Of course I know what I should do, and that’s pick up my cell and call someone, tell them everything I know. But who would I tell? Graham? The police? And what would I say? “Hi, this is Sophie O’Neill. Last weekend I was at a spin-the-bottle party with two teenage boys and I read a text message I shouldn’t have.”

I pace to the kitchen to make a shot of espresso. I need something stronger than the tea, something to wake me up, something to help me think more clearly.

My hands clatter as I scoop the grinds from the silver tin, fill the basin with filtered water.

I need to get a grip. Maybe Tina is right, maybe Abby is just sorting things out. Maybe she’s just fine.

But why would Margot stop by to try and hush me unless she knows something? Something about Abby. Something bad.

As the espresso sputters into the bottom of a shot glass, Margot’s words creep back into my mind: No one needs to know. You understand, I’m sure.

The thought of Graham finding out about Jamie makes me double over, grab the counter, and fight to catch my breath.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, but for now, I know that Margot is right: No one needs to know.

41

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

IT’S ONE IN the morning and the sky outside my window is pitch-black, crammed with a quilt of rain clouds blocking out the moonlight.

I’m wide-awake, staring through the slats of our plantation blinds, unable to sleep. I haven’t slept well since Saturday night, since the news about Abby broke.

The rain is starting to drum again against the window. It’s been like this all day—short bursts of showers followed by longer stretches of cloying humidity.

It turned hotter this week, and for most of the day, I sat in my office, staring out the window, watching raindrops hit the scorching pavement, hissing against the patio like an iron sizzling against a moistened shirt. Instead of a release from the relentless heat, the rain has made it even muggier, the atmosphere of a soup cauldron.

I couldn’t focus on anything all day. I can’t turn my mind off of Abby. Or Margot or Brad. Or off the what-ifs. What if she’s never found? What if she is found and something’s happened to her?

My stomach is sick with worry, eaten up with guilt over where she might be and what I know and am not telling anyone. Especially Graham.

He walked through the back door when he came home from work tonight, chipper and clutching a grocery sack filled with steaks, spinach, and potatoes, and offered to cook dinner.

As Jack and I sat at the dining table dipping paintbrushes into discs of watercolors and jars of water, Graham grilled the rib eyes in his grandma’s old cast-iron skillet, wilting the spinach in the steak’s juices.

“Any word about the girl?” Graham asked as he topped the steaks with butter, slid the potatoes from the oven.

Without meeting his eyes, I shook my head. “No, nothing, unfortunately.”

I hadn’t told him anything about going to Callie’s on Monday and, of course, didn’t tell him about Margot stopping by. And these lies—not lies exactly, but omissions—expanded in the back of my throat like a sponge and I could barely choke down my dinner; I focused instead on cutting Jack’s steak into tiny bites so that he’d eat it.

Later, in bed, Graham pulled me on top of him, nibbled on my ear. I kissed his cheek but the effort was lackluster and he picked up on it.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked.

I didn’t feel like getting into anything about Abby; he can’t know how all-consuming it’s become for me, so I dragged my fingers through his hair, kissed his lips.

“I’m good,” I murmured, “but I started today.” Another lie. (But only a small one. I should have my period by tomorrow or the next day and I’m rarely in the mood while I’m on it.) I didn’t want to turn him down, but I couldn’t bear to allow myself any pleasure when all I can think about is Abby, about where she might be.

“Ooooh, well that explains it,” he said, twirling a lock of my hair through his finger.

“Explains what?”

“Oh, nothing. Just the moodiness at dinner. The long silences. The, um, you know, general vibe of impending doom.” He was grinning as he said this, and I elbowed him in the gut.

“Guess it’s just me and Dwell tonight, then,’’ he said, fake pouting. He slid the architecture and design magazine off the nightstand and shifted two pillows under his neck.

I laced my arm around his stomach, planted a kiss on his cheek. “I love you so much, honey.”

