“He said he was going back inside to rescue Shaw? The day of the explosion?”
Cassie blew out a breath, looked at the ceiling. Square beige tiles, water stained with splotches of dingy yellow. One was warped and sat loose in its tan metal frame. “I guess…” She tried to remember. “I think I just assumed it. But why else?”
“And that night in his apartment, did he talk about Professor Shaw?”
She shook her head.
“Did he offer you drugs? Were you selling drugs with him? Using? Buying?”
“What?” No one could prove what she’d seen. Could they? “No, of course not.”
“Then what?”
“Well, I was scared, because I didn’t really know him, but I felt kind of guilty, because he wouldn’t have gone back into Wharton that day if not for me—”
“That wasn’t your fault, Ms. Atwood,” the detective interrupted her. “But go on.”
She told him about the wine he’d given her. About Jem’s collapse. Even about the water she’d brought to him. Not about the drugs in the cabinet.
“We knew someone was there, Cassie. There were fingerprints everywhere, and we can easily see if they match yours. Blue jean fibers in the carpet, not Mr. Duggan’s. He apparently called someone to stay with him? You heard that call?”
Cassie nodded. The phone call she’d obsessed over. It wouldn’t matter now. “Sort of.”
“But his friend only knew a woman had been there, Jem hadn’t said a name. So all we knew was female, young, wearing jeans. Not much to go on.”
Cassie thought of the crossed-off days on her calendar. After all that anxiety, it wasn’t Jem’s friend who’d mattered. It was her own friend. She needn’t have worried. Until Marianne said the word hospital.
“Did he come on to you, Cassie? Or try to force drugs on you?” Kirkhalter leaned closer, his voice almost a whisper as if wanting her to confide in him. “Did you push him away, and that’s why he fell? Did he hit his head, and you got scared, and that’s why you ran when you saw he was dead?”
“I didn’t push him.”
“Here’s the thing, Ms. Atwood. Under some circumstances, that might be considered negligent homicide.” Kirkhalter scratched behind one ear, as if considering. “Maybe involuntary manslaughter. Hard to know what a district attorney might decide. They’re pretty tough. And they’re not gonna like that you left him there. You cleaned up, didn’t you? You ran. And covered up. We’d asked everyone for information, any information. And you never came forward.”
Cassie saw a concerned look cross his face.
“But—you—because.” She had to make him understand. “I thought he was fine.” The room seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, Kirkhalter using all the oxygen. “I just happened to be there, and even the paper said it was his second concussion, and natural causes, they said, and—I didn’t know what to do. I mean, how was I supposed to know?”
“I understand, Cassie, I do.” Kirkhalter looked at her with what seemed like sympathy. “But you’re eighteen. Supposedly an adult. You made a pretty bad decision. And I hate to tell you…” He took another sip of coffee. “The medical examiner can overturn a natural-causes opinion. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
She flinched at the sharp sound. It seemed to bounce off the grungy walls and the shabby ceiling and her unforgiving metal chair, and echo back at her, taunting her. Just like that.
He shook his head, eyeing her. “Cassie? A jury is not gonna like you. Have you heard the term ‘consciousness of guilt’? Basically, it means if you do things that a guilty person would do, a jury can use that to decide you actually are guilty.”
“But—”
“Picture your jury, Cassie.” The detective turned to the blank wall to his right. Made a broad gesture as if presenting a huge image. “Picture the twelve men and women sitting in those uncomfortable blue chairs in the jury box, looking at you. The people who’ve heard your story. Are you seeing them?” He looked at her, an assessing glance.
She nodded. She could see them perfectly. They were all frowning at her.
“They’re hearing from the police, and I’m afraid that would include me, that your fingerprints were there, your jean fibers were in the carpet, the building super saw you, and you never came forward to tell us you’d been there. Even though you were asked specifically. You lied and covered up and then lied some more. You left a man to die. Your lawyer would never allow you to testify—I mean, what could you do but deny it again? Why would anyone believe you? They already know you’re a liar.”
