“But you’re only worried about two,” Juniper said coldly.
“Eleven minutes is a long time.”
“It wasn’t an issue then. And there was no gunshot residue on Jonathan’s hands. There’s no way he shot that gun.”
Everett leaned forward with his arms on the table and gave Juniper a caustic look.
“You think…？” But Juniper couldn’t complete the thought. Did he think she had killed the Murphys, and Jonathan had covered it up?
“I’m just asking questions. Honestly, Juniper, I’m most interested in a witness. I can’t shake the feeling that someone knows something they’re not telling.”
Juniper held his gaze even as her stomach filled with bile.
After a second he shrugged. Sat back. “Know what I did a couple weeks ago? It warmed up a bit, so I went for a jog. And going at a good clip it took me just under six minutes to run from your parents’ farm to the old Murphy place.” He counted off five more minutes on his fingers. The intent was clear: Jonathan （or she?） could have easily pulled off three shots in the five extra minutes. Or at least seen who did.
“I’m done here.” Juniper was propelled to her feet by fury. Officer Stokes had acted so nice, so personable, but she should have known that he was only playing her. He was out for information, and she was afraid that she had already given him far too much. She had taken him at face value and arrived guileless and unafraid. Just the way he wanted her to. She should have brought a lawyer.
“Hey.” Everett stood, too. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t mean to upset you, Juniper. I’m just poking around. Comes with the badge. Let me walk you to the door.”
“I know the way,” she said, abandoning her cup of soup and nearly untouched sandwich on the table. He could clean it up.
“Juniper, wait.”
She paused at the door for just a second, wary.
“Just answer me this: Why did Jonathan have your necklace? It seems strange to me that the only thing he would have on him the day he fell through the ice is his sister’s necklace. That’s weird, right? And to think, you had just arrived in town a couple nights before…”
But Juniper was already gone. She stalked down the hallway and wrenched open the front door, pausing for just a moment when Everett called her name.
“Wait,” he said, stopping a few feet from where she stood letting cold air into the stuffy building. “Here. I thought you might like to have this back.”
Everett tossed something into the air between them and Juniper automatically put out a hand to catch it. It was the evidence bag with her necklace inside. She stared at it for just a moment before cramming it in the pocket of her parka and storming out the front door, letting it slam behind her when the wind caught it. It wasn’t until she was walking up the steps to the library that she realized she hadn’t even had a chance to tell Officer Stokes that her tires had been slashed. Thing was, she no longer dared to.
He’d made her situation crystal clear: Juniper was on her own.
CHAPTER 18
SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Sullivan and I are a detective team—sort of. He keeps me apprised of what’s going on in the Tate house and I share what I learn from Jonathan. It’s not much, and we’re not very good sleuths, because by the time the Fourth of July rolls around, we really haven’t learned much.
We have, however, spent more time together than I ever imagined possible. Late nights melt into early mornings that find me sneaking in through the upstairs bathroom window. It’s a narrow double-hung with a view of the towering maple in our side yard, and I can’t believe it’s never crossed my mind before to use it as a secret entrance. I suppose I’ve never really needed to. In many ways I’m grateful; my arms and legs are scored with fine cuts from climbing up and down the old tree, and a layer of guilt sticks to me like grime. I’m not a liar. One morning Mom runs her fingertips over my wrist when she sees one of the red welts, and though her eyes search mine for a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. In some ways, her silent acceptance of the secrets between us is worse than an interrogation. Ask me, I want to whisper. But she walks away. And I text Sullivan.
It’s a reckless, butterflies-in-my-stomach, heart-made-of-paper-and-kite-string feeling to be with Sullivan Tate. We riffle through the receipts in his dad’s farm office, then lose track of what we’re doing when Sullivan presses me against the filing cabinet and kisses me hard. We spy on Dalton and Jonathan, but they slip away when Sullivan asks me a question and then leans forward to listen to every single word of my answer. I learn to wait when he holds up one finger, a thought forming in the silence between us before he begins to speak, each word carefully chosen and full of weight. He discovers that a single kiss at the base of my spine will undo me completely.