“I love you, too, Soph. So very much.” He rubbed the top of my head with one hand as the other flipped through the magazine.

Feeling his fingers trace along my scalp relaxed me, and I actually dozed off for an hour or so, but now it’s the middle of the night and I’m wired.

I peel back the hot sheets and creep down the hallway to my office, where I power up my laptop and log on to Facebook. One of the first posts I see is from the Mapleton Times. A photo from earlier this evening, from the candlelight vigil for Abby at her church. Hundreds of faces are illuminated by candlelight, and a banner that reads PRAY FOR ABBY hangs outside the church. My eyes blur with tears as I scan the sea of faces until I find her parents, clutching candles and each other, their eyes gazing back at me, grief-stricken and dimmed of hope. It’s now been five days since she vanished, and we all know the statistics: The first forty-eight hours are the most important, holding the greatest hope for finding the missing person.

It’s also the most critical time for people to come forward with pertinent information, tips, but here I sit, parked in my cozy house, afraid to share what I know. And what makes me feel even guiltier is knowing that, yes, I’m gut sick over Abby, but if I’m being honest, I’m equally worried about what keeping this secret might do to me.

42

Thursday, April 19, 2018

ABBY IS NO longer missing. Abby is dead.

I got the call from Tina last night, just as Graham was pulling red snapper from the grill, the pink skin charred and seasoned to perfection.

Yesterday morning, the rain finally broke and a cool front swept in, so I threw open all the windows and let the fresh breeze energize the stuffy house.

I stayed off my laptop for most of the day, spending the whole morning working in the garden, tugging out a nest of weeds that was threatening to choke all my newly planted herbs and veggies.

I pruned the basil and rosemary, piling the cuttings into a colander to rinse and later air-dry from strings of twine in the kitchen window. Because I’d neglected the garden these past few weeks, most of the tomatoes had been pecked by birds, shot through with black holes and drained of their juices. But I managed to harvest a sink full of cherry tomatoes, slicing them in half and tossing them in a salad for dinner.

The work in the garden helped lighten my mood, so before I changed my mind, I called Graham on his lunch break, asked if we could grill and eat dinner outside. I almost texted Erin and invited them over, but didn’t want to push it. I felt slightly better, but only slightly, and I certainly wasn’t in the mood for light chitchat.

Just before dinner, I was swinging Jack in the tire swing we hung from a gnarled branch of our oak tree when I heard my phone chiming.

“Be right back,” I said, crossing the patio and lifting it from the bench.

A group text from the Hunting Wives pinged across the screen.

Tina: Oh, Jill honey, I just heard. I don’t even have words. Praying for you all.

I felt my throat constrict, and I gripped the side of the bench, steadying myself.

Callie: I can’t believe it. So awful.

I looked over to Graham. He had just lifted the lid off the grill and smoke gushed out, creating a screen between us; I was grateful he couldn’t see the alarm on my face. My cell rang. It was Tina.

“Mommeeee!” Jack cried, pink-faced from the swing. “More! Swing me more!”

“Just a second, honey!” I called to him, stepping inside the back door.

Clutching the phone, my palms slick with sweat, I answered on the second ring.

“I just got off with Callie.” Tina’s voice was shaky and she was talking too fast. “She called like five minutes before I sent that text. I honestly didn’t even know what to say . . . I—”

But I cut her off before she could finish her rambling. “What’s going on?” I glanced out the glass door, flashed a tense smile at Graham, who was staring at me as he lifted the fish from the grill onto a platter.

“Abby. It’s Abby. They found her body.” Her voice dropped a register. “She’s dead. Shot to death.”

The phone nearly slid from my hand, and all I could hear for a moment was the coursing of my blood in my temples. I opened my mouth, closed it. Opened it again to speak but couldn’t form words.

“Sophie,” Tina continued, sounding spooked. “They found her body on Margot’s land, right at the clearing where we shoot.”

The word clearing was cut in half by the ding of an incoming call. I glanced at the screen. Margot.