Cassie gasped, she didn’t mean to, but she did, and she could really see those jurors. They’d hate her.
“Smart girl.” Kirkhalter nodded, looked at her square on, narrowing his eyes. “Now you understand. How would you vote?”
“But it’s not true. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know—I thought he was fine,” Cassie said again. Her voice sounded like it was coming from another person, like she didn’t exist anymore, like she was powerless and small and fragile as milkweed.
Kirkhalter looked at his watch. Almost eleven, Cassie saw. Was time running out in some way?
“Detective? What can I do?” she said.
He tapped his forefingers on the battered surface of the table. Blew out a breath.
“Cassie? Listen. I believe you.”
“Oh.” Her hands flew to her chest as if to hold in her heart. “Thank you.”
“But no one else will.”
She stared at him.
“And, Cassie? Your Jeremy Duggan was a stone-cold drug dealer. Big time. We know that. And the world is better off without him.”
Her eyes widened.
“Still.” He sighed. “The law doesn’t care how bad the guy is you kill. Murder is murder.”
He swirled his coffee, and she thought she was going to die. Which might make this all easier.
“On the other hand, I do. Care. And if you’re willing to help us catch Duggan’s supplier, the big fish, the one who’s providing coke and meth and X to college kids, giving roofies, right? To your own friends, probably? We might be able to work a deal. You’d have to testify against him, or at least give a grand jury enough information to send him away. I could help you with what to say.”
“Well—”
“But if anyone ever knew it was you, your life would be in danger. The bigger suppliers are not gonna be happy with you. When they are not happy, they retaliate. Welcome to the real world. And that threat, that promise, would never go away.”
Her brain was about to explode.
“So you’d have to disappear,” Kirkhalter went on. “We’ll help you.”
“What? No. That’s crazy. Disappear? You mean like witness protection? No way. Why would I do that?”
“You don’t have to.” Kirkhalter shrugged. Drained the last of his coffee.
“What if I don’t?”
“Well…” Kirkhalter turned to the jury wall again, made the same gesture. “Then you’ll face your jury. And roll the dice on going to prison for life.”
NOW
CHAPTER 44
LILY
The afternoon had shifted behind them, the sun moving across the springtime sky, its light playing through the gauze curtain and onto the framed watercolors of the painted forest. At one point, a fragile pin spot of sunlight hit the topmost branches of one of the pines, and Lily saw a tiny bird that had been hidden in the changing shadows.
“Well, I suppose what you say is true, Lily,” Banning said. “Yeah. The ‘Cassie has disappeared and probably planned it herself’ story was, yeah, a fabrication. Ends and means, like I said. But it’s not like I had anything to do with it. I still wondered—but at some point, I have to admit, I gave up on hearing about Cassie Atwood again. Until the letter.”
He tilted his head back, looked at the ceiling. Then back at her. “I apologize. I gave you those stories as Smith so you’d trust me when I told you about your sister. Now I guess that was a dumb idea. I
thought you’d be relieved. Happy to see her.”
Greer nodded. “We thought you’d be overjoyed.”
“I am,” Lily whispered. “Of course. It’s just a shock.” How was she going to handle this? She’d look like a monster if she told the truth. Banning and Greer were only trying to help, and had offered her, in fact, the answer to a question she’d been asking for so many years. How could she explain it was the answer she did not want to hear?
“Aren’t you happy to know she loves you?” Lily recognized Greer’s persuasive voice, the one she used to try to convince a reluctant victim to do an on-camera interview. “And misses you?”
“You told us you had no idea where she was.” Banning sounded disappointed. “Did you look for her?”
“Of course I looked.” Lily walked the line carefully. She had searched for her sister, sure. But not to bring her home. She’d wanted to make sure she stayed away.
Cassie had done something bad. She’d said so herself. Bad enough that an apology would not make it right. Little-girl Lily had not believed it.
