Parker was standing just a few feet away. I lowered my voice. “Fuck off,” I said.

But Greg laughed as I picked up the drinks again. “That drink for Parker?” he said as I turned to leave. “Ah, I see how it is. From one Loman to the next, then.”

I kept moving, pretending he’d said nothing at all.

Parker smiled as I set the drinks on the high table where he was standing. “This was a good idea,” he said. “Thank you.”

I sipped and shivered, trying to shake off the conversation at the bar.

Parker had barely raised his glass to his lips when three women approached us from the side. “Parker, so good to see you here.”

Ellie Arnold. Last I’d seen her was the party the year before, shaken from her fall into the pool. Now her long blond hair was both wavy and shiny, her makeup expertly done. Her fingers curled around his lower arm, perfectly manicured nails in a subtle shade of pink. Two of her friends stood between us, offering their condolences while filling him in on all he’d missed.

It was time. I patted my pockets. “Parker,” I said, interrupting them all. “Sorry, I think I left my phone in the car. Can I get the keys for a sec?”

He absently handed me his key ring, and I wove my way through the crowd, pushing out the door. The night was silent as I strode for his car in the packed lot, except for the one time the bar door swung open, a burst of sound and light escaping as someone else went inside.

I unlocked the car, the beep cutting through the night, and opened the passenger door, fishing my phone from the cupholder. I’d left it here just in case he insisted on coming with me.

Then I looked over my shoulder and walked to the back of the car, pressing the button on the key to pop the trunk, unprepared for the light glowing from within.

I looked around quickly, but the lot appeared empty.

I opened the trunk farther, my hands already shaking with anticipation. There was a single crate jammed in the corner. It was covered by a felt blanket, like one that might be stored in the trunk for emergencies. This had to be the box of personal items returned from the police station.

The first things I saw when I removed the blanket were Sadie’s sandals. The same ones I saw that night, so close to the edge of the bluffs.

I ran my fingers over them. They had been her favorite, and they looked it. Gold but scuffed at the tops. Stitching showing where the straps had pulled from the base. The hole stretched from the buckle, the left shoe missing one side of the intricate clasp. A low heel, and the sound of her steps echoing in my memory.

The door to the bar opened behind me again, a burst of sound momentarily flooding the lot. I twisted around to see, but there was no one outside that I could tell. I stared into the darkness, watching for any sign of movement.

Eventually, I turned back to the trunk, pushing the shoes aside—and saw it. A journal. Purple, with black and white ink swirls on the front. A corner of the front cover missing, so the tattered pages rippled below.

My stomach dropped, the edges of my vision gone blurry. And suddenly, everything made sense. Why the note matched her diary. Why the diary gave the police pause. I hadn’t seen this in years. The familiar, angry pen indentations on the cover, the tattered corners, the blackened edges.

I shoved it quickly into my bag, then shut the trunk again, jogging the rest of the way back inside, feeling as unsteady as I had that night.

The note matched the journal perfectly, yes. Because they were both mine.

CHAPTER 14

Parker was waiting for me when I returned. Ellie and her friends had left him alone. “Find it?” he asked.

I handed him his keys, showed him my phone. “Got it. Thanks.”

Greg arrived at our table, balancing three shot glasses between his fingers. “Here we go,” he said, like they’d both been waiting for me.

“No, I shouldn’t,” I said. “I’ll drive us back.”

But Parker wasn’t out to relax or reminisce, and apparently, neither was I. “Just the one,” he said, sliding it my way, his eyes on mine.

I raised it in the air, just as they did. “Hear, hear,” Parker said, staring right into my eyes as the glasses clinked together.

The shot glass collided with my teeth. As the liquor slid down my throat, goose bumps formed on my arms, even though the room was warm.

I stared back into his eyes, wondering what he knew. “There, there,” I answered.

* * *

THREE HOURS LATER, WE were finally on the road back home. Though I hadn’t had any more to drink, I felt parched, dehydrated by the talking, the mindless laughter.

“What was that about back there?” Parker asked, his head resting against the passenger seat as I drove.

“With what?” I asked, holding my breath. My bag was in the backseat, and the journal was inside, and I was scared that he knew everything.

“I don’t know, you’ve been acting weird ever since we got there.”

“That guy,” I said, scrambling. “Greg.”

“What about him?”

“He was an asshole,” I said, my teeth clenching.

Parker let out a single laugh. “Greg Randolph is an asshole. So what?”

“Sadie couldn’t stand him.”

“Sadie couldn’t stand a lot of people,” he mumbled.

Sadie’s monster. I twisted in my seat. “He always had a thing for her,” I said, and Parker frowned. I could see him thinking it over. All these people who loved her, yes. But these were all people who couldn’t have her, too.

* * *

THE PORCH LIGHT WAS off when I pulled into the drive. The bluffs were nothing but shadows in the darkness. I left the headlights on while Parker slid open the garage door. He may have been intoxicated, but he had the frame of mind to lock up his car inside.

After parking his car in the garage, I waited outside while he locked the sliding door back up, the night nothing but shadows.

“Good night, Parker.”

“Are you coming in?” he asked, restless on his feet.

“It’s late,” I said. “And believe it or not, even though it’s the weekend for you, I have work in the morning.”

But that wasn’t what he was asking, and we both knew it. “Sadie’s gone, Avery.” He knew then, too, the edict from Sadie, keeping me back. Maybe she said the same to him. When Sadie told me Don’t, he became all I could think about. Whenever I passed his room, whenever I saw his shadow behind the glass windows.

An active restraint was something to do, a practice, something to focus on. It was a new sort of game, so different from yielding to impulse, as I had grown accustomed. I was forged of resilience, and I let the tension stretch me tight as a wire.

But now Sadie was gone, and Luce was gone, and Parker was here, and what was there left to ruin, really? Without the others here, there was something simmering and unfulfilled, and nothing to stop me. Something, suddenly, within my reach.

He was wavering in the pathway, his eyes darting off to the side, tentative and unsure, and that was what did it for me. That was what always did it. The way an insecurity stripped them back, revealing something that put me in temporary power.

I stepped closer, and he ran his fingers through my hair. I raised my hand to his face, my thumb brushing the scar through his eyebrow.

He grabbed my wrist, fast. The imperfection made you believe he had fought his way through something on his way to this life.

His eyes looked so dark in the shadows. When he kissed me, his hand trailed down my neck, so his thumb rested at the base of my throat. My neck, in his grip.

I couldn’t tell whether it was subconscious or not. With him, it was hard to tell. But I couldn’t shake the vision of three steps from now—pressed up against the side of the garage, his hands tightening, the memory of Sadie’s voice: It can happen, you know. You can’t swallow, you can’t breathe. It’s not a quick way to die, is what I’m saying.

I gasped for air, pulling back. My hand to my throat, and Parker looking at me curiously. I wondered what else I had missed in this house—if Parker was capable of harming me. If Parker was capable of harming her.

I had grown up an only child, didn’t understand what a normal sibling dynamic should be. Thought the bursts of animosity, the casual cruelty, were the expected result of a pair of siblings fighting their way out of each other’s shadow.

But maybe Sadie knew something I didn’t. Maybe when she said Don’t, she was saving me instead.

More and more, I was convinced someone had harmed her. That note wasn’t hers. That journal wasn’t hers. Without those, the police would still be interviewing all of us, over and over, until something broke. Someone’s story. A lie. A way in.

Parker’s breath was hot and sharp, and there was no one up here but us. “What’s wrong?”

I cleared my throat, took another deep breath of cool night air. “You’re drunk,” I said.

“I am.”

“I’m sober,” I said.

He tipped his head to the side, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “So you are.”