“I’m not sure,” Ash says. “Are you okay, Summer?”
I shake my head. “We just found Hannah’s body down by the stream.”
“What?” he exclaims.
“She’s dead, I’m almost positive. Her head...”
Marcus’s face goes white before my eyes, and Gabe steps toward me, grasping my arm.
“Good love of god,” their father exclaims.
“We need to call 911,” I say. “And someone needs to find Nick. To tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Nick steps into the room from the front hall, dressed in jeans and a lavender polo shirt.
I take the deepest breath I can. “Nick, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Hannah’s—Hannah’s dead. And, god, it looks like someone’s murdered her. With some kind of blow to the head.”
His face wrinkles, but in confusion instead of horror.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Nick says.
“Bonnie and I—” Before I can say another word, I hear footsteps in the hall, and a second later, Hannah enters the room.
All five foot eight of her. She’s dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved yellow turtleneck, her hair and makeup freshly done.
As Bonnie lets out a scream of shock, I feel the blood rush from my brain. It’s like I’m in one of those nightmares all actors have, in which you’re about to go onstage and realize you’ve never even read the play you’re performing in.
“I—We were down at the stream,” I say. “We saw her... the body.”
Hannah locks eyes with me. “Is this some kind of a sick joke?”
“Summer, what in the hell is going on?” Ash demands. Gabe is looking at me as if my hair’s on fire. I gesture toward Bonnie to back me up.
“Just like she said, there’s a body at the stream,” Bonnie says, her voice tremulous. “A woman with dark hair—we thought it was you.”
“Keira,” Marcus exclaims, his voice strained with panic.
“It can’t be her,” I blurt out. “She was in the house when I left.”
“No,” Ash suddenly roars, and he tears out of the room into the main hall and from there into the foyer. We follow him, watching as he flings open the front door, and charges down the steps of the house.
“Dad, whatisit?” Gabe calls out, running down the driveway after him, with Nick, Marcus, and me sprinting behind.
“Where’s Henry?” I shout to Gabe.
“In the kitchen. With Jake.”
When we catch up with Ash, he’s just beyond the circular part of the driveway, in the long section that connects the house to the road, and he’s staring at a blue BMW. His hands are laced through his thick gray hair, fingers digging into his scalp. “Jesus Christ, it must beJillian,” he says.
That makes no sense, but... her car is definitely sitting here. An image muscles its way to the front of my mind: the dark matted hair; the long slim fingers with painted nails. Like Hannah’s. Like Jillian’s, too.
“Jillian was here?” I say tentatively.
“She was helping me,” Ash says. His eyes bounce with agitation. “We’ve got to get down there.”
“Are you sure she’s dead?” Marcus asks, pulling me aside and keeping his voice low so his father can’t hear.
