“—you trying to throw off Savannah,” Amie finished. “So she wouldn’t find out she was the only one with a lowered rent and start asking questions.”
“I was going to keep blackmailing him for money after Savannah’s death,” Raina said. “But that wasn’t going to work with him broken up, so I threw him under the bus.”
Amie thought back to Benny sitting with David, talking about ghosts. The letter Amie had found in the wastebasket must have arrived after Savannah’s death, leading Benny to feel like he was being haunted. Maybe that was even how Hallie had ultimately discovered his infidelity—he’d let his guard down after Savannah’s death, thinking he was free from the blackmail letters. Until one arrived after her death, mentioning a possible change in terms.
“David, Madeline, Benny,” Amie said quietly. “You had everyone looking everywhere except at you.”
“That was the plan.” They moved forward to the front of the line as the people ahead of them got on the ride. “I still don’t know how you figured it out.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Amie had been so invested in following everything Raina was saying that she’d only just become aware of how quickly the line had moved. She looked up at the Ferris wheel, then averted her eyes as her stomach lurched. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can think? Maybe someplace on the ground?”
Raina shot her a sideways look. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“I’m not afraid ofheights. It’s more like—”
Amie was interrupted by the ride operator swinging open the gate. Raina pulled her through, handing over their tickets.
“It’ll be fine,” Raina said, walking her up the steps to their seats. “Remember the alternative.”
Amie allowed herself to be lowered onto the seat, briefly considering the alternative as her body began shaking.
The ride operator lowered the bar down to their laps. Once they began rising over the lake, Raina removed the small pocketknife from Amie’s skin. She closed it with asnap.
“I started carrying this with me after Savannah died,” Raina said, resting the knife in her lap. “I was worried Benny might figure out it was me who was threatening him. I was sort of relieved to find out I couldn’t blackmail him anymore. It had begun to feel like something Ineededto do. Like, I’d gone so far, I couldn’t just stop because Savannah was dead.”
“Because you killed her,” Amie said. She was still trembling, keeping her eyes fixed on Raina to avoid processing the heights they were reaching.
Raina’s face twitched. “What?”
“You keep saying ‘Savannah’s death’ and ‘Savannah died.’ She wasmurdered. Youmurdered her.” Amie wasn’t sure if it was the absence of the knife on her back that was giving her the confidence to say those things, but the words continued to spill out of her. “For what? A bookstore? You killed her overa bookstore?”
“IT WASN’T—” Raina reeled herself in, inhaling sharply. “It wasn’t just for the bookstore,” she said, her voice low and measured. “It was forme. For all the years I let her walk over me, all the time and energy I gave her, all for her to laugh in my face when I suggested that she sell the store to me. I said, ‘To keep it in the family.’ And shelaughedat me.”
Raina sat back in her seat, tilting her head to look up at the sky. “All those years, for nothing. I was nothing to her. So she became nothing to me. Just an obstacle in the way of getting what I wanted, so all that time didn’t have to go to waste.”
She let out a dry chuckle. “You know, it’s been kind of nice to finally be able to tell someone about all of this. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been feeling this week.”
They were quiet for a full rotation of the wheel. Or maybe two or three. No longer able to avoid noticing their distance from the ground, Amie had closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.
“Okay,” she heard Raina finally say. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
She nudged Amie’s shoulder. “You still with me?”
“I can hear you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good. We’re going to get off the Ferris wheel.”
Amie was liking the plan so far.
“We’re gonna go back to my place, and you’re going to give me something from you—a video, an email, I’ll figure it out when we get there—saying that David killed Savannah.”
Amie wasn’t liking the plan anymore.
“I’m not doing that,” she said, opening her eyes to glare at Raina.
“Calm down. I’m not going to do anything with it. As long as you don’t tell anyone anything about me and Savannah. A fair trade.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a fair trade.” Amie stiffened as they slowed to a stop at the top of the wheel, gripping the lap bar as the seat swung gently. “On my end, an innocent person isn’t accused of murder. On your end, a guilty person gets away with murder. How is that fair?”
