“You always had a choice!” I burst out. “I’m here because of you. I lied for you. You’re the one who sold me out—you betrayed me!”
Tate hangs his head.
I fight to stay calm. There’s nothing he can say, I realize. Nothing at all. He was weak, and selfish, and he let me down in every way he could. But what else was he going to do? He always wanted to be so good: the perfect son, the best boyfriend. Elise was right, in the end: All that perfection had to fall apart sometime.
I swallow, gathering my strength. “When did it start?” I ask softly. “You and Elise. Tell me. Please.”
Tate reluctantly lifts his head. “Anna . . .”
“You owe me this much, at least.”
He looks away again. “Jordan’s party,” he says finally. “It was . . . maybe a month before the trip?”
I nod. I remember.
“My parents were on at me, about summer internships, and volunteering, and . . . I just wanted to forget it all. You were home, sick, and . . . I wound up out in their gazebo with Elise and a bottle of tequila.”
Even after all this time, hearing it still stings. I fight the image of them together, sprawled, laughing. The looks that turned into more.
“But, why?” I ask. “I don’t understand. You said you loved me.”
“I did.” Tate looks helpless. “It just . . . happened.”
“And kept happening.”
He looks shameful, at least. “You know Elise, what she was like. She made you feel . . . like everything was dangerous. A risk. Like, you were the center of everything, you know?”
I do.
He stops, tugging at the skin around a hangnail. “She said she wanted to know—what it felt like for you. Being with me.”
A noise comes from the door, interrupting us. Gates is there. “It’s time,” he says. “She has a verdict.”
Oh God.
I get to my feet unsteady.
“Anna . . .” Tate looks up at me. “I’m sorry, you have to know. I never meant for any of this—”
“I have to go,” I cut him off. I follow Gates and my dad back down the hall to the courtroom, the guard flanking me every step of the way.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” my dad says, but his voice is weak and uncertain. I falter in the doorway, suddenly realizing everything that’s waiting for me.
My freedom, or the end of my life completely.
A hand goes to my back, steering me gently across the threshold. I walk, numb, to the table, and sit one final time. Dekker is already in his seat, looking smug and confident.
“Daddy?” I whisper, panicked, but he doesn’t hear me. He’s staring straight ahead, his foot tapping in an uneven rhythm.
The judge enters and takes her seat. She looks out at us from over those thin gold spectacles. “Would the defendant please stand?”
I don’t know how, but somehow, I manage to rise to my feet. My whole body is shaking, blood pounding in my ears. I try to find some clue on her face, but her expression is unnervingly blank. Wouldn’t she smile at me? Wouldn’t she give me some kind of sign if the verdict was good?
“I have reviewed all the evidence presented to me, and in the matter of the prosecution versus Anna Chevalier, I have reached a verdict.”
The courtroom is completely silent as the judge’s voice rings out. “On the charge of murder in the first degree . . .”
I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. My heartbeat takes over as I watch her lips form the words. I can’t hear a thing, but I see it now, written on all their faces. My dad lets out a sob. Lee’s body crumples. Gates hangs his head, slack-jawed.
My legs give way. I fall into blackness, and it’s over.
THE NIGHT
Her body is on the floor, half-naked in pink bikini bottoms with her tank top ripped away in ribbons and stab wounds cutting scarlet across her chest.
Tate gets to her first. He hugs her torso against him, the trails of blond hair matted with blood, her face pressing against his blue shirt.
“Elise!” Melanie whimpers over and over again by the wreckage of the door, her voice shrill and gasping. Chelsea falls to her knees in the blood, taking Elise’s lifeless hand. AK and Lamar stand beside me, not breathing.
“She was like this.” Max’s voice is breaking, tears streaming down his face. He’s crumpled in a heap by the open balcony doors, broken glass scattered on the floor. “The door was smashed and open, and she was just, lying there. I didn’t touch her.”
