by Abigail Haas
“Yes, Detective Dekker.” Judge von Koppel stares over the top of her gold wire-rimmed glasses, her lips pursed. “I have to agree. This seems highly irregular.”
“My apologies.” Dekker gives her a smarmy smile. “I’m simply trying to establish motive. If Miss Chevalier was involved in a sexual relationship with the victim, it would surely add to her betrayal and anger on discovering—“
“Yes, yes.” The judge waves him on. “I understand. I’ll allow you to proceed, but please, be direct.”
“Of course.” Dekker turns back to me, grinning, as if he’s won this round. “So, Miss Chevalier, let me ask: Was yours and Miss Warren’s relationship sexual in nature?”
I stare back, stone-faced. “No.”
“Not ever?” he presses. “But these photos we’ve seen . . .” He clicks them up on display again: the shots from Halloween, and pictures of me and Elise going back all year. We’re draped over each other, hugging, affectionate and close. In one, we have bikinis on, and Elise is kissing my shoulder, her arms wrapped protectively around my bare stomach. In another, we’re snuggled on her couch with a blanket, wearing tiny pajama shorts and tank tops, our limbs intertwined. Dekker turns back. “Are you telling us these are purely platonic photos?”
“Yes,” I insist. “They don’t mean anything. There are photos of all of us like that—me with Chelsea, or Lamar even. Elise and Mel—”
“I’m interested in you and the victim, Miss Chevalier,” Dekker interrupts again, but this time, I don’t stop.
“You’re not letting me finish!” I exclaim. I can see my lawyer’s face tense, but I can’t let Dekker keep doing this—keep flashing up pictures like they mean something, without showing the rest of them, and what it was really like. “You’re asking me all these questions, but you don’t care what I say; you just want to show off those photos and pretend like they mean more than they do!”
“Please calm down, Miss Chevalier.” Dekker looks smug, and I realize with a pang that this is what he wanted all along: for me to raise my voice, or cry out, or do anything that lets him say I’ve got a temper.
“Actually, I believe the defendant has a point.”
We both turn. It’s Judge von Koppel, gazing evenly at Dekker. “If you ask the defendant a question, please allow her to answer fully.”
There’s another pause. “Of course.” Dekker forces a smile, but before I can feel a small sense of victory, he rounds back on me.
“So you were never sexually involved with the victim?”
“I said, no.”
“You never kissed each other on the lips, perhaps?”
“No.”
“The two of you never experimented, with touching, or—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained.” Judge von Koppel glares at Dekker. “You’re out of line. I won’t tolerate this kind of salacious speculation in my courtroom, do you understand?” Her voice rings out, heavy with disapproval, and I see Dekker flush. “That was a question, counselor,” she continues. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He spits the word, resentful. “Now, if I could continue—”
“No.” The judge cuts him off, and I feel a wash of gratitude. “I think we’ve had enough of your questioning for the day. We’ll take a short recess, and then I’ll see you and Counselor Gates in my rooms to discuss the rules for appropriate lines of questioning. Since you so clearly need a reminder. Court adjourned.”
She bangs her gavel, and a ripple of fervent conversation spreads though the courtroom: lawyers and consultants and reporters all murmuring excitedly, but they’re a blur to me. I exhale slowly in relief, not moving from the witness seat.
“Are you all right, Miss Chevalier? Anna?”
I look up. It’s the judge, leaning toward me, her brow furrowed with concern. “I said, are you feeling all right?”
“I . . . yes.” I reply, shocked. It’s the first time she’s spoken to me like a human being for weeks. All during the trial, she’s talked across me, to the lawyers, as if I don’t even exist, and the few times she has looked in my direction, it’s to press me to answer, or to tell me to be more precise. “I’m okay,” I tell her, recovering. “Thank you.”
She nods briskly. “We’ll continue your testimony in the morning.”
The guard approaches to lead me back to the holding room, but even as he snaps the handcuffs back around my wrists, I let myself feel the victory, the smallest triumph in weeks of wretched defeat.
I won this round. Dekker went too far.
