I’VE ONLY BEEN back in the room for half an hour when I hear the knock at the door. I open it and his figure darkens the doorway, blotting out the broiling sunlight outside. Like a celebrity hiding from the paparazzi, I poke my head out and sweep my gaze through the parking lot, making sure no one sees me, before yanking him inside.

“I ditched the rest of practice,” Jamie says, leaning on the edge of the desk. His lips are parted and he trains his eyes on mine. He smells faintly of aftershave—a pleasant, crisp odor—and it’s clear that he’s at least sponge bathed in the locker room. His hair glistens with product, and his breath pops with mint; he’s absolutely expecting that we’re going to get it on, and I feel a prick of both guilt and shame for ever being with him in the first place.

I stand near the side of the bed, careful to keep a few feet between us. “Look,” I say, dropping my eyes to the floor, “I’m really glad you came over. But this isn’t what you think. I can’t be with you; my life is already complicated enough as it is. But I do need your help.”

He blows out a sigh and sinks into the corner armchair in defeat. Runs his fingers through his copper hair.

I sit on the edge of the bed, fold my hands in my lap.

“You must know that I’m under suspicion for Abby’s murder.”

He nods. “And I know you didn’t do it,” he says, raising his voice an octave.

“How do you know that?” I ask. I’m both relieved and genuinely curious.

He drops his eyes to the floor, and his long, bony fingers form a cobweb, fidgeting between his knees.

“Jamie, you need to tell me what you know. My life’s not just complicated; I’m in deep shit here.”

But his gaze is still dropped and his face has turned to stone. I have no booze of my own here to offer him, but I think of the untouched minibar across the room and pry it open.

“Wanna drink? Sorry I don’t have a better selection—”

“Yes, especially if there’s whiskey.”

I lift a doll-size bottle of Crown Royal and snap the lid off.

Jamie sips it, his right foot thumping the floor as he seems to be working out how much he wants to tell me.

“Who do you think killed Abby?” I plead.

Sadness streaks across his face and I think about how he was around her, how I’d suspected he nursed a crush on her.

“I’m sorry she’s gone; I know you liked her.”

He doesn’t try to deny it. Just nods his head.

“Look, when we were together that night at the lake, before you arrived, I scrolled through Margot’s phone. I found a text she had written to Brad. Jamie, she told Brad to get rid of Abby.”

He guffaws, slams the rest of the whiskey.

“Well, I’m not surprised. Sounds just like her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“You have to tell me what you know.”

He studies the backs of his hands, lets out another sigh. “Brad didn’t tell the police everything, okay?” He rises from the chair and begins pacing the short length of carpet in front of the bed.

“Jamie, did Brad—”

“God, no. He treated Abby like shit, okay? But he didn’t kill her. But what I’m about to tell you will make it seem like he did, so you can’t tell anyone.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“I mean it, Sophie. You have to promise me. Brad’s my best friend. Prick that he can be. And this could get him into real trouble.”

Poor Brad, I think to myself. But I play along. “Of course. This stays between you and me. You have my word.”

“I did like Abby. A lot. I always have. Known each other since grade school. She just never liked me in that way. But we were both kind of the same, you know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t.”

“We’re both from poor families. Or at least, regular families. We’re not rich kids, but somehow we get to hang out with them. So anyway, I hated what Brad did to her, how he made her feel.”

“What did he do?”

Jamie’s eyes flit over the bedspread.

“You don’t have to keep protecting him, Jamie.”

Late-afternoon sunlight pulses behind the drawn curtain, casting waves of light across his freckled face.

“Well, in addition to screwing Margot behind Abby’s back, he pressured her to have an abortion.” His voice cracks and his neck blushes.

My stomach twists into a knot. Brad’s official story is that he never knew Abby was pregnant. So if he’s lying about that, what else has he lied about?

“So you’re saying that he knew she was pregnant?”

“Of course he knew! He called me one night and was flipping out about it; he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know whether or not to tell his parents. But he did tell Margot, who kept pushing him to force Abby to get rid of the baby.”

