“Besides penises.”
“Maybe because of their penises.” The word didn’t quite roll off Ilena’s tongue as easily, but that it did at all impressed Mallory. “They each had one of the big rooms on the fourth floor.” Ilena surveyed the anchovy tin of a dorm room attached along with three others to an only slightly larger common room. Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall. “A double the size of a quad. With its own bathroom. Two sinks.”
“Is that so?” Mallory had said, trying to figure out Ilena’s angle. Everyone always had an angle. At least, Mallory did.
“I saw the guys assigned to it.”
“And?”
Ilena had lifted herself off her suitcase and unzipped it. “And so I had an idea.”
And she’d handed Mallory that roll of duct tape.
39
Aubrey
Monday Morning
Four DaysAfterthe Outing
Aubrey presses the rock from Ethan between her palms. If she had an ounce of the athletic skill of any of her siblings, she’d have tossed it through Ethan’s window last night. Except it wasn’t his window, it was his fiancée’s. And that’s the reason why, even if she had any skill, she wouldn’t have thrown anything.
“Aubrey?” Mallory’s tone is hesitant, unsure, and Aubrey slips the rock into her pocket. “Are we ready? We’re ready, right?”
Aubrey can’t look at her. They can go over their story a hundred more times and still never be ready to be interrogated by the police. Mallory’s father found Grayson. This investigation is no longer that of a missing person.
“Sure, of course,” Aubrey says, knowing her face will show the opposite. But Mallory simply nods absentmindedly as she hugs her arms to her chest and lowers herself onto the sofa. Still. Silent.
Beyond the glass door of Mallory’s office, AIM buzzes with energy. The typical Monday sluggishness, the trickling in of employees still hungover from weekends at bars or binge-watching or both, has been replaced with an urgency, an air ofanticipation and excitement because this is not a typical Monday. It’s the Monday before AIM makes history. If its founders don’t get arrested first.
“This is happening,” Mallory says. “Grayson and—” She hugs her arms tighter, but it can’t stop her body from shaking. “We have to deal with this, actually deal with this?”
The tremor in Mallory’s voice scares Aubrey. “I’ll go find Ilena.”
“No.” Mallory’s head snaps up. “Don’t leave.”
Aubrey always thought that Mallory could handle anything. But this isn’t just anything. This is murder. Of someone she obviously cared about. Aubrey’s heartbeat echoes in her ears, and she sends Ilena a quick text. She sits beside Mallory, resting her hand on Mallory’s leg, which doesn’t seem like Mallory’s leg, encased in these pink-and-white-striped pants. Aubrey realizes that she’s not the only one who’s been wearing someone else’s clothes. All three of them have been. But Aubrey’s the only one they seem to fit.
“Ethan really hit on you, didn’t he?” Aubrey says suddenly. But she knows the answer. She always did, didn’t she?
A month after Aubrey and Ethan had started dating, he’d said one of the things he liked most about Aubrey was how easygoing she was, that he didn’t have to be a ballet dancer—always on tiptoes—like he’d been with other girls. Girls. Not women, Aubrey just realizes. He’d finish her fries without asking if she were done, saying her bikini would thank him. Then he’d laugh at how witty he was, and she would laugh too because it wasn’t untrue. But it was inappropriate. And mean. No, cruel, it was cruel.
Maybe this Aubrey had seen that right away. Maybe that’s why one date never became two. With a flush that spreads down her neck, Aubrey tells Mallory about Ethan and Lauren Stevens and the shame of apparently being Ethan’s mistress.
“I pushed it,” Aubrey says. “I had to know if we were supposed to be together, because if we weren’t, then that would mean that I...”
“He didn’t cheat because of you, and he didn’t die because of you.” Mallory’s words tumble out.
Aubrey studies her perfect cuticles. “I texted him. I’m the reason he wasn’t paying attention.”
“No, just no. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident. None of us could have prevented it even if we’d...” Mallory shakes her head, the stress of today, of all of this, turning her into a version of herself that Aubrey doesn’t recognize. “You should never have blamed yourself. But you were, and Ilena and I should have seen it. We failed you, Aubrey, and that’s unforgivable.”
“It’s not, it’s okay, really.”
“No, it’s not!” Mallory is suddenly a fire hose of sweat, and she’s chomping on her lower lip like it’s a steak. “Wrong, it’s all been so wrong and gone so wrong, and we’ve been wrong. For so long, from the very beginning. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make it right in any world.”
“Mallory, don’t—”