There’s blood everywhere. Dark and thick, pooling around the body, smeared across the terra-cotta tiles. Her body is sticky with it, and for a terrible moment, we’re all frozen. Staring.
She must have struggled. Clawed for rescue, gasping and half-dead.
And now she’s gone.
“God, someone cover her up,” my voice breaks, but nobody moves, so I quickly pull off my jacket and lay it gently over her body. It’s too small. Her legs splay out from underneath, pale against the blood. Her arms hang limply from Tate’s clutched embrace.
Melanie sobs louder.
“We should go,” Lamar says suddenly, backing away. “This is a crime scene, right? We shouldn’t be in here, messing things up.”
Chelsea whirls on him. “This isn’t CSI! This is Elise, this is . . .” Her whole body shudders, and Lamar rushes to hold her up.
I swallow, looking around at the devastation. “Come on, he’s right. We can’t be here.”
AK pulls Max from his corner, and Melanie stumbles on ahead. Tate doesn’t move.
“Tay?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Tay, she’s gone. There’s nothing you can do.”
His body shakes, and then he places her carefully back on the floor, tenderly brushing hair from her eyes. They stare up at me, blue and lifeless. A wave of nausea rolls through me, and I have to look away.
I pull Tate to his feet and we slowly head out front, to where the others are waiting on the paved driveway in the glare of security lights.
“Who would do this?” Melanie finally demands, her voice raw. “Who would do this to her?”
I close my eyes and sink back against Tate’s chest, feeling his arms press tightly around me. But the sight of her body stays, vivid in my mind: so red, and torn, and empty.
“They’ll find him,” Lamar says quietly, Chelsea sobbing into his neck. “We’ll make him pay.”
We wait in a silence punctuated by sobs. Headlights pass on the main street nearby; we can faintly hear music from the hotel down the beach. Behind us, the ocean is an inky shadow beyond the bright lights of the bars. And Elise is gone now, forever.
THREE MONTHS LATER
“Now, Anna, I know that we all want to hear: What did you feel, when you heard that verdict being read?”
I pause, flashing back for a moment to that day in the courtroom and the few seconds that changed everything. “Relief,” I finally answer with a small smile. “Just, relief. I was overwhelmed, I could hardly speak. After all that time, expecting the worst, to finally be found innocent . . . And it wasn’t just about me,” I add quickly. “I was relieved for Elise, too. The worst part of all of it was knowing that if I was found guilty, the person who really killed her would be getting away with it. At least now, maybe they can find him.”
Clara smiles at me, warm and supportive. She’s walking beside me in the graveyard, fall leaves tumbling red and orange to the ground around us. The interview setting was their idea, of course: to cap my homecoming tell-all with a heartfelt visit to Elise’s grave. I didn’t want to do it—I didn’t want to ever lay eyes on Clara Rose again—but the money they were offering was too big to pass up. From the moment the verdict came back innocent, we’ve had networks and newspapers all clamoring for my exclusive interview. Every time I said no, it only made them chase harder, so in the end it was easier just to pick one and be done with it. And after all the money I cost him, it’s the least I can do for my dad to try to pay him back somehow.
“So what’s ahead for you now
?” Clara asks, bundled in a fitted powder-blue jacket. I have a white woolen coat on, and pink mittens, the result of intense debate among the wardrobe team. They wanted me in red, but I wasn’t about to fall for that again. I insisted on the white, worn over a knee-length skirt and a pale pastel sweater. The colors of innocence.
“I’m taking some time,” I reply. “Spending time with my family, and friends. It’s good just to be home again for now; I missed it so much. Then I’m thinking about college. I’d like to study law, eventually,” I add. “This whole experience has shown me how important it is to have people who believe in you, and who fight for what’s right.”
“Inspirational.” Clara nods. “Just wonderful. Now, I know so many of our viewers were rooting for you,” she coos, “sending their thoughts and prayers all through your detention and trial. Do you have any message for them?”
