager hands as they snaked through my hair; the way we lay there afterward, quietly. His voice in my ear: I believe you.
“We have to help her,” I say, finding my voice. I swing back around to Riley and crouch down next to her, checking her pulse again. “We have to make her throw up or something—”
“The police are coming,” Aaron says again. “Chloe, it’s going to be okay. She’ll be fine.”
“Daniel has to be close,” I say, rubbing my fingers against her cheek. It feels cold. “When I woke up, I had all these missed calls. He left me a voice mail, and I thought maybe—”
Then I stop, remembering the sequence of that night again. Of me drifting into sleep, of Aaron’s chapped lips sticking to my forehead as he kissed me goodnight. I stand up slowly, turning around. Suddenly, I don’t want my back to be facing him.
“Wait a second.” My thoughts are moving slowly, like they’re trudging through mud. “How did you know Riley was missing?”
I remember waking up, a full day later, after Aaron had left. Calling Shannon, those slow, wet sobs.
Riley’s gone.
“It’s on the news,” he says. But there’s something about the way he says it—cold and rehearsed—that I don’t quite believe.
I take a small step backward, trying to put more distance between us. Trying to stand firm between Aaron and Riley. I watch his expression change as I step away—the slight hardening of his lips into a thin, tight line; his jaw muscles tensing, his fingers curling into his palms.
“Chloe, come on,” he says, trying to smile. “There’s a search party and everything. The whole town is out looking for her. Everyone knows.”