Then I look across the courtroom, and my brief joy fades. Elise’s mom is staring at me from her usual seat behind Dekker’s table. The hatred in her eyes takes my breath away.
I stop, holding her gaze for as long as I can. Pleading. But the guard hustles me on, not stopping, and Elise’s mom turns away.
WAITING
The days pass slowly in prison, a repeating parade of early-morning wake-up calls, bland meals on plastic trays, and those few precious hours out in the exercise yard, pacing under the endless blue skies. I feel every moment of it at first, trapped and claustrophobic, like the cell walls are closing in on me, about to smother and crush me for good. I find it hard to sleep, or eat, and every time I hear footsteps approaching, I can’t stop my heart from leaping, a fierce flutter of hope in my chest. They’ve come for me. I can go home. It’s all over.
But it never is.
In the end, I can’t take the heartbreak of disappointment anymore, I decide. Nobody’s coming to save me. Although Dad tells me to stay positive, and keep hope alive, I know the truth he can’t bring himself to tell me yet: There will be no late breakthrough miracle, no last-minute reprieve. I’m going to stand trial for Elise’s murder, and now there’s nothing I can do but wait.
In a way, it’s easier once I let go of that daydream. I’m not suspended in hopeful limbo, waking up every day rich with the possibility of freedom—and the hollow weight of disappointment when the lights-out buzzer goes off, and the cell doors slam shut again each night. I have the trial to hold onto now: my light on the horizon. When we’re in court, when we can shut down whatever evidence Dekker thinks he has—the blood smears, and the knife, and the necklace—then this will all be over. I’ll be found innocent. I can go home.
Until then, I just have to stay strong, and wait.
So the days pass. One hundred. One hundred and sixteen. A hundred and forty seven. Mostly, I remember—lying on the narrow bunk in my cell, letting the time drift by as I sink beneath the cool surface of the past. I start at the beginning, the day I met Elise in gym class, and slowly work forward, through school and Tate and the arrival of Chelsea and the others. I play out every conversation, every kiss, like a scene from the movie of somebody else’s life. Except I feel it. Hard, and sharp, and slicing with the deep ache of nostalgia, a longing for the time that’s gone now and I’ll never get back. All the brief moments I took for granted—the afternoons spent slouched, bored, doodling song lyrics in her notebook in the back of history class; the coffee breaks we spent hunched over mocha whip lattes at Luna, and idle free periods window-shopping on Newbury Street. Elise and I, arms linked, limbs intertwined. Dyed streaks in our hair, matching pendants at our necks. Laughter in our souls.
I look for reasons, and answers, for hints and warning signs. I take our final moments on the island apart and spread them flat, like a prospector hunting for the glint of gold in the murky dust of the riverbed. Sometimes, I think I see something: a glance, a worried note in her voice. A hug that lingers too long, the buzz of a text message she doesn’t check. But the vision blurs; details mix. Memory and imagination are only a knife edge apart, and I wonder if I’m making it all up: slipping false memories in among the real ones, just to have something to hold on to. Fool’s gold.
They argue over trial dates. The days pass, and I wait.
VACATION
I wake in Tate’s arms, sunlight falling through the open drapes to where we lie, tangled in the crisp
white sheets. It’s our third day in Aruba; the window is open, and I can hear the distant crash of the ocean and feel the gentle breeze on my skin.
Bliss.
I yawn, rolling to snuggle against him, cheek against his bare chest. He’s a restless sleeper, and the covers are kicked to the floor, his limbs sprawled as if he finally gave up an epic battle and fell into unconsciousness, exhausted. I smile, tracing the line of his jaw down to his collarbone and ribs.
Tate murmurs, still half-asleep, a faint smile on his lips.
I kiss him, my mouth replacing the slow sleep of my fingertips, along the ridge of sinew and bone, down to the taut muscles of his stomach. I feel him laugh against my mouth, awake now. He pulls me back up, kissing me hard as he rolls over and crushes me in his embrace.
I stay there a moment, kissing back slowly, savoring the weight of him. Then the kiss deepens, his hands reaching impatiently for the flesh of my thighs, easing them apart. I feel him harden against me.
