“Whether or not you want to admit it, your friend is the key to this thing,” he says at last. “She either did something, or she knows something, and there’s a reason she’s gone.”
Sloane stares back at him, continuing to hug Nicole’s fragile frame before the two of them turn back around and walk wordlessly toward the house, the screen door slapping shut behind them.
“I know what goes on in a place like that,” Frank says to me next, his voice dipped low. I turn back toward him and he gestures to the shed. To the boys next door and everything they get away with. “And I know about Eliza. Levi’s old fling and your friend from before.”
He’s trying to play good cop now—trying to extend a hand, offer me a way out—even though I know better than to take it. Even though I know if I reach out, let my fingers curl around his, he’ll just grab my wrist and twist it instead.
“I would understand if something happened,” he continues. “If Lucy needed to protect herself or one of you. If it was self-defense, maybe—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, cutting him off.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “Because it seems like a pretty big coincidence. Your next-door neighbor, your two best friends.”
I continue to stare, silent, before Detective Frank finally sighs and stands up, nodding gently and making his way out front without uttering another word. Then, once he’s gone, I drop my head into my hands, pushing hard on my eyes until I see stars.
CHAPTER 44
BEFORE
Lucy and I are on our own private stretch of beach, necks sandy as we stare up at the sky. We found this spot a few days ago while we were wandering around, shoes dangling from our fingertips as we stumbled through the dunes. Trying to escape the crowds that, despite the cold weather and biting sea breeze, never really seem to dissipate around here.
There’s a faint crackle of fireworks somewhere to the north of us and the crashing of waves down by our feet, though it’s too dark to see how close we are to the water. I hear a sloshing to my left and turn to the side, vaguely register Lucy’s outstretched arm holding the bottle of wine she snagged from my parents’ pantry.
“Happy New Year, Margot.”
She wiggles the bottle in my direction, the sudden sound of her voice making me realize we’ve been lying in silence for a long, long time: ten minutes, maybe twenty, quietly comfortable in each other’s presence.
“Happy New Year, Luce.”
I grab the bottle and take a pull, the sweet bite of rosé making my skin prickle. We’re bundled up in sweatpants and sweatshirts, two knit blankets spread out between us, but still, it’s cold out here. We should have brought hot chocolate or something. Spiked it with Bailey’s.
Lucy has been in the Outer Banks for about a week now, the two of us sleeping feet-to-head in my bed, even though my parents have two perfectly acceptable guest rooms they made up for her the second they realized who she was. After we left Levi’s, we had walked back into my house to find my mother doing laps around the living room until she heard our entrance and stopped abruptly, clasping her hands tight behind her back like we had caught her stealing. I tried to ignore the hot flash of embarrassment that shot up my chest at the thought of her spending the entire hour since Lucy’s unexpected arrival running around in a flurry of nerves: collecting the dishes, lighting candles. Barking out orders and madly fluffing the throw pillows like Lucy might take one look at their lumpy physique and shake her head, disappointed in us all. Once we settled in, though, it turned into a slow, lazy week the way the holidays usually are and I actually found that I didn’t mind it. Thanks to my mom’s incessant questioning, I’ve learned more mundane details about Lucy’s life in the last seven days than I have in the last seven months combined. She grew up with cats, apparently, even though she thinks she might be allergic. She doesn’t have any extended family—no aunts, no uncles, no cousins—and even though I warned my mother not to ask too much about that, about how she grew up, she still found a way to pepper in her nosy inquiries, feigning ignorance when I shot her looks across the table.
“How about a boyfriend?” she had asked the other night, the four of us sitting close in the dining room. I could see my dad’s shoulders hunch instinctively; the small cough he’d let slip, like something was caught in his throat. “A pretty girl like you has to have one.”
“Mom,” I warned, but Lucy just laughed.