Whether or not a person sits inside the vehicle is impossible to tell. Still, she feels sure that someone is in there. Waiting for her.
Instinctively, her eyes drop to her new tires. No slashes, thank God. But still ...
Amanda isn’t the only one conspiring to tear them apart. After the Fourth of July party, Townsend told Talia all about the strangeconversation he had with Amanda’s sister, Kaitlyn—the one who kept insisting that Amanda was missing and that Townsend had something to do with it. “She told me she had a gun in her trunk,” said Townsend. “She’s lucky I didn’t call the police.”
“Maybe you should have.” Talia paused and then added, “Did she say anything about me?”
Townsend shook his head no. “She didn’t,” he said, “but if she comes anywhere near you, tell me, because I’ll fucking kill her.”
Standing outside Jo’s now, Talia is tempted to turn around and go right back inside—at least until she can identify the owner of this Ford Taurus with its blacked-out windows, sitting close enough to her car to feel like a threat. But she doesn’t. It’s broad daylight, and there is no reason for her to be afraid. Just because something is unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s a threat, she reminds herself. Some things are outside her control; that’s okay. She’s probably getting tangled up in a narrative that only exists in her own head.
Steeling herself, she starts toward her Volkswagen Jetta, and as she nears, she hears a gentle hum, which grows steadily louder. The car next to hers isn’t just parked; it’s on and idling, ready to peel away at any moment.
Inside her purse, her fingers fumble for her keys. Then, as discreetly as she can, she slides a key between each knuckle, squeezing her hand into a fist. She can’t remember where she saw this self-defense tip—an Instagram video probably. Something she would have watched during her infinite scrolling in bed, never expecting she’d ever actually put it to use.
The walk seems endless, but eventually, she makes it to the driver’s side door. Once there, she has no choice but to turn her back to the mysterious vehicle to get into her own. The beep of the car lock remote is deafening in the nearly empty lot, like a scream. She’s just about to close the door behind her, finally safe, when she hears it: a soft click. A camera shutter?
Talia doesn’t want to hang around to find out. She hightails it out of the parking lot and off to the Cuff office, the conversation she hoped to have with Meera already forgotten.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kaitlyn
As soon as she steps into the police station, Kaitlyn wonders if she’s doing the right thing. Just being here makes her feel complicit, like someone is going to come up behind her and put her in cuffs simply for knowing too much. But really, the problem is that she doesn’t know enough. She’s here because she’s ready to start learning the truth.
Grief, Kaitlyn always believed, was something felt by everyone and best felt together. What she didn’t realize: just how differently shared grief could manifest itself. Following their parents’ death, Kaitlyn pushed away everyone except Amanda, while it seemed Kaitlyn was the sole person Amanda didn’t want to see. Even more painful than the pictures—an endless parade of them on Instagram, showing parties and trips with people Kaitlyn had never seen in her life—was the silence. Amanda didn’t need her; that much was made clear. She began to wonder if anyone did.
For a while, Kaitlyn simply went through the motions of daily life, feeling like she was playing a losing game (and a boring one at that). Sleep, eat, work, repeat. Lying on her couch, scrolling through pictures of her sister on yet another jaunt to Nashville or New York City, she’d wonder whether all the rituals required of a functional adult—all the scrubbing and shaving and brushing and buffing and folding andflossing—were worth the trouble. She would only have to do them all again the next day. How much easier it would be to just sleep and let the filth consume her.
Things improved eventually. Even while Amanda continued to keep her at arm’s length, Kaitlyn found solace in the shooting range and ShrinkGPT. And strangely, these past few months spent investigating the mystery of her sister made her feel more alive than she had in a long, long time—even before her parents’ passing. It was kind of nice, finally feeling needed.
While Kaitlyn stands in the lobby of the police station, hesitating, a behemoth of an officer brushes past her, so close she can smell his woody aftershave. Detective Burrows, his badge reads, and instantly, the name triggers a memory: He was one of the two officers Kaitlyn spoke to back in June, when she first reported Amanda as missing. Chances are he wouldn’t recognize her, but still, Kaitlyn ducks her head until he pushes through the doors. It would be difficult to explain why the person she claimed was in danger is now the person she’s here to investigate.
