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SHAY:The first thing we noticed was the most obvious: she was Laurel’s doppelgänger. It was creepy how much they looked alike. I used to wonder if that’s why Laurel had this weird sympathy for her, because it was like rooting for herself. As for Rachel’s personality… She wasn’t shy. Clem and I knew that off the bat, that Laurel had misread it. Rachel was… Look, there’s no delicate way to say this. She was so cold and flat she didn’t seem human. She was withdrawn, yes, and she didn’t talk much, but that wasn’t because she wastimid. It was because she was fundamentally uninterested in other people, except for…you know, occasionally.
JAMIE:What do you mean?
SHAY:It’s hard to describe. Have you ever met a person who seems completely out of reach, like you can’t connect to them, and you feel like they’re looking back at you…I don’t know, like the way a shark watches a seal on the surface of the water. Calculating. Removed. Rachel unnerved me.
But she was our only option. Clem and I figured maybe therewassomething wrong with her, but it wasn’t like we had to spend much time with her. She was just a ticket into Rothschild, to make Laurel happy. So we agreed. Junior year, we all moved in together.
At first, things were okay. Rachel kept to herself. I’ve never met anyone who spent so much time alone, but that was the way she liked it. She never wanted to do anything we invited her to. The only time she would engage was when one of us was sad. Or hurt. Then she was interested. Whenever Laurel cried, you couldn’t get Rachel to leave her alone. She asked a million questions, and most of them were strange. Pointed, like she was trying to figure out the best way to poke your wound. It wasn’t just emotional—physical, too. This one time, Clem cut her finger in the kitchen, and I swear to god, Rachel could smell it. She came out of her room and hovered. Didn’t want to help get a Band-Aid or anything, just wanted to look.
JAMIE:Do you know if she was ever…I don’t know, diagnosed with something?
SHAY:No idea. Clem and I wanted nothing to do with her after a month, but Laurel still felt sorry for her. She kept trying to get her to open up. But Rachel was super evasive. It was kind of a running joke between Clem and me, how dodgy she was.
Then one day, out of the blue, Rachel came home from class and announced her dad was in town and wanted to meet us. We were in the middle of watching a movie, and she just walked in front of the TV and started talking. Par for the course, really. She never cared what other people were doing if there was something she wanted.
JAMIE:Didn’t you think it was weird she wanted you to meet her dad?
SHAY:We thought it was super weird. But Laurel convinced us to go. She kept saying…
(Rustling.)
JAMIE:Shay?
SHAY:She kept promising us we wouldn’t regret being kind.
(Silence.)
Excuse me—
JAMIE:Wait. Shay. I’m putting the pieces together. Was Rachel’s dad the man I saw in the city?
(Creaking. Sounds of movement.)
SHAY:I don’t… I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m sorry. I can’t—
End of transcript.
***
I sprang from the couch, panic washing through me. I didn’t want to remember him. I didn’t want to remember what we’d done, who I’d been. Why was I doing this to myself?
Jamie had inched closer throughout the interview, as if drawn in by my words; now, he leapt to his feet.
“Shay.” He stood behind me, and his hand found my shoulder.
Outside, night had fallen. Small lights near the shore revealed glimpses of the river, moving steadily in the dark.
“I’m sorry.” I kept my face turned because I didn’t want Jamie to see it. My eyes stung. For all I knew, I’d start crying in front of him. “I just—”
He moved around me until we faced each other, then took my hands. I still couldn’t look at his eyes, so I looked at his fingers: long and elegant. “Hey. Don’t worry. In your own time, okay?” His voice was so gentle.
He didn’t know yet that I didn’t deserve it.
Chapter Eight
The Hudson Mansion was far downriver, in a place with no lights. At night you could sense the surrounding trees by the quiet whisper of leaves moving in the wind, sense the river by the pinprick alertness of your body, alive to the presence of something deep and dangerous nearby. Twenty minutes of driving with nothing but velvet night through the windshield, and then the Mansion loomed ahead of us, sprawled atop a steep hill.
It was tall and turreted, stone-walled and beautiful. A place for people with money, that was clear. A lifetime without any had honed my ability to pick up on the tell: a cold, slippery unwelcome. There was something unsettling about the estate, too. Perhaps its domineering bulk.
