“Just great,” I reply, sarcastic. “Except for this whole pesky murder conviction hanging over my head.”
Tate seems to crumple in front of me. “God, Anna, I’m so sorry.” He reaches for my hand across the table, but I flinch back. “It wasn’t my idea, to cut the deal, I swear to you. But my parents said I had to. Dekker was coming after me; they said I would go on trial for sure.” Tate stares at me, imploring, with those blue eyes I know by heart. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“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.