“Well, if she was meeting someone for a story, it was most certainly this story,” Rachel says. “And she was interviewing people connected to the case. There are three audio files of her interviewing Jackie’s family members and the boyfriend. That’s probably why she wanted Amy’s number from you, Kyle. Amy’s interview is on the thumb drive.”

My breath catches in my throat and something twists inside me, a weird mix of dread and wonder. “There’s…her voice…It’s Mina talking?” I ask.

Rachel reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to play them?”

A sickening heat floods me, half want, half protest.

I’m not ready.

“No,” I say quickly. “No. Please. Don’t.”

There’s an exhalation of breath behind me, a relieved sigh from Kyle.

“She had a lot of material,” Rachel says. “I swear she saved every article ever written about Jackie. And her suspect list is so detailed—she was good at this.”

“Too good,” I say. “She got too close. She was gonna figure it out. And he stopped her so she wouldn’t tell.”

“There’s one thing,” Rachel says. “I think the killer tried to warn her. Tried to get her to back off.”

“What?” Kyle and I say at the same time.

“Seriously, look.” Rachel brings forward Mina’s time line again, paging forward. “The time line’s huge; it spans years. The most recent entry is December, just a few months before Mina was killed. Look at what it says.”

December 5: Warning note received. Sender’s been tipped off (Accidentally? On purpose?)

December 20: Note #2 received. Going to lie low for a while. Just to be safe.

I’m paralyzed for a moment with anger, consumed by it.

Why did she have to be so secretive all the time? She should’ve known better. Should’ve known she wasn’t invulnerable. I hate her for being so reckless. For not bothering to think about all of us, left in her wake.

“That’s what the killer meant,” I whisper. “That night. He said ‘I warned you’ before he shot her.”

“She was getting threatening notes and she didn’t tell us?” Kyle looks bewildered. “She would’ve told the police,” he adds, but he sounds uncertain, because deep down he knows he’s wrong. He’s trying to hide, to forget, what she was really like. How she’d existed half in this world and half in her own, and how when she’d break the rules, it’d be so beautiful to be a part of it that you’d play along, follow her anywhere, just to bask in her glow. “Or Trev?” he suggests, when Rachel and I say nothing. “Maybe she told Trev?”

“If she had told Trev she was being threatened, trust me, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion,” I say. “She’d be alive right now. Because Trev would’ve locked her in her room and called the cops. That’s why she didn’t tell him. That’s why she didn’t tell anyone.”

Kyle looks out the window at nothing as Rachel bites her lip, her gaze flitting back and forth between the two of us.

“She wouldn’t have gone out there that night if she thought she was meeting the person who sent those notes, though,” Kyle says, breaking the uncomfortable lull. This time, there’s no uncertainty in his voice.

“Are you sure about that?” Rachel asks, and she’s looking more at me than Kyle.

I almost shrug, but Kyle beats me to it. “No,” he says firmly. “Not with Sophie there. If she thought it would be dangerous, she would’ve come up with an excuse to leave Sophie at home.”

“She didn’t treat me—”

“You don’t know how much she worried about you relapsing—­she always talked to me about it. She wouldn’t have put you in danger.”

Heat crawls along my cheeks, and the silence goes on too long, until Rachel clears her throat.

“So that means it was someone she didn’t suspect,” I say.

“It means more than that,” Kyle says. “It means it was someone she trusted.”

Kyle’s right, of course. It makes me sick that she just walked into it. That the killer gained her trust, manipulated her into meeting him out there, and she’d gone, because she had that hunger to know.

“There aren’t any scans or photos of the warning notes she got?” I ask.

Rachel shakes her head. “No. She would’ve kept them, though, right?”

“Definitely,” I say.

“But the police searched her room,” Kyle says.

“Not very well—I found the thumb drive under the floorboards.”

“We should go through it again, then,” Kyle says.

“I can’t really do that,” I say, taking a breath.

“Why not?” Kyle asks.

“Trev,” Rachel answers, when it becomes apparent that I won’t.

“Oh, yeah,” Kyle says, and he has the grace to look guilty. “He’s really pissed at you. I’ll go talk to him. I’ll explain everything. Tell him I lied, that it wasn’t your fault you guys were at the Point. Don’t worry. Trev’s totally whipped over you—he’ll forgive you.”

