“I don’t know what you would or wouldn’t do.” Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t know you.”
She was right. We hadn’t known each other since we were children. After the last few days, I felt like I didn’t know anyone anymore.
“What are you doing here, Cass?” I asked her.
Cassandra bit her lip. “I miss her, you know,” she said, ignoring my question. “I miss her every day.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” I really meant it.
She perched herself on the arm of the chair across from me. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me.” I couldn’t fathom what else she could possibly ask.
“What happened … that night? With my dad?”
I nearly dropped the bottle of vodka.
Something about her expression gave me pause. I remembered the way she had looked at me when I’d come back into her room that night. It was the same look she was giving me now. Something akin to pity.
“Did you know?” I asked.
Cassandra shrugged her shoulders and looked away as her eyes watered. I knew then that she did.
“I saw it on your face,” Cassandra said. She wiped at the mascara that was smudging. “My dad used to talk to me about you all the time, often when he was drinking. He used to say all these really awful things about you and your body and …” She was crying now. “I heard him in the hallway that night and then you came into the room, and I looked at your face and I just knew. I wasgoing to talk to you about it but then Alexandria was missing and …” She put her head in her hands.
I wanted to comfort her, but I also didn’t know what she needed. So instead, I let myself cry too. We could sit together and come to terms with the horrible truth that would forever bind our families. Finally, Cassandra wiped the snot from her face and looked at me.
“He read your book, you know,” she said. “Mom did too. She was furious about it. She threw it at the wall when she got to the end. She called you every name under the sun. But when my father read it, he was quiet.” She paused, staring ahead. “I didn’t really get it at first. Why he wasn’t mad. You made him her murderer, so surely he should be furious, right?” She turned to me. “I figured it out a few weeks later. Deep down, he knew that it was his punishment. For what he did to you.”
At least one person understood why I did what I did.
“Of all the things you said in your book, it was that you should’ve mentioned,” Cassandra said harshly.
I didn’t know how to respond.
She stood to wipe her hands on her jeans. “I have to go home. Everyone’s a mess. Reliving everything all over again this week hasn’t been easy. But don’t worry, I’ll tell them the truth one day. They should know. And you should be able to heal from it.”
I was shocked but relieved. With every person who found out what really happened, a bit of weight lifted off my shoulders.
Cassandra had started to walk away, but then she paused. “And I’m glad Hazel’s okay. She never deserved any of this.”
“Neither did Alex,” I told her. “If I could take it back, the things I said and did, I would.”
The corners of Cassandra’s mouth twitched. “Thank you for saying that. And I’m sorry too about Will.” She stopped, considering her words. “He’s actually the most innocent of us all.”
She turned back toward her house without saying goodbye.
42
I stood in Pullman’s office, feeling impatient.
It had been a week since everything happened, and things were starting to settle. Hazel was back home, and my father was making arrangements to rent an apartment in Palm Beach Gardens for them, finally ready to sell the house. Both of them had decided it was the best course of action. Hazel needed a fresh start. A new school and a new environment. And Palm Beach Gardens was only twenty-five minutes away from the old house, close enough for her to still visit her friends and the McColloughs. Plus, it was closer to where my mother lived, who wanted to start visiting Hazel more frequently.
I was planning on going back to Manhattan the next day. My flight was booked for the afternoon. I needed some distance from all of this. And tragedy or not, I was on deadline for my next book proposal, and I needed to get back home and work on it.
But Pullman had texted me as soon as I woke up to ask if I could stop by the police station sometime today, refusing to tell me what it was about. He’d now kept me waiting for thirty minutes.
Pullman held up his hands as he finally opened the door. “I’m late, I know,” he said.
He was wearing a suit, light gray and more fitted than his usual. It looked designer. Maybe he had been on TV today or at a press conference. It occurred to me that our family’s tragedy had probably made his career, something that wasn’t unfamiliar to me as the best-selling author ofThe Smileys Next Door.