But grown-up Lily knew it must be true. And grown-up Lily could not afford “something bad” in her life. The longer Cassie was—gone, vanished, unaccounted for, and presumed dead—the safer Lily’s life and career would be. And now, even worse. If bad guys were after her, that put Rowen in danger. She hadn’t protected her daughter for all these years just to have it all fall apart because the mysterious and shadowy Cassie decided to reappear. And bring her toxic history with her.
She pressed her lips together, appalled at herself. Harsh and horrible and sad. Protecting perfection had a price. And she was paying it, this heartbreaking minute, in this suburban dining room.
She could not allow Cassie to come home. But how could she refuse her own sister?
Greer had put her arm across Lily’s shoulders, and it was all Lily could do not to shrug it off in frustration and anger. How would Lily explain this to Rowen? How do you tell a child their aunt is a—whatever she was? How do you tell the world? How do you keep the social media mob from descending? But it was her own sister. Her only sister. Lily closed her eyes, suddenly weary.
She was one phone call, one text, one knock at the door away from having her life fall apart.
Greer had leaned in even closer. Her arm lay heavy on Lily’s back. “Lily?” she said. “It’s just a question of getting out in front of it. Embracing her. Giving her another chance. You’d be—an angel of mercy. The good sister.” She scratched the back of her neck with one finger. “But I gotta say. From that note, it seems like it’s your decision. She won’t appear unless you tell her to.”
“Right. If you keep quiet, maybe she’ll stay away.” Banning took the cooperating witness letter and slid it back into the red-tabbed file. “I mean, I suppose she will. You’re not hard to find. If she changes her mind and decides to appear on her own—there’s nothing stopping her.”
“Who knows how she’d handle it, Lily,” Greer added. “On her own. How public she’d go. It’d be out of your—our—control.”
It felt like the wheels were in unstoppable motion. And who knew what Cassie Atwood—or whoever she was now—might say. Maybe she wanted money or power or control. Or revenge. Cassie—or whoever—had made new rules.
“Why didn’t she just show up?” Lily said. “Why all the drama?”
“It’s hardly drama,” Banning said. “More like reality. I assume the letter meant she wanted my father to promise she’d be safe. Since we don’t know who she was being protected from, we can’t help with that. But ‘they’ know, whoever ‘they’ are, and when she reveals herself, she might be in danger. But, Lily?” Banning spread his hands as if he were imagining a scene. “Here’s a thought. You could tell her that. You could actually protect her.”
“Exactly.” Greer nodded. “She obviously trusts you. Maybe she’ll trust you enough to listen when you tell her to stay away. Maybe Banning could meet with her, too, explain about his father.”
“Meet?” Lily said.
“Right?” Greer went on, looked at Banning. “If Lily can figure out how to contact Cassie, we’ll choose a private place to meet. It’ll have to be fast, but she’ll be safe. You both will. And Lily? If it goes wrong somehow, Banning could be there to protect you.”
Banning tilted back in his chair, then thunked it back onto the carpet and stood, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Anyone want water?”
“Sure,” Greer said.
“No, thanks.” Lily wished she were home, with Petra bringing Rowen from school, with things the way they were before. Before Cassie wanted to come back.
Greer turned to her as Banning left the room. “I didn’t know he was going to make such a big production of this.” Greer kept her voice low, talking close to Lily’s ear. “That’s why I called you, right? At the station? That was me. He’d told me not to let you in on it, but I didn’t want you to worry. So I pretended to be Smith. To let you know Banning was legit. As for me, I was meeting a friend, and it’s complicated. But I only want to protect you. And you love Cassie, I know that. You have that photo on your bulletin board. That’s her, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have kept that if you didn’t care. And she loves you, too, Lily. Imagine how she must have missed you.”
Was that true? Lily wondered.
“We’ll get through this, Lily.” Greer kept talking, her tone persuasive. “You’re juggling so many things. You must feel so off balance. But I’m here.”
They sat in silence for a beat, then another, the inevitability of the future looming. Cassie was coming. Cassie. Who wanted her life back and who might ruin Lily’s as a consequence.