“Just thank you.” I clasp my hand to my chest, looking directly into the camera. “The people who never gave up on me . . . It means more than you could ever know.”
“And thank you, Anna, for sharing your story with us.” Clara smiles. “I know that everyone here, across the country, wishes you all the best in what’s to come.”
“Thank you, Clara,” I tell her warmly.
“And, cut!”
“You get that?” Clara yells across to the producer.
He gives the thumbs-up. “Can we set up the graveside shots now? Maybe some more powder on Anna?”
I take my microphone off and let the makeup woman dab at my face as they dismantle the lights and rigging from around Elise’s grave. The headstone is fresh, gleaming marble, and there’s a flickering tea light set on top.
“Here.” A production assistant hands me a bunch of flowers to set on the grave. “Peonies, right?”
I nod. They’re out of season, but they were always her favorite. Something about this should be real, at the very least.
“Good work,” Clara chats, checking her cell phone. “We’ll start running the previews tonight. Have you finalized your book deal yet?”
“We’re still talking to people,” I answer coolly. “I haven’t picked a publisher yet.”
“Well, let me know when it’s coming out. I’d love to have you back.”
Of course she would. “Sure,” I reply, with a fake smile. “I’ll have my agent set it up.”
They finally clear the area, then walk me through the staging of the final scene. It’s a long-distance shot, wide-angle from across the graveyard. They want me standing at her graveside, then kneeling to place the flowers down, preferably with a single teardrop sliding down my well-powdered cheek. I follow their directions obediently, take after take, as they struggle against the wind and confetti of fall leaves. I don’t mind it so much. After everything, I know how important a single shot can be, the story that can replace facts and hard evidence with just a single, perfect frame.
“One more time?” The producer calls. I nod, and walk slowly back to the grave.
Elise Judith Warren.
Loving daughter, beloved friend.
Always in our hearts.
I lean down, and gently place the flowers on the damp grass. I trace the letters of the headstone, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I still miss her, every day. When they call it a tragedy, they’re right. We could have still been together, if only she’d been true to me. If she’d only known what she was bringing on herself, maybe she would have thought twice.
Instead, she had to go and break my heart.
“And, cut!”
They tell me it’s a wrap, and slowly the crew dismantles, packing up the vans and heading out. But I stay, right by her grave, until the last car winds its way out toward the main gates, and I’m finally alone. The skies are gray and overcast, the graveyard, totally empty.
I reach into my coat pocket and pull it out: the necklace. The chipped metal of the pentagram pendant, the chain broken, still stained with her blood.
I close my fist around it and lean in close to whisper.
“I win.”
BEFORE
“Babe, can you pass me that soda?”
There’s no reply.
“Tate?”
I reluctantly sit up, squinting through the dark glass of my shades. The gentle curve of the beach stretches in front of me: sparkling white sand leading down to the crystal-blue waters lapping gently against the shore. The sun is hot in a cloudless sky, warming my bare skin. It’s perfection.
I look over at Tate. He’s sitting up with his bare back to me, bent over his cell phone, so I toss my magazine at him.
He looks around. “What? Oh, sorry.” He passes a soda can from the cooler, glancing again at his phone.
“Are they having fun?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah. They’re out on the boat,” he adds. “AK’s taking tons of photos—you know he won’t shut up about that new camera of his.”
I laugh. “Let me guess, we’re going to get fifty-seven million shots of some fish underwater?”
“Pretty much.” Tate grins.
I lie back, letting the sun melt through my bones, taking with it all my tension and stress. Right now, Boston feels like a thousand miles away; college application drama and all my dad’s business worries like something from another life. I let my mind go blank, soothed by the sounds of the waves, and the occasional burst of chatting and laughter from the other beachgoers set up around us on the sand.
Time slips past. Tate’s phone sounds with another text, and then a moment later, I hear his voice. “Shit, I left my sunglasses back at the house.”
“Here, take mine.” I hold them out to him, resting my other elbow over my face to block the sun.