“Hold that thought,” I say, and tear myself away. He lets out a groan of frustration. “I need the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I promise, kissing him again.
“No, it’s good. I’ve got to go for a run.” Tate hauls himself out of bed, naked save for a pair of blue boxers. He peels them off, exchanging them for some crazy print board shorts. “Me and Lamar need to stay in shape for the season.”
I pause, admiring the view. You would think I’d get used to it, but I don’t. His body, the grace he moves with . . .
Mine.
“Okay, I’ll see you after.” I head across the room, picking my way over discarded clothes and the junk spilling from our suitcases. “I think it’s another beach day. AK said something about renting some Jet-Skis . . . ?”
“Awesome.” Tate laces up his sneakers, then goes to open the balcony doors. “Laters.” He jogs down the steps onto the beach below. I move to the balcony and watch him as he stretches, his arms held high; then he takes off, his feet pounding the sand as he finds his usual rhythm, heading down to where the water laps against the shore. Soon he’s a tiny figure in the distance, a dark shadow on the white sand of the bay.
I shower and pull a bikini on, then wander out into the main house. It’s early, and the living area is deserted; everyone is still crashed out from the night before. We spent the day on the beach, then wound up drinking at the house until late while Mel and Elise bickered over where to get dinner, until finally the boys revolted and dragged us all out for pizza at a tacky chain restaurant in one of the hotel complexes. They served two-for-one margaritas, lurid in huge glasses as big as serving bowls, and ice cream sundaes smothered in hot fudge sauce and cream. We were all queasy and groaning by the time we made it back, except Elise, of course. She was dancing, alone in the living room, long after the rest of us stumbled off to bed—lit by the eerie blue of the fish tank, swaying and dreamy.
I go to the fridge, and pull out a carton of juice.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
I jump, slamming the refrigerator shut. Niklas is just a few feet away, lounging against one of the cabinets. “Jesus.” I catch my breath, my heart pounding. “You scared me!”
“Sorry.” He looks amused, his eyes trailing me from head to toe. “Guess you weren’t expecting company.”
I shift, uncomfortable. I’m in just my bikini top and some cutoff shorts. Beach clothes, fine for hanging out with my friends, or even strolling outside, but here, alone in the kitchen with some strange older guy, I’m painfully aware of the thin fabric and bare flesh on show.
I catch Niklas’s gaze again—ice blue and smug—and resist the urge to go pull a sweater on. Somehow I think it would give him too much satisfaction.
“It’s early,” I say briskly instead, turning back to the juice. “I didn’t know you were here.”
I reach for a glass from the rack above the sink, but Niklas steps in first, his body pressing against mine as he fetches one down for me. I flinch back.
“Voilà.” He offers it with a bland smile, but I can tell he’s enjoying my discomfort.
“Thanks,” I reply shortly. I pour my drink and then circle around to the breakfast bar—putting a length of polished marble between us. “Where’s Elise? I didn’t think she was up.”
“She’s not.” Niklas shrugs. I wait, but he doesn’t continue. Instead he gulps juice straight from the carton, still watching me with that amused look.
I shiver, despite the balmy temperature. Tate was right. He is creepy.
“Morning, my darlings!” Elise bounds in, dressed in her red bikini and tiny white cutoff shorts. She encircles me in a hug, and cold water drips down onto my skin, her hair still wet from the shower. She kisses my shoulder. “Do you see the ocean? Fuck, I never want to leave.”
“Sure, dropout and move here,” I say, and laugh, relaxing at her presence. “Become a professional beach bum. Your parents would love that.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Elise hops up to sit on the counter, swinging her legs against the cabinet doors. “I’ll send them a postcard. ‘Wish you weren’t here’.”
She plucks a couple of grapes from the bunch in the fruit bowl and eats, still sitting with her back to Niklas.
I look over at him, realizing for the first time that Elise hasn’t spoken to him. Hasn’t so much as glanced in his direction.
Niklas must realize it too. His expression darkens for a moment, then the frown is wiped away, replaced with that same bland, smug smile. “I’m out of here. Text you later?”
