Prologue
I have to kill my sister.
I can’t. I can’t do this.
I glance across the kitchen.
I have to. I have no choice.
My face is wet, my throat is bone dry. There’s a buzzing inside my head, the sound of abject terror.
“Do it,” my sister says in a croaky whisper, as if it’s that simple, as if killing her is something I can do.
She’s my family, my blood, one of the three people I love most in the world.
Tears slide down her face. Greta never cries. She’s the strong one, the practical one. And now I have to do something unforgiveable.
From outside comes the sound of fireworks. The Oakpark summer party. Our neighbors eating and drinking on the green, oblivious to what’s happening in my kitchen.
“I love you so much.” My voice is hoarse, my limbs are loose. “I’m so sorry.”
The sky lights up with fireworks as she rolls up her sleeve.
My throat contracts with grief.
I lean toward her, Death come to take her. A sob lurches through me.
The syringe feels like nothing. It should feel cold or hot or heavy, something to signify the power it holds, but it doesn’t. It’s light and nothingy. I glance around the kitchen one more time. How is this happening? Everything looks just as it always does. The scratched wooden table of our childhood, the blue-painted cupboards, the knotty hardwood floors.
My hand shakes as I inch the tip of the needle toward my sister’s vein. She closes her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, and push the syringe, flooding her blood with poison.
To my horror, it’s instantaneous. As the dusky sky lights pink and gold to the pop of fireworks, Greta slips sideways and slides off the chair. Her prone figure on my kitchen floor. In seconds, it’s over.
• • •
Ten days is all it took for my world to implode. Ten days, four deaths, one teen in hospital, one in police custody, my family destroyed.
And all because of a text.
1
Susan
Tuesday, nine days earlier
Have you ever done something stupid—something unintentional, acting without thinking? You have, I’m sure; we all have. And then afterward, you pull at your hair and wonder why you didn’t slow down and think first? Of course, by then, it’s too late. The damage is done.
This is about my mistake.
And it starts with a screenshot. Well, a screenshot accompanied by an uncharacteristically mean message. At least, I like tothinkit was uncharacteristic. Maybe that’s just something I tell myself, because I got caught. But when it all kicks off, I’m not thinking at all. I’m cranky and sleep-deprived and ready to do battle with anyone crossing my path. That’s a metaphorical path—I’m at home on my couch, under my four-month-old baby, staring at a just-out-of-reach cooling cup of tea. The walls have been closing in over the last few weeks and I’m irritable. Missing my pre-baby structure, the outside world, the old me. And every time that thought bobs to the surface, the guilt sets in. My beautiful Bella. I adore her, of course I do, but still. I miss…me. And I’m tired. Have I mentioned the tired? The up-six-times-a-night tired?Nothingprepares you. And last nightwas a bad one. And then of course Jon is at work all day (which is fair, he has to go to work) and I’m trying to get Bella to nap, and she won’t and it’s hard. And I’m a little scared too in the last few weeks, just a little, that things will go back to how they were when Bella was born. Back when I didn’t cope very well at all.
So yeah, I’m cross and sleep-deprived and ready to do battle, and that’s when I see the message in the Oakpark WhatsApp group. Oakpark—where we live—is a huge housing estate built in the sixties, with criss-crossing roads and cul-de-sacs and about three hundred members in the neighborhood messaging group. It’s very useful for passing on furniture and borrowing hedge trimmers. It also has occasional open-the-popcorn dramas when something kicks off. I secretly like those moments.
I never planned to cause one.
The message is from Celeste Geary, mistress of pointy comments. Badly parked cars and barking dogs are her pet peeves, but this evening, it’s about WhatsApp group etiquette. Another resident has shared information about a local business loaning glasses for next week’s Oakpark summer party, someone else has thanked them, and I’ve chimed in with my thanks too. (I’m trapped under a baby, so responding to people on WhatsApp is one of my top three hobbies.) Celeste’s missive comes moments later:
