I shake my head. “It’s a journal,” I say. “Alice’s journal.”
“Alice?” she asks sharply. “What are you talking about?”
I nod. “Yeah, apparently Finch got his hands on it. You are right, he is a real jerk. And he kind of hates all of you. Anyway, he’s using the journal to do some art project. At your expense I’m afraid.”
“What art project?”
“You’ll have to ask him for the details,” I say. “I’m more interested in what happened that night on the roof.”
“What roof?” This confusion is not as well executed. At last, her mask is slipping.
“I’ve read the journal, Maeve,” I say. “Alice was very upset. She wrote all about what happened.”
When Maeve shifts uncomfortably in her chair, it slightly eases my rising fury. “That guy was drunk, and he fell from the roof,” she admits finally. “And we didn’t call anyone, that’s true. But we did think he was— his neck looked broken.” She shudders dramatically. “We should have called someone anyway, obviously. It was a stupid, stupid thing.”
“Evan Paretsky,” I say.
“What?”
“That guy who died— he had a name. It was Evan Paretsky.”
“Oh, yeah.” Maeve looks down. “Of course he had a name. I’m not trying to dehumanize him.”
“You know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I think he recognized you.”
“Recognized me?” She looks up, almost serenely, mask perfectly affixed once more. “What are you talking about?”
“The Paretsky family house was right behind yours,” I say. “I think Evan saw you that night at Vassar, and he recognized you. I think he knew who you were and threatened to tell the others. So you pushed him off that roof.”
“I pushed him? He ‘lived behind me’？ I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She laughs a little and glances over at Dan. He looks stunned— eyebrows lifted, hand over his mouth. I think he’s finally recognized her. “That guy fell. It was an accident. You can ask anybody who was there.”
I nod, frowning skeptically. “In the end, you went with Alice that night, didn’t you? To keep her from getting all the way to Hudson. Because you were worried about her talking to Evan Paretsky’s mom and somehow it all getting traced back to you, which I’ve got to say was kind of unlikely. You ask me, you should have just let Alice go. No one would have ever found out about you— about the rest.”
“The rest of what?” Maeve asks, with a kind of amused exasperation, except there’s a little flicker of rage in her eyes, too.
“Who you really are,” I say. “That you’ve been alive all this time. Right, Bethany?”
Her face is still. She blinks once. “Who’s Bethany?”
I slide toward her one of the pictures I eventually found at the bottom of the envelope with the journal. A candid shot of the whole group— Maeve, Stephanie, Jonathan, Derrick, Keith, and a tiny girl with strawberry blond hair in two braids who must be Alice. They all look so young and happy and alive. Much better than they do now. Everyone except Maeve. Today, Maeve is much better looking than Bethany ever was, some would probably say beautiful. She’s also better looking than in the picture, which I’m guessing was taken freshman year. In the photo, Maeve’s face is rounder and softer, her body shapeless, dull brown hair unflatteringly short. And the sweater she’s wearing— the distinctive vivid green cropped cowl-neck knitted by Jane— is doing her no favors. And hey, I can relate. Mine never suited me either.
Maeve is staring down at the photo, silent.
“That’s my sister Jane’s sweater,” I say, leaning closer. “She was wearing it the day you killed her.”
“Who’s Jane?” Maeve asks, fingers pressing down on the table so hard the tips have gone white. That’s when I notice for the first time: she’s ripped off her acrylics and chewed her nails, some of them right down to the weeping cuticles. “I see a picture of all of us from back in school, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
I point to her image. “I’m saying that is Jane Scutt’s sweater. I’m saying that you must have pulled it off my sister Jane before you stabbed her more than twenty times with a rusted tent stake. You were her best friend, Bethany.”
Maeve assesses me curiously. Crosses her arms. Don’t slap her. “I don’t know a Bethany.”