“I’m sure.”
He rested his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this. I actually cannot believe this.” He leaned farther forward so his head was between his knees. His cap slipped off and onto the ground.
“There’s more,” I said, looking up at the sky, wishing I didn’t have to say it. He was already so devastated, but I had to tell him everything so that Alex couldn’t lie to him later.
“More?”There were tears on Will’s cheeks. I hadn’t seen him cry in a long time. Not since we were kids. I would have done anything to stop this from happening.
“Alex told me I couldn’t tell you. She said sex wasn’t that big of a deal and that if I did tell you the truth, she’d tell you that she was raped.”
“She said that?” Will’s eyebrows were raised in anger now. I gave a dejected nod, and he pulled his hands through his hair.
“What the actual fuck was she thinking?” he demanded, more of himself than of me. I just stood there, watching the scene and feeling terrible. This was what I had wanted to avoid. Watching Will’s heart break was horrible.
He wiped at his eyes, aggressively rubbing them red. He was still staring forward, chewing on his bottom lip, when the Hopelys’ van pulled into the parking lot, followed by Alex’s Volkswagen. He quietly stood up and straightened his pants as Alex bounded toward him.
She was walking a little ahead of her family, her fingers clutching her necklace happily. She faltered when she saw us, stopping abruptly on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She looked from Will’s dead-eyed expression to my tear-stained face, and she sighed. She knew.
“Will, I—” she began, but Will shook his head. “This is our graduation lunch,” he said evenly, his voice devoid of its usual love for her. “Our families are here. You and I can talk about this later.”
He turned and headed for the restaurant without another word.
23
I was sitting on my bed, my hair wrapped in a towel, as I cried and read more of Hazel’s words. I had sped through the book, desperate to get to her thoughts on the trial. Her thoughts littered the pages, everything from the simpleSo unfairtoThere were so many suspects!
It was morbid to read her thoughts now. All of her investigating had been for nothing and the weight of it crashed down on me. I couldn’t stop crying.
My phone rang with a call from Tommy, who had gone home after our argument. The sound interrupted my latest round of sobbing.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to calm myself down enough to speak.
“The body,” Tommy said. “It wasn’t Hazel.”
“WHAT?”I was confused but relieved.
“It wasn’t her,” Tommy said as he cried in relief, telling me the rest of the story.
Hazel was not dead. At least not yet. My parents had gone to ID the body and realized immediately from the dark hair peeking out that the teenage girl they had found was not my sister. The girl’s face had been badly beaten, so it was hard to tell who exactly she was, but there had been a small scar on the shoulder that Hazel didn’t have. It was most likely the girl from Hobe Sound who had disappeared two weeks ago. The one I had mentioned onThe Morning Hour: Lakelynn Hale.
I was instantly relieved. Sure, I was pissed too. Pissed that I had spent the last few hours believing my baby sister was dead and had been left in a canal, but there was hope in her still being missing. Missing was good in this case.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. My searching had nowhere else to go. No more threads left to untangle besides mystery Nick, and even that felt tenuousnow. I had no idea what Hazel would have done after she had left Sam’s. Had she believed what Sam had told her about Will? Had she stopped looking then? It seemed the most likely. Even if it didn’t account for where she was now. I was no closer to finding her than I had been before. I felt completely useless.
I wasn’t sure how long I stayed lying like that. Long enough that I heard the front door open and close. Heard my father shuffle to his room quietly.
But then my phone rang. I picked it up, puffy eyed. It was Victoria, an old high school picture of her flashing on the call screen. What could she possibly want?
I took a deep breath and answered the phone, not bothering to sit up.
“Hello?” My throat was raw.
“Rose?” Victoria’s voice sounded far kinder than it had the last time we’d spoken.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. I still felt numb.
“I just heard about the body from one of the cops outside,” her voice cracked. “Is it … is it her?”
So that was why she had called. She thought Hazel was dead. I didn’t know whether I found the gesture compassionate or annoying. I didn’t know if I cared.
