“When I talk to Miss Stone—I mean, Miss Boyd—she’ll tell me the same thing?”

“Of course,” I say.

At least, I hope she will. After last night, I’m not sure Sam and I are on the same side.

“You two are close, I imagine,” Hernandez says. “Going through similar ordeals. What’s that name the papers call you?”

“Final Girls.”

I say it angrily, with all the scorn I can muster. I want Detective Hernandez to know that I don’t consider myself one of them. That I’m beyond that now, even if I no longer quite believe it myself.

“That’s it.” The detective senses my tone and wrinkles her nose in distaste. “I guess you don’t like being called that.”

“Not at all,” I say. “But I suppose it’s better than being referred to as victims.”

“What would you like to be called?”

“Survivors.”

Hernandez leans back in her chair again, impressed. “And are you and Miss Boyd close?”

“We are,” I say. “It’s nice to be around someone who understands me.”

“Of course it is.” She sounds like she means it. There’s sincerity there, I think. Yet her face is pinched just a fraction. “And you said she’s staying with you?”

“For a few days, yes.”

“So the fact that she’s had prior brushes with the law doesn’t bother you?”

I swallow. “Prior? As in, more than what happened the other night?”

“I guess Miss Boyd neglected to tell you about those,” Hernandez says, consulting her notes. “I did a little digging into her recent history. Nothing big. Just the past five years or so. In addition to being picked up for assault two nights before Rocky’s unfortunate accident, she had a drunk and disorderly arrest in New Hampshire four years ago, another one in Maine two years after that, and an unpaid speeding ticket following a traffic stop just last month in Indiana.”

The world stops just then. A sudden screeching halt that sends everything tilting. My hands slide off my lap and grip the underside of my chair, as if I might fall right out of it.

Sam was in Indiana.

Just last month.

I try to smile at Detective Hernandez, to show her I’m unflappable, that I know everything there is to know about Sam. In reality, my mind fills with memories, flipping like pages of a photo album. Each memory is a snapshot. Bright. Vivid. Full of detail.

I see Lisa’s email on my phone, glowing ice blue in the darkness.

Quincy, I need to talk to you. It’s extremely important. Please, please don’t ignore this.

I see Jonah Thompson gripping my arm, his features tight.

It’s about Samantha Boyd. She’s lying to you.

I hear Coop’s low, concerned voice.

We don’t know what she’s capable of.

I see Sam in the park, covering my stained clothes with her jacket, steering me toward water, washing the blood from my hands. So swift and decisive. I see those same clothes being scooped into her arms, as if it were a normal occurrence.

Don’t worry about it. I know what to do.

I see her swearing a path through the crush of reporters outside, unafraid of the cameras, completely unfazed when Jonah tells us that Lisa’s been murdered. Her face is painted white by the flashbulbs, turned the same shade as a corpse on the slab. There’s no expression there. No sadness or surprise.

Nothing.

“Miss Carpenter?” The detective’s voice sounds faint among the shuffling memories. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I know all about those. Sam has never lied to me.”

She hasn’t. At least there’s nothing I can definitively pinpoint as a lie. But she hasn’t exactly told me the truth, either. Since her arrival, Sam hasn’t told me much of anything.

I don’t know where she’s been.

I don’t know who she was with.

Most of all, I have no idea what horrible things she might have done.

CHAPTER 22

The chill has returned to the park in full force, shocking in the same way water feels when you take that first plunge into a swimming pool. Change hangs in the air—a sense of time running out. Fall has officially arrived.

Because of the weather, everyone moves with manic energy. Joggers and cyclists and nannies pushing ridiculous double-wide strollers. It makes them look like they’re fleeing something, even though they travel in all directions. Willy-nilly ants evading the foot about to crush their hill.

I, however, am stillness personified as I stand outside the precinct’s tall glass window. Sam is inside, talking to Detective Hernandez, hopefully telling her the same things I did. And although I appear content to remain motionless, all I really want to do is run. Not toward home, but away from it. I long to run until I reach the George Washington Bridge, where I’ll keep running. Through New Jersey. Through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Vanishing into the heartland.

Only then will I be away from the reality of what I’d done in the park. Away from the brief, confounding flashes of Pine Cottage that still cling to me like a sweat-soaked shirt. Most of all, I’d be away from Sam. I don’t want to be here when she emerges from the police station. I’m afraid of what I’ll see, as if one look will reveal the guilt on her face, as bright and glaring as her red lipstick.