“Keep thinking that, Quinn. If you need that lie to be able to live with yourself, then keep on believing it.”

I look away, not sure what to believe. It feels as if gravity has failed, and everything once secure and settled in my life is now tumbling in mid-air, suddenly just beyond my reach.

“Why Coop?” I ask. “It’s Manhattan. There are a million guys you could have picked. So why him?”

“Insurance.”

“For what?”

“That detective came by again this morning,” Sam says. “Hernandez. She said she wanted to talk to you. When I told her you were away, she said she’d be back and that you shouldn’t have left town.”

Because my running off with my lawyer boyfriend made me look suspicious. Of course it did.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Sam says. “So I called Coop.”

I suck in my breath, suddenly numb. “You didn’t tell him about the park, did you?”

Sam rolls her eyes while hissing out smoke. “Hell no. I told him that we should get to know each other better. That he should come to the city if he could. He did.”

“And you seduced him.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sam says. “He was more than willing. Even though he kept talking about how wrong it was.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Sam lets out a weary sigh. She looks so tired, so defeated by life.

So utterly damaged.

“Because I thought it would help us,” she says. “You, especially. If the police are able to trace that guy’s beating back to us, we’re going to need someone on our side. Someone other than Jeff.”

“A cop,” I say, grim understanding settling over me. “One who can defend us to his colleagues. One too blinded by emotions to do the right thing and turn us in if he suspects something.”

“Bingo,” Sam says. “But you know all about that, don’t you?”

“I’ve never fucked Coop.”

A snort from Sam, nostrils streaming smoke. “Like that matters. You’re still using him. For years, you’ve used him. Texting him at all hours. Beckoning him into the city at a moment’s notice. Flirting with him every now and then to keep him interested.”

“That’s not how it is,” I say. “I would never do that to him.”

“You do it all the time, Quinn. I’ve seen you do it.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Really?” Sam says. “You mean to tell me this weird, creepy thing between you two has nothing to do with what happened at Pine Cottage? That you’ve never noticed, not even the tiniest bit, that you have him wrapped around your finger?”

“I don’t,” I say.

Sam stubs out her cigarette. Lights another. “Lies, lies, lies.”

“Let’s talk about lies,” I say, pushing away from the wall, strengthened by anger. “You lied when you told me you never met Lisa. You did. You stayed at her house.”

Sam stops inhaling on the cigarette, her cheeks slightly sucked in, smoke gathering in her mouth. When she parts her lips, a grayish cloud rolls out like a fog bank.

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s not an answer,” I say. “At least admit you were there.”

“Fine. I was there.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago,” she says. “But you already knew that.”

“Why did you go? Did Lisa invite you?”

Sam shakes her head.

“So you just showed up like you did with me?”

“Yup,” Sam says. “Unlike you, she actually said hello when she realized who I was.”

“How long were you there?”

“About a week,” Sam says.

“So she liked having you there?”

It’s a wasted question. Of course Lisa liked having Sam there. It’s what she lived for—taking troubled young women under her wing and helping them. Sam was likely the most troubled of them all.

“She did,” Sam says. “At first. But by the end of the week, Lisa couldn’t deal with me anymore.”

I infer the rest. Sam showed up out of the blue, knapsack bulging with Wild Turkey and expressions of sisterhood. Lisa gladly let her crash in the guest room. But that wasn’t enough. Not for Sam. She needed to pry, to needle. She probably tried to shake Lisa out of her complacency. To make her get angry, to make her a survivor.

Lisa didn’t let her. I did. Both of us paid a very different price.

“So why did you lie about it?”

“Because I knew you’d become a drama queen if I told you. That you’d start getting suspicious.”

“Why?” I say. “Do you have something to hide? Did you kill Lisa, Sam?”

There it is. The question that’s been itching at the back of my brain for days, now spoken, made real. Sam shakes her head, as if she pities me.

“Poor, sad Quincy. You’re more messed in the head than I thought.”

“Tell me you had nothing to do with her death,” I say.

Sam drops the cigarette, making a show of grinding it out on the hardwood floor with the toe of her boot. “No matter what I say, you’re not going to believe me.”