“No, it’s cool. I need to go charge my phone anyway.” Tate gets to his feet and grabs his wallet from the blanket. “I won’t be long.”
“You remember the security code?”
“Yeah, but Elise is still back there, right?”
“She could still be sleeping.” I check my phone, but there are no new messages. “Check on her for me, okay?” I tell him. “She’s still not replying to my texts.”
“Sure. She’s probably just hungover, though.”
I make a face. “She’s not the only one.”
Tate slips his feet into his flip-flops and makes to leave, but I reach up toward him. He pauses, leaning down to quickly kiss my lips. “Tell her to get her ass down here.” I yawn, “She can lie around in bed any day back home. This is vacation she’s missing here!”
Tate smiles, then sets off back across the sand.
I find the bottle of lotion, and start to reapply. My skin is pale and always burns easily, but the only alternative is this thick, white goop, sticky and smelling like coconut. I cover myself as best I can, but there’s a wide swathe across my back I can’t reach, so I set the bottle aside and turn back to my magazine, waiting for Tate to return.
The minutes pass. I finish the magazine and dig in the beach tote for my lip balm, bored. I’m getting hungry now, so I grab my beach bag and quickly slip into my shorts and sandals, then head up the beach.
The backdoors of the beach house are open when I reach it: the glass slid aside. I climb up the stairs from the beach, and step inside. “Hello?”
The house is quiet, nobody in sight. Then I hear laughter coming from deeper inside. Elise’s voice. And Tate. I can’t hear what they’re saying, only the tone of their voices.
Teasing. Affectionate.
I freeze.
And suddenly, I remember the necklace: the one Tate had in his pocket, the one Elise claimed as her own.
I had put all of that aside. After all, there were a dozen ways for us to have mixed them up: I probably took it by mistake, long before the trip. We sat here on the beach together, just the night before. Elise said it was the two of us. Always.
Their laughter comes again, echoing in the expanse of white and tile and bright sunshine. My heartbeat quickens. I feel a faint wave of nausea spread through me. I think of
the way she was teasing him the first day, when we arrived. There was something pointed about it, taunting. And Tate, being so protective about Niklas . . .
I take a long, shaky breath. Part of me wants to turn back around—go lie out in the sun until Tate gets back, and spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the water—but now that the idea is in my head, I know I can’t stop, not until I can prove to myself I’m wrong. I take a slow step, deeper into the house, toward their voices.
“Hey, hands!” Elise’s voice exclaims. She giggles flirtatiously. “I’m trying to give you a show here.”
“Aww, come on . . .” Tate groans.
“What do you think? I got it right before we left.”
“I think you look fucking sexy.”
“And . . . ?”
“And what?”
Elise’s voice drops, seductive. “What are you going to do about it?”
There’s no more talking.
I’m at the end of the hallway now, beside Elise’s empty room. They’re in our room, I realize. Our bed.
Bile rises in my throat, but I force myself to keep walking. It could be a game, I tell myself. Just, messing around. Something, some other explanation. It has to be.
I see them a split-second before I hear Elise moan, like lightning, flashing sharp ahead of the slow rumble of thunder. They’re framed through the open door of the bedroom, tangled up in each other on the bed. Naked. Tate rolls her underneath him, groaning as he thrusts; Elise’s legs are wrapped around him, pale against the golden tan of his back as she whimpers and arches up against him.
I can’t look away.
They tumble over again, and this time, Elise is on top. She sinks deeply against him, her eyes closed, her arms drifting above her head. She looks the way she always does when she’s dancing, lost in something bigger than herself. Swept up. Blissful.
Then her eyes open, and she looks directly at me.
I don’t move. Our gaze is caught across Tate’s oblivious body, and for a moment, it’s like I’m there beneath her; her skin against mine. Then her face begins to change—she’s caught up, too far gone to stop. I watch the orgasm rush through her; I feel it in my bones. Like an awakening. Like a death. And all the while, our eyes stay locked on each other’s.