Every nerve on my skin stands at attention. Margot knew, too.

“Brad wanted to keep the baby?”

“Hell no. No way. He was set to go off to college, leave Abby behind. He told me Margot had plans for them once he was away. That she’d come visit him on the weekends, as often as she could, and that they could finally be together once he was out of Mapleton. So he pressured Abby until she almost cracked. She even visited a clinic in Dallas, but she just couldn’t go through with it. Her family is so religious, they would’ve disowned her.”

“Did Brad drive Abby to the clinic?”

“I have no idea; I just heard them arguing about it. And this was a few days before—” His voice cracks again and tears form in his eyes before he flicks them away.

“Jamie, I’ve got to ask you this again. Do you think Brad killed Abby?”

“No, no, I fucking don’t. I know he’s not capable of that. But Margot . . .” His eyes rove around the room. “She’s a different story.”

“And she’s dead,” I say with a flatness to my voice. “She didn’t love Brad, Jamie. I was with her earlier the day she drowned. She dumped him. Did you know that?”

He practically snorts. Then smacks the table with his hand. I flinch. “Is that what she told you?”

“Yes,” I say softly, trying to defuse his molten anger.

“That’s bullshit. The night before she drowned, I was at the lake with them. I didn’t want to be. But Brad always gets his way. So we went out there. And believe me, they were still very much together.”

My skin crawls and my mind reels.

If Margot and Brad were indeed still together, why did Margot lie to me about that? Obviously, to shut me down, to manage me. To cover something up. I think back to watching her with Brad. How steamed she was when he was late getting to the lake that night, how I could hear them arguing about something in the bedroom. How even earlier that week, at Jill’s pool party, Margot couldn’t handle Abby being front and center. She had to take her top off and wrestle the attention away from Abby. Psychopath.

Margot wasn’t going to save me after all. How ridiculous for me to even have thought so. The truth has been staring me in the face this whole time: Margot lied to me. Margot had something to do with Abby’s murder. And if Brad didn’t help her—as Jamie insists he didn’t—then I believe Callie did.

My mind trickles back to the beginning of the pool party, when we were all still inside Jill’s lake house, and I hear Margot’s voice, velvety and smoky in my ear: Callie may seem like a bull, but she does everything she’s told. At least she does for me.

I can picture Callie, Callie with the condo in Dallas, Callie who always does what Margot tells her to do, driving Abby to the clinic with Margot, quite possibly by force.

64

I’M IN THE Highlander heading west. Even though I know nobody is tracking me this closely, I still peer into my rearview mirror and check the cars around me as I cross the city limits.

I’m heading to Dallas, defying Flynn’s orders not to leave town. As soon as Jamie left, I tossed a change of clothes into my duffel and threw it in the passenger seat.

The sun is an orange fireball parked on the horizon, and I have to steer with one hand while I shade my eyes with the other. My thoughts are engulfed by Margot; even in death, she consumes me. Liar. Psychopath. I can’t stop spitting that word out in anger, and I need to center myself, make a plan for what’s next.

Sticking to the older highway, careful to dodge any toll roads so that my license plate won’t be photographed, I’m wearing the silly Dallas Cowboys baseball hat again. My god; I’ve sunk so low. I feel like a fugitive, but a necessary one.

It’s nearly six thirty, so by the time I arrive in Dallas, all the abortion clinics will be closed for the day. But I want to get there ASAP so I can get an early start in the morning.

* * *

—

JUST BEFORE I fled the motel, my fingers flew across the keypad of my iPhone, researching abortion laws in Texas. If you are seventeen, as Abby was, parental consent is required. This can be done in writing, but most of the private clinics I found online in Dallas—the ones I imagined Margot and Callie dragging Abby to—require that an adult be present as well. So right before I left the motel, I dug out that awful piece in the newspaper about Abby’s murder and stashed it in my bag. I took screenshots of both Margot’s and Callie’s Facebook profile pictures to bring to the clinics with me.

* * *