Elise shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”
Niklas salutes at me, and then saunters toward the front door. A moment later, I hear it slam.
I give Elise an expectant look. She grins. “Keep ’em mean. . . .”
“I know, but that was pretty icy.”
She shrugs again. “He’s kind of full of himself. Going on and on about all his dad’s business deals, and how they own, like, half the island. Still, the boy has his uses. . . .” Her lips slip into a mischievous smile, and I can’t help but laugh.
“What time did he come over?” I ask, going to rinse my glass. They have a maid come here every afternoon, but I still feel bad leaving anything for her to clean up. “I didn’t hear him come in.”
“I had him sneak in round back last night,” Elise replies, sliding down to the ground. “He had to climb up to my balcony.”
“Oh Romeo, Romeo,” I quote, holding a hand to my forehead in a fake swoon. She laughs. “You’re lucky he didn’t fall and crack his head open,” I add.
Elise makes a dismissive noise. “It’s barely fifteen feet; anyone could climb that. Besides, you’ve got to make them work for it, otherwise they think you’re easy.”
“You, the great Elise Warren, easy?” I tease. “Never!”
“That’s me.” She dances around the kitchen, throwing wannabe gang signs, mock-tough. “Rock hard, baby.”
“Like your abs?” I laugh, lightly hitting her stomach.
“Like diamonds, baby!”
There’s a groan. AK comes stumbling in, wearing last night’s crumpled T-shirt and a pained expression. “Noise. Pain. Dead.”
“What’s that?” Elise calls, extra loud.
“I don’t know!” I yell back. “I couldn’t hear!”
AK glares. “I hate you both,” he says, falling face-first onto the couch.
“Aww, don’t be like that,” Elise coos.
“We’re sorry,” I agree. “Want me to make you some coffee?”
There’s a groan.
“I think that’s a yes,” Elise laughs. She turns back to me, then her eyes widen. “You found my necklace!”
“What?” My hand goes to my throat. “This one’s mine.”
“No”—Elise reaches around my neck to unfasten it—“I have that chip in the metal, remember? Right here.” She shows me the crack through the bronze before fastening it around her own throat. “I thought I lost it back in Boston. Cheap piece of crap.” She grins affectionately. “It’s going t
o give us a rash or something one day.”
Before I can reply, Lamar interrupts us, strolling into the room with his shades on and a beach towel slung over his shoulder. “What are you guys still doing inside? We’ve got a schedule, people. Relaxing! Drinking! Lying in the sun!”
Elise laughs, spinning away from me. “Two minutes!” she promises. “I’ve got to grab my beach stuff, then I’m going to relax so freaking hard.”
She dances away, back toward her room, and I’m left there, my fingers digging into the back of the couch, my breath coming slow.
“What’s up with you?” Lamar’s voice snaps me back. I turn.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
TRIAL
“Miss Chevalier, can you tell us what we’re looking at up on-screen, please?”
I barely turn to look. I’ve been on the stand for hours now, answering his questions, trying to stay calm, and not snap or sound sullen, but it’s hard when I’ve had only a few hours of sleep all week. They took me off the sleeping pills, saying it made me look too robotic and detached on the witness stand, but now all I can do each night is stare at the cracked ceiling of my tiny cell and wait for the peace that never comes.
“Miss Chevalier?” Dekker prompts, and I realize I’ve zoned out again.
“It’s a map of the beach house,” I tell him, tired.
“That’s right,” Dekker agrees. “And can you tell us which room you were sleeping in?”
“The one you’ve marked in black.”
“The one by the front door,” Dekker continues. He’s got an iPad and a pointer, to move around on the screen. “And the victim, Elise, her bedroom was back here, to the rear of the house.”
Her room, of course, is marked in red.
“We can see from the diagram, it’s barely ten feet from your bedroom door to the main entrance to the house. So it’s a fair assumption,” Dekker continues, “that if anyone were to enter or exit in order to get to Elise’s room, they would have to go past yours—which, as you’ve stated on several occasions, you were occupying the afternoon she died, between six and seven p.m.”