I firmly ignore the last thing because I hate thinking about it, and instead I look up at Kyle. “If you tell Trev the truth, he’ll kick your ass.”

“I can take care of myself,” Kyle mutters.

“It’s not a good idea,” I say hastily, more for Trev’s sake than Kyle’s.

“But—”

“Drop it, Kyle,” I say. “Rachel, what else have you got?”

“Not much. I’ll make copies of all this for you both. You guys knew her, the way she worked and thought; you might be able to see something I didn’t.”

“We can meet again in a few days,” Kyle suggests. “Compare notes?”

“Sounds good,” Rachel says, looking at me for my consent.

I nod. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

38

FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

“We’re gonna be late,” Mina says.

I zip up my boots and pull my jeans down over them. “We’ve got twenty minutes. Chill.”

She collapses on my bed, scattering throw pillows everywhere. She’s wearing a hot pink dress that’s so short, her mom would throw a fit if she saw it—which, of course, is why Mina changed into it at my house. There are little beads on the three-quarter-length sleeves, and they keep catching the light, like she’s twinkling.

She props herself up on her elbow, her hair spilling over her shoulder, a dark mass of brown curls against the pink. “Are you sure you want to wear those jeans? You should wear the black skinny ones. Tuck them into your boots.”

“I can barely breathe in the skinny ones.”

“But you look so good in them.”

I size her up, suspicious of her sudden interest in my clothes. “Is there something about tonight you’re not telling me?” I ask. There’s nothing Mina loves more than a surprise. “Why do I need to be dressed up? You’re not planning a welcome-home party, are you? Mina, I hate that sort of thing.”

“Which is why I stopped myself,” Mina says. “It’s just burgers with Kyle and Trev. I already told you.”

I shoot her a look. “Okay, but I think you’re acting weird.”

“And I think you should change.”

“Not going to happen.”

“At least put on some lip gloss.”

“What’s with you?” I ask as I pull my sweater on. “It’s just Trev and your boyfriend.” Every time I call Kyle her boyfriend, it gets easier. I’ve been practicing it in front of the mirror.

“You’re so pretty.” Mina gets up from the bed to paw through my jewelry box. “And you spend half of your life dressing so boring because you think it’ll make people notice you less.”

“Maybe I don’t want people to notice me.”

“That’s my whole point.” Mina holds a pair of silver hoops up to her ears in front of the mirror, turning her head back and forth before discarding them. “You want to hide. It’s unfair to yourself.”

“I’m not the one who wants to hide, Mina,” I say, and she fumbles and drops the necklace she’s picked up.

“I’m going downstairs,” she says flatly. “We should leave soon.”

Trev and Kyle are already sitting in a booth when we get there. Angry Burger is busy, packed with college students home for the weekend, a big group shooting pool in the corner, Corona bottles stuffed with lime wedges clutched in their free hands. They haven’t updated the music on the jukebox in forever; it’s always twangy, old-school country, heavy on the banjo.

Mina slides into the spot next to Kyle while Trev gets up from the chipped oak booth.

I’ve been home from Oregon for a week. This is the first time I’ve seen him, and I’m surprised at how happy I am. Trev is simple. Easy. Exactly what I need tonight, after days of Mina’s doublespeak and guarded glances.

He hugs me, and it’s comforting, like Trev always is.

“Good to see you, Soph,” he says, and I can feel the rumble in his chest where it’s pressed against mine.

“How’s school?” I ask him as we sit down. I’m determined to focus on Trev instead of Kyle and the way he’s got his arm slung across the back of the booth behind Mina like he owns it. Owns her.

“Busy,” Trev says.

“Trev’s been building a boat,” Mina puts in.

“Another one?” I ask.

He’d rebuilt a trashed catboat after the accident, and sometimes I’d go to the dock to keep him company. It was the only time, still fresh from the crash, that I could be around him and not feel assaulted by the weight of his guilt. His focus, for once, had been on fixing something other than me.

It took him months, repairing the smashed hull and broken spars. When he’d finally finished, he took us out, just him and me and Mina, for her maiden voyage. I’d watched him brush his fingers over his boat like he was touching a holy thing and I’d understood him in a way I never had before. Realized that he and I were cemented together, almost as much as Mina and I.