Caro took a cautious step forward. “I’m Caroline.”
The eyes of the crowd swung to me.
“Me.” I cleared my throat. “Jessica.”
The cop nodded curtly. “Come with me to answer some questions.”
Panic swelled. With every footstep, the weight of the crowd’s eyes felt like a crown of thorns, sinking deeper into my skull.
It’ll be okay, I whispered to myself. You’ll tell the truth. Just not all of it.
Chapter 11
Now
Eric’s words echoed through the basement: One of us. A liar. A monster. A killer.
“You’re insane,” Courtney said, staggering toward the basement stairs. “All the evidence pointed to Jack. The murder weapon—”
“I know about the evidence,” Eric said. “All the evidence, not just what they tried to pin on him.”
“What do you mean, pin on him?” Frankie asked hotly. “Jack fucking killed Heather. Everyone knows it.”
“Oh, everyone, huh?” Eric turned to me, and the heat of his stare felt like an interrogation lamp. I took a step back. “Do you believe Jack’s the killer, Jessica? Is that why you’ve stayed friends with him all these years?”
Every one of my friends’ heads snapped in my direction.
“Is that true?” Courtney was a shark, sensing blood in the water. “Are you secret besties with Heather’s killer?”
“It’s not what you think,” I said, panicked by the carefully blank expression on Coop’s face, which I knew was his look of betrayal. “I don’t believe Jack did it. And it’s not fair to punish him for something he didn’t do.” My voice rose. “He was our friend.”
“Sounds exactly like what we thought,” Mint said dryly. “That’s really low, Jess. Here you are paying your respects to Heather like you haven’t been betraying her memory since she died.”
“You never told me,” Caro said accusingly. “All these years.”
“He’s innocent,” I sputtered.
“How do you know?” Coop’s voice was measured, distant. I found his eyes. Vivid green, so full of flecks of color they were like miniature universes, caught and suspended in his face.
“I just do. It’s an instinct.”
“Great,” Frankie said. “An instinct totally trumps finding Caro’s bloody scissors under Jack’s bed.”
Caro flinched at Frankie’s words, looking at Eric. But the shy, skinny freshman had grown into a solid block of a man, one who could withstand mention of his sister’s murder weapon without a change in expression.
What her death must have done to him. His whole life—the person he’d been growing into—reshaped around his sister’s death. Like a vase at a potter’s wheel, smoothed and molded around the dark, hollow space of her absence.
Eric faced Frankie. “Like I said. The cops didn’t tell the public everything. You want to know the truth? They couldn’t pin the murder on Jack because the evidence didn’t add up. And I mean all the evidence, not just what you’ve heard. For instance”—He took a step forward, somehow looming over Frankie’s linebacker build—“I know your secret.”
The blood drained from Frankie’s face. Eric knew Frankie’s secret? The one he’d kept for all these years. But what did that have to do with—
“I know where the cops found you the night she died.” Eric spun to face the rest of us. “Do you know? How close are you all, really?”
“Eric.” My voice was unsure. “Don’t…” I met Frankie’s eyes. They were filled with fear.
“Ten years you’ve gotten a reprieve, but now your time is up.” His voice rose an octave. “Hours after Heather was killed, the cops pulled young Mr. Francis Kekoa here off the top of Brooksman Bridge.”
I sucked in a breath, thrown off-kilter. Frankie had been on Brooksman the night of Heather’s murder? Why? I remembered now: he’d been absent from the crowd outside our suite that terrible morning. Jack had been gone, too, but everyone knew Jack had been in an interrogation room, the police’s top suspect in the stabbing.
“What did you confess to the cops, Frankie?”
Frankie’s face paled.
“Hey, listen, Shelby,” Mint said, trying to rise to Frankie’s defense, but Eric plowed on.
“You said you were so racked with guilt that you were going to kill yourself, didn’t you? You were going to jump off that bridge, but you wouldn’t tell the cops why. Tell us now, Frankie. What did you do that made you feel so guilty?”