“Names, Sam. I need names.”
“I don’t fucking know, okay?” Sam said, sounding annoyed. “You know, when I confronted her about Isaac? She didn’t even look sorry. She blamed him, of course. Said he’d coerced her. But it wasn’t the first time she’d cheated on Will and we both knew it. Anyway, it doesn’t even matter who else she was sleeping with,” Sam said angrily. “None of them killed Alex. Will did, Rose. We know he did.”
I resisted the urge to throw what I knew about Victoria and her growing beliefs in Will’s innocence in Sam’s face. I bit the inside of my mouth.
“You don’t know that for sure,” I snapped. “No one does.”
“Yes, I do!” Sam shouted. She looked venomous. Her face was red with rage, pent-up grief, frustration, all the things I was feeling but for a different reason. “I saw him, Rose! I saw him out there with her that night!”
I stopped, staring at her in disbelief. There had never been any eyewitness accounts of what happened. Sam had never said anything to the police or at trial about seeing Will that night. If she had, they would have thrown away the keys to the jail. My book never would have been published. Eyewitnesses, unreliable or not, were alibi killers.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice suddenly small.
Sam’s bony chest was rising and falling as she looked at me, her eyes filling with angry tears. “I was up late that night, Facebook-stalking Isaac and his new girlfriend, and I saw them out of my bedroom window,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Alex and Will were talking in the woods.”
My body was shaking, and I was trying to hide it. No. It couldn’t be. She was wrong.
“It was late,” I reminded her. “And dark. It could have been anyone out there with her.”
Sam shook her head, tears quietly rolling down her cheeks. “It was Will. He was wearing his bright orange T-shirt, the one that practically glowed in the dark.”
My knees felt like they were about to give out, but I did my best to keep it together. My breathing slowed to a crawl.
The University of Florida, Will’s prospective college, was known for its colors: blue and orange. Will loved wearing the merch. I couldn’t remember what he was wearing on the evening of his graduation, of Alex’s death. Was it one of those T-shirts?
“I saw him push her to the ground, and I just went to bed because I was still furious with her about what happened with Issac,” Sam said sniffling. “I thought Will knew too and was confronting her. I figured she deserved it.”
She had to be lying. Will swore to me he didn’t do this. I knew he didn’t. I knew my brother.
“And you didn’t tell anyone thisbecause?” I demanded. “That’s pretty big fucking evidence to withhold.”
Sam was fully crying now. “I never said anything about it because I felt guilty!” she snapped at me. “I could have done something. I could have woken my parents up, went out there to help her. Do you have any idea what that feels like? The guilt of knowing you could have saved your sister?”
Yes, I thought. What if Hazel and I had been closer? Would she have told me about what she was looking into? Could I have helped her or stopped her? Would she still be missing right now if I had? Sam was wrong. I knew about guilt firsthand.
She kept going, “And then it didn’t matter because they had all that evidence against Will anyway. We knew he did it. I didn’t have to admit what I hadseen because it wouldn’t have changed anything. Except for making everyone hate me.”
I didn’t know how to feel. I couldn’t imagine why she would make this up, why she would admit something like this to me if it was a lie. But that meant …
No, I stopped that line of thinking immediately. There had to be some other explanation, some other guy.
Will didn’t kill Alex.My entire life rested upon this fact.
“Did you tell Hazel this?” I asked Sam, furious. Had she been poisoning my little sister with these theories, turning her against our brother?
Sam nodded, her face pained. “Yes, I told her when she was here. I felt sorry for her. She was so upset, so convinced her brother had been falsely imprisoned. I’ve always had a soft spot for her. You remember I used to babysit her back then? I thought it would help her to know that justice had indeed been served. I didn’t want her to end up like you.”
My head was spinning. I had received too much information in too short a period of time and I didn’t know what to do. None of it made any sense. My mind was grasping at straws trying to make sense of it.
Sam wiped her eyes and regained her resolve. “Now, get out of my house, bitch.”
20
I sped to Miami Correctional facility, which was stupid. Imagine being pulled over and telling a cop that you’re sorry you were going ten over, but in your defense, you were on your way to jail already. Thankfully, no one stopped me. I was not in the mood for any more cops.
All I could feel coursing through me was fury. Fury at everyone, but mostly Sam, for making me doubt my brother for the first time in my life.
Visiting Will was never an enjoyable experience. Even without the depressing fact that it was a prison, it took nearly two hours to get through all of the checkpoints, ID checking, frisking, and metal detectors. They inspected everyone thoroughly, which I understood, but they did have some ridiculous rules, including ones about clothing you could and couldn’t wear to visit. I had been turned away for being in leggings, deemed “too revealing,” so I’d decided to start showing up looking like a Midwest ’90s teenager from then on. Today, I was in jeans and a T-shirt.