At the front desk, a woman attempts to give her a smile that ends up looking more like a grimace. “You need something?”
“I do,” Kaitlyn says, summoning confidence. In moments like these, when a self-esteem boost is needed, Kaitlyn used to ask herself,What would Amanda do?Now—after learning about her sister’s recent behavior from Townsend—she’s a little afraid to ask that question. “I’d like to request a copy of an accident report.”
The receptionist snaps her gum. “Names of involved drivers and passengers?”
“Martin and Josephine Reade,” she says, and though it isn’t necessary, she can’t help but explain: “My parents.”
The woman glances up at her through the thick glass separating them. Kaitlyn thinks she’s going to apologize for her loss, as so many others already have, but instead, she turns her attention back to her computer screen. It’s impossible to say whether Kaitlyn feels relief forescaping this empty, obligatory exchange or a little disappointed. Maybe it would have been nice, having the enormity of what she’s about to do be acknowledged.
Nearly two and a half years have passed, and still Kaitlyn has never tried to find out exactly what caused her parents’ death. A car accident was enough for her; she didn’t need to hear the gory details. But ever since Townsend planted the stupid idea in her head that Amanda was somehow involved, Kaitlyn can’t help thinking there’s more to the story than she realized.
Six dollars and an hour later, she sits on her couch, reading through the report but not quite absorbing the words.Erratic steering result of suspected wheel misalignment; indications of prior frame damage.As far as Kaitlyn knew, her parents had never gotten into so much as a minor fender bender before the accident that claimed their lives; they were steady, careful, hands-at-ten-and-two drivers. How had their car’s frame become damaged? And did that frame damage later cause them to go careening off the road?
A memory comes back to Kaitlyn then, so sharp and urgent that she wonders if it’s an invention of her own mind: a chilly night in late February, not long before their parents’ death. A three a.m. phone call from Amanda. She’s sobbing, howling, saying she didn’t mean to hit the curb; she didn’t think she was that drunk, and she thought she could make it home without an issue. Kaitlyn, still fuzzy with sleep, telling her sister to go to bed, check out the damage in the morning, tell their parents the truth, don’t do it again.
She wonders: Was it possible Amanda’s careless driving that night damaged the frame and caused the wheel to become misaligned? Was it possible Amanda never told their parents the truth, so they proceeded to get into their car, totally unaware they could lose control at any moment?
When Townsend first accused Amanda of killing their mom and dad, Kaitlyn’s mind immediately leaped to clichés. Agatha Christie–like motivations. Maybe Amanda knew the bulk of the estate would be left to her. Maybe she killed them on purpose to get the money.
But if anything, this revelation is more sinister, because it’s at once so mundane and so much more real. It’s classic Amanda, Kaitlyn thinks coldly. Killing their parents in the laziest way possible. All she had to do was tell their parents the truth about damaging their car, and she could have saved them. This tragedy could have been avoided.
Instead, her selfish sister cared more about covering her ass than facing the consequences of her actions. Bitterness lurches inside her like some untamed beast, clawing to escape. Sure, Amanda has never been afraid of telling a lie, but Kaitlyn never imagined her sister would be capable of a deceit likethis. And now, Amanda is somewhere out there, firing off unhinged missives to her ex without a single thought to the mess she’s left in her wake.
She doesn’t know what she hopes to accomplish, exactly, but for some reason, Kaitlyn finds herself driving to Amanda’s empty apartment, which she hasn’t visited since June. Stepping through the threshold, she notices that the stench of bleach—so strong it stung her nostrils the first time she broke in over a month ago—has since dissipated; the unshakable feeling that something bad occurred in this place has not. A thin layer of dust coats the side table by her sister’s front door, and Kaitlyn runs her finger through it, leaving a long streak.
