“Yeah,” Sloane says. “Her phone’s not there.”
I nod, pulling my legs up under me. “How about in the desk?”
“Gone, too.”
I put my hand on Nicole’s knee, squeezing gently. This is the hardest for her, I know. The performance, the lies. She’s a good person.
“I’m sorry—” she starts, but Sloane shakes her head, cutting her off.
“I already told you, it’s not your fault.”
“What did Frank say to you out there after we left?” Nicole asks me next.
“Nothing,” I say. “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing fine.”
“God, I hate this,” she says, sinking farther into the bed. She lays her head on Lucy’s pillow and I notice a black curl there, long and coiled, resting delicately on top. A little piece of her still stuck to the sham.
I bet, if we looked hard enough, we’d find pieces of her everywhere.
“It’ll be over soon,” Sloane says. “Give it a couple days. They’ll find the stuff on her phone.”
“How long until you think it all comes out?”
They both look at me and I just shrug, attention drifting around the room. I feel a bit dazed, seeing it like this, sort of like taking in the ruins of a place you once loved. Her room the epicenter of the earthquake that shook our lives apart.
“I have no idea,” I say at last. “The press is still reporting she’s a student. Rutledge has got to say something eventually.”
“They’re probably scrambling,” Sloane says, laughing a little. “Can you imagine the dean admitting that a random person spent an entire year shacking up in their dorm and nobody knew about it? She kept a shower caddy in the bathroom, for Christ’s sake.”
“The parents will have pitchforks,” I say. “And my mother will be leading the pack.”
Nicole smiles, finally, and I feel something lighten in my chest when I look at her. She glances at Sloane, then at me, and the three of us burst out laughing, a violent fit that leaves us in stitches. We must be tired, delirious, the stress and surreality of these last few weeks doing something strange to our brains.
It is sort of ridiculous, though, when you really think about it. The things Lucy was able to get away with. The people she fooled.
The people she’s still fooling.
“The cops have got to know by now,” Sloane says, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t lie.”
And that’s the truth: we didn’t lie. Not outright, only by omission, crafting our responses slowly, deliberately, every time Detective Frank hit us with a question that could come back to bite. That very first morning, sitting in the dining room, the three of us swallowed by our oversized T-shirts as our plan lurched into motion: slow, at first, but gaining momentum. Soon it would take off and leave us all behind.
“Nobody’s getting into trouble, girls, but she hasn’t been accounted for since Friday.”
We held fast, doe-eyed and innocent, and it was easy, really, because that’s all we are to him: underestimated always. Just children, just girls.
“Have you talked to anyone in her classes?”
I can still hear her so clearly, stone-faced Sloane, chiming in with the perfect response while Nicole and I bit our tongues, tasted blood, a blend of terror and triumph pumping through our veins as we tried so hard not to laugh.
“Lucy doesn’t go to class.”
“Frank’s gonna be so pissed,” Nicole says now, threading her hands behind her head. “It makes him look like an idiot.”
Sloane’s the one to laugh this time, plopping down beside her and nuzzling close. “That’s because he is.”
I slide my way between them now and the three of us lie quietly in bed together, the way we have so many times before: staring up at the plastic stars on the ceiling, meticulously arranged.
Thinking of Lucy and everything she taught us.
CHAPTER 48
BEFORE
It’s unusually calm on the water, the gentle churn of the engine creating little waves that ripple out around us. Marmalade sky reflecting off the surface, casting everything in an orange glow. It would normally be such a scenic picture, something ripped straight out of a song, but the boat’s slow approach to the island in the distance makes it feel like we’re being transported to a prison somewhere, cut off from society with no way to escape.
“Margot.”
I turn around, tallying up the bodies in the boat. Nicole is sitting on Trevor’s lap, angular legs sticking out of a fleece blanket draped across her stomach. He’s drinking something out of a flask, stainless steel and small in his hand, the other palm placed on Nicole’s thigh as he nuzzles his nose deep into her neck. Sloane is leaning into Lucas to their left, visibly rigid as his fingers play absentmindedly with her hair, while Will and James are next to me in the back and Levi is driving, knuckles white as his hands grip the wheel.