“She told me to remember she loved me,” Lily whispered. She could hardly focus on what Greer had said; her mind was too full of Cassie. “And that she’d always know where I was.”
Greer laughed. One short, sharp sound. “Oh, forgive me,” she said, touching her fingers to her lips. “I know this is serious. But duh, everyone knows where you are.”
Lily widened her eyes, realizing how true that was. And how easy it was to know. She pulled her phone from her blazer pocket, opened her Instagram page. Fifty-eight thousand followers. The good news and the bad news.
“Here.” Banning placed a sleek green glass of ice water on the table.
Lily held up her phone. “Fifty-eight thousand Instagram followers,” she said. “I bet Cassie is one of them. It’s like—maybe she means more than ‘watch me’ on TV. Maybe she’s watching my feed.”
“Probably is,” Banning agreed.
“Lily?” Greer leaned forward. “Try to contact her on Insta. Think of a way. Tell her you want to see her. Then when you meet, explain why she needs to go back into hiding. Yes?”
“Maybe.” Lily pushed back her chair. The world had tilted off its axis, and she struggled for equilibrium. “But think about it. She’s got a new identity. She could be anyone. A friend, a new nanny, a neighbor. If the bad guys are watching me—well, I meet people all the time. And she’s not trying to hurt me, because she’s even asking my permission.”
“I should have thought of that.” Banning toasted Lily with his water. “So simple.”
“And I was saying, you could be there, Banning.” Greer pointed to him, then to herself. “And me, too. Just in case. But Cassie needs to see the files. And hear about your father.” She winced. “I’m sorry. But she wrote the letter to him. Which means when she wrote it, she didn’t know about the accident. And why it might still be dangerous for her to come out.”
“Good point.” Lily nodded. “But thank you, Banning, for bringing this to me. Even though I would have listened to you without your whole Smith charade.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. It wasn’t just about you trusting me. I had to know whether I could trust you.”
“Now we have to decide what to say on Insta. Can’t hurt to try that.” Lily had to move ahead. Banning’s methods didn’t matter. The result was the same. “This is good. My sister is alive.
You can understand—it’s a lot. I’ll see her, and we’ll both decide. And thank you, Greer.”
“You know I’d do anything for you, Lily,” Greer said.
CHAPTER 45
GREER
Who’d have thought perfect Lily had so many secrets? I’d watched her in that dining room, the sunlight bestowing its glow on her as if it understood who was important, watched her process this news of her sister. Watched her—I know her well enough to grasp how she views things—calculate how the arrival of this not-so-perfect sister would affect her. Not affect her sister, for crap’s sake, the one who had hidden and covered up and lived in cowering fear for all those years, but how it would affect her. I’d put my arm across the back of her chair, trying to connect, but I could actually feel the animosity radiating from her. Thank god I hadn’t pushed for the live family reunion thing. That would have been a disaster. For Lily, at least. Not for me or the ratings.
And besides the secret sister, the secret boyfriend. The secret married boyfriend, father of her out-of-wedlock (I know, not PC) daughter from the past who she’d manipulated and threatened and stonewalled. And deprived of a father.
Poor guy, just wanted to see his own daughter. I couldn’t get over that. Little Rowen, turns out, was just another pawn in Lily’s path to perfection.
Talk about perfection. The elegant Sam Prescott hadn’t seemed like a bad father candidate this morning when I first saw him at the aquarium. Quite the opposite, in fact, striding toward me on the wide sidewalk wearing an expensive-looking charcoal cotton sweater, perfect for the salty spring breeze coming off Boston Harbor. Graying hair and crinkly laugh lines, I saw, as he held out a hand to shake mine. In his other, he carried two lidded paper cups in a cardboard container. I could see why Lily’d been attracted to him. Even though he was married.
“Cream and sugar?” he’d asked, holding out the tray. “That’s the one closer to you.”
“Perfect,” I said. I was still wondering how Banning knew the Graydon School had a field trip this morning, but that was not my department. He was a private detective; his job was to find things.
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