“I’m not saying I think anything,” he replies, softer now. “I’m just asking if it’s possible.”
I don’t answer right away, because the question doesn’t leave when he says it. It lingers, settles, finds a place somewhere I don’t want it to reach. It hadn’t occurred to me before, not like this, that maybe this need to find something darker, something intentional, is just my way of refusing to accept that there might not be anything there at all.
Because accidents are easier for everyone else.
But they’ve never made sense to me.
“But the journal,” I say finally, grasping for something that feels solid. “Whitney wrote things. She said things.”
“Have you found anything concrete?” Bennett asks, not unkindly. “Anything that actually points to something you can use? Because if you have, then we need to turn it in.”
My throat tightens.
I shake my head.
Because I can’t.
Not without everything else coming with it.
The memory surfaces whether I want it to or not, vivid in a way that makes my stomach turn. The garden. The heat of that night. The moment everything tipped past the point of control. Whitney’s hands steady where mine weren’t, the decisions we made without fully understanding what they would cost later.
We were young.
Too young to understand permanence.
Would we make the same choice now?
I don’t know.
I didn’t even know everything she did after I walked away that night. I filled in the blanks with something that felt survivable, something that allowed me to move forward without looking back too closely. Weeks passed, then months, then years, and nothing surfaced. No questions, no headlines, no body.
He disappeared, and the world didn’t notice.
But now, after reading her version of that night, the questions won’t stay buried. Who was he really? Did anyone look for him? Did anyone care enough to ask what happened?
“I know you’ve never dealt with something like this before,” Bennett says, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder, grounding and intrusive all at once. “But maybe talking to someone would help. A grief counselor, maybe.”
I let out a quiet breath, not quite a laugh. “A grief counselor is just going to tell me there’s no right way to grieve. That I should sit with my feelings and process them.”
“Right,” he says, already turning away. “Well. Sounds like you’ve got a handle on it.” He glances back briefly. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”
I nod, though my attention has already shifted, my gaze pulling toward the house next door, toward the stillness that feels anything but empty.
What are you hiding?
The question settles in, quiet but persistent, and I press my lips together as something sharper takes its place.
Phillip is careful. Controlled. The kind of man who knows exactly what to say and when to say it. If there is something there, something real, I won’t get it from him by confronting him directly. He’s too practiced for that.
But Chrissy is not.
Young. Eager. Unaware of the rules she’s stepped into.
I reach for Whitney’s journal again, sliding it closer, the weight of it different now, more deliberate. I need to finish it. I need to be sure there is nothing in these pages that could unravel everything if it ends up in the wrong hands.
Because right now, all I have is instinct.
And instinct alone won’t protect me.
