“Why don’t you fill out this form, and if we see it, we can let you know?” I reach inside my desk for the paper and hand it to her, trying to keep my fingers from shaking.
She snatches it and scrawls across the page before thrusting it back into my chest. “Useless,” she says, and storms out of the hut.
“What was that about?” Alex ducks back into the shack holding a grease-stained paper bag. “Rishi threw in some French fries so we could at least wait out the storm with full tums.” He points to the sky out the window, a full downpour only moments away.
“Nothing. She wanted ponchos for the pool in case it rained.” The lie comes out quick, but I know if I tell Alex what she was after, he’ll ask me why I didn’t just fork it over. I should just tell Alex about the sonogram, too, but something in my gut says to keep it a secret for a little longer. Alex didn’t want to do any of this anyway. Maybe I’m doing him a favor by keeping him in the dark. After all, I haven’t told him about that photo of the shirtless kid on the beach. The one I’ve been staring at, trying to figure outwhoit was.Whoelse might have been at the party. I make a mental note to keep studying it. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a hidden clue.
“Cool,” he says at the same time that his cell phone rings. Ethan’s name scrolls across the screen, and Alex picks it up quickly. “Yo, what’s up?” He stops chewing, and his eyes go wide, making direct contact with mine.
“What?” I ask, and lean in close to the phone so I can hear Ethan’s voice, too.
“—and they searched theSea Witch,” Ethan says.
“Is that Billy’s boat?” I ask.
Ethan’s quiet for a moment, then speaks. “Frankie?”
“Yeah, we’re at work.”
Ethan sighs. “Fine, put me on speaker, then.”
Alex taps the screen and Ethan’s voice fills the hut. “You’ll find out anyway. Might as well hear it from me,” Ethan says, almost dejected. “Detective Hampton told the Godwins that they searched their family boat, the one moored in the Sound, theSea Witch.”
“Did they find anything?” I ask, pressing my palms together.
“Billy’s fingerprints are all over everything. The boat was deep-cleaned that day, so they know he was there sometime after that, in the early hours of the morning.”
“Okay,” I say, glancing at Alex, who’s chewing on a cuticle.
“And they also found DNA samples. Blood. Spit. From a few different people.”
“Blood?!” I can’t help but scream the word.
“What does that mean?” Alex asks, nervous.
“It means,” Ethan says, his voice trembling, “that Billy wasn’t there alone. Mrs.Godwin thinks whoever was with him may have…”
Ethan doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Alex and I are stunned into silence, and though I have no idea what he’s thinking, the onlything running through my head is this:If Erica’s pregnant, then Billy has to be the father, and if she told him that night, maybe he was furious. Furious enough to start a fight.
A shock of cold rushes through me when I realize what that means. That DNA may be Erica’s.
Millie
Even though there were rumors that the Club’s annual summer solstice party would be canceled this year, our boss, Jordan, sent out an email this morning saying the party was, in fact, on and that none of the members who were also staffers had to work. Instead, we were instructed to take the night off and enjoy the celebration.
But it’s hard to relax. The perimeter of the Club is lined with newly hired security guards, wearing all black and bulky vests that appear bulletproof. They checked everyone’s IDs as we entered the Club, which seemed silly to me. It’s not as if anyone’s Pelican Island Academy badge would have also saidI Killed Billyon it.
I look around the beach for Trevor but can’t find him. I’ve barely seen him since the shiva. Well, since I left him outside Billy’s shiva for thirty minutes while I helped Ethan calm down.
At first, Trevor seemed to understand, but based on his reluctance to return my text messages, I’m not so sure.
I wrap my arms around my middle. If things were normal, we’d spend the whole evening curled up in the Adirondack chairs overlooking the eastern lawn so we could get primo spots for sunset. Take turns getting plates of watermelon salad and shrimp cocktail and, when we finally got sick of debating the merits of horror versus romance, settle into our usual rhythm of reading side by side.
There’s a dull ache in my chest. Not the kind I get when I’m around Ethan, where it’s all I can focus on. This one is a drumbeat, providing background rhythm, a reminder that things have already started to change, that Imisshow life was a week ago, before Billy died.
Part of me even wanted to stay home from the solstice party, but when I told Mom I had a headache, she said there was no way in hell she was leaving me on my own. “You will go and you will act normal,” she said while putting on her earrings. “We all will.”
So here I am, standing on the cornhole lawn by myself, trying to make it seem like I’m definitely paying attention to the middle schoolers who are negging each other as they try to sink beanbags.
