Maybe Taylor was right. That if they came forward with the truth, it wouldn’t matter in the long run, and they would destroy their future for no real reason. Because what would change if they said anything?
She pounded the steering wheel. She didn’t know what to do!
She pulled out her phone and considered calling Chrissy. Tell her everything, ask her advice. But Chrissy was preparing for a major swim competition at the end of the week. How could she put this burden on her?
No, this was Candace’s burden to bear.
And she didn’t want to disappoint her sister.
She wished she could talk to her dad. She used to be so close to him, up until her parents’ divorce. It was like he was a completely different person. Dating a lot of women, buying an expensive car, working too much to make money to buy stuff he didn’t need. He’d never yelled at her or hurt her, but sometimes she wished she had told him he’d become a jerk. It was like he had to prove to her mom that he wasn’t the loser she thought he was. And her mom was no better. She remarried and raised a second family, her new husband’s three kids, and it felt too much like she and Chrissy were being replaced. Candace knew that wasn’t true, but nine times out of ten her mom opted to spend time with the younger kids over her and Chrissy. “They need me more,” was her excuse.
No way was Candace going to share anything with her parents.
She looked at her phone. A prepaid phone she’d bought last week because she thought someone had been spying on her. It seemed ridiculous, but she couldn’t shake the feeling, and after the party on Friday, she was pretty certain someone had been looking through her phone. Hard to prove, but she didn’t bring it with her to Kingman. Couldn’t risk getting Alexa in trouble if someone was tracking her.
It seemed unlikely when she thought about it, but so many odd things had happened she couldn’t shake this uneasy feeling.
It was after eleven. She’d been sitting in her car for an hour feeling sorry for herself. She needed to sleep, she needed to think. Maybe in the morning she’d have answers.
She walked into the dorm. Since it was late, most everyone was in their room. She didn’t see anyone as she went up to the third floor where she and Annie shared a room. She hoped Annie was there—she had the most level head of anyone she knew. Annie could talk sense into Taylor. Or tell Candace that she was wrong.
You’re not wrong. Stop letting Taylor get into your head!
The room was dark; Candace flipped on the lights. Annie wasn’t there. She hadn’t come back yet. Her grandmother had early-stage Alzheimer’s, and Annie went home almost every weekend to spend time with her. Candace understood that: if Chrissy had a serious medical issue, Candace would do everything she could to spend as much time with her sister as possible.
She hoped Annie got back soon.
Candace put her small overnight bag on the floor next to her bed and was about to change into her pajamas when something caught her eye.
Something out of place on her desk.
Her notebooks were in disarray, and the blue one that she knew she’d left on top was now on the bottom.
Candace was a neat person. She never left her desk a mess. She remembered where she put everything.
She looked in all three desk drawers; papers were disorganized. This wasn’t how she left her space.
She reassessed her room. Annie’s side was neat, as it always was, her bed made, three oversize, fluffed pillows covering half the bed.
Candace looked at her own bookshelf. The books were jostled, as if someone had pulled every book out to look inside and put it back without care. Her small bird-of-paradise that she had growing by the window had been knocked over: soil had spilled on the floor, but someone had righted the plant again. One of the stems had broken.
Someone had rifled through her things. Why? Why would anyone want to look through her stuff? And how did they get in?
She sat on her bed and didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, she was scared. She realized she couldn’t trust anyone, not her friends, not her roommate, not her teachers—someone had been looking for something, but what could they possibly want? Money? No, that was silly.
She stared at her overnight bag and felt the blood drain from her face. She knew exactly what someone had been looking for.
And who.
She grabbed her bag and her car keys and left.
Fourteen
Wednesday
Regan woke up early Wednesday morning to find her father already eating breakfast in the nook. It was one of Regan’s favorite rooms, and it reminded her of when life was less complicated, less sad.