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“That’s cool.”

“Do you live in the Tahoe area?” I asked. “Or are you just visiting?”

I picked up my own coffee cup and took a few sips, then ran my finger across the screen, bringing up another collection of houses.

“Why did you choose Tahoe?”

“I used to come here during the summer when I was little. It feels like home.”

He nodded. “You must have had a fun childhood, if you visited this awesome place every summer.”

I smiled but said nothing. My childhood had not been fun. It wasn’t something I would ever discuss with a total stranger, but before I knew it—something about that vulnerability in his eyes, his smile—I was telling him about my sister. The princess.

Celie liked to dress up as a princess when she was little. Even though she was younger, she managed to charm me into being her lady-in-waiting. But soon, it wasn’t just when she was playing dress-up. She needed me to worship and defer to her all the time. As she got older, she became a little tyrant. A tyrant who was enabled by my parents.

If she grabbed a toy and I hit her in retaliation, my mother saw what I’d done but didn’t want to hear it when I complained about Celie’s misbehavior. If I pinched her until she screamed because she’d torn pages out of my favorite book, I was the one in trouble. When she came into my room and took my jewelry, breaking chains and losing charms, or read my diary, they told me to stop picking on her. She’s little. She doesn’t understand yet. Be patient.

When I was younger, it made me furious. As I got older, it hurt. Why didn’t they ever take my side or believe my version of events? Was it because Celie was absolutely adorable? She was more charming and outgoing than I was. Maybe it was simply because she was the baby. I never knew and the two times I tried to talk to my parents—first my mother, then my father—I was told to stop being so petty and vindictive. After Celie was no longer in our lives, it became utterly impossible to capture their attention and love.

The hurt of never being first, or even equal, in their affection, created a dark hole inside me that I couldn’t seem to fill. I’d thought the lifelong love and companionship of marriage might fill that empty space—finally being loved completely by another human being. But Patrick was too liberal with his love—handing it out to anyone who asked. I still didn’t feel like I was first in anyone’s heart.

It sounds petty to want that, but many people have that kind of love and take it for granted. They think it’s petty because they never experienced the absence of it.

When I started telling some of my stories to Todd, I didn’t even have to explain. He knew immediately. He just knew. Because he’d lived an almost identical experience. His family was very different from mine, but the favoritism and the hurt were absolutely the same.

I didn’t tell a soul about my friendship with Todd. We met up when I visited Tahoe, even the times Patrick or Emily were with me, or all four of us. I always found a way to disappear for a few hours. I craved his attentive listening, his steady reminder that I was a lovable person. I gave the same to him.

When I saw Todd’s body floating in our swimming pool, his wrists and ankles bound, I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest.

THIRTY-SIX

SAMANTHA

Now

The moment I saw Todd’s body, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone I recognized him. Patrick would immediately assume we were having an affair. He had trouble comprehending female friendships, and he certainly didn’t think it was possible for a man and woman to be just friends.

Even though I desperately wanted to know who had killed Todd, I had to keep Patrick from reporting the murder. The police would hear about our friendship, dismiss it as a smokescreen for an affair, laugh in my face, and assume Todd had threatened to tell my husband we were sleeping together.

The note the killer left behind had kept me awake every night. I was certain it was meant for me, and my certainty was cemented when I found those other notes. Someone hated Todd enough to kill him! I couldn’t imagine why. He’d always been kind and gentle, so respectful, so vulnerable. He was almost like a child at times. Why would anyone murder him? But they had. And they’d left a note telling me I was next.

Seeing Jordan now, her face coated with tears and grime, the dirt embedded beneath her fingernails, the stained knees of her jeans, I felt sick with worry. Everything about her said she’d been involved in something horrifying. She was so grubby and her face so contorted with pain, I wondered if she’d murdered my husband. And Todd.

I rushed toward her, grabbing her shoulders, and giving her a firm shake. “What happened?! Where’s Patrick?”

She stared at me with glazed, filmy eyes. Was she in shock? She had no right. Patrick was the victim. I was the one who’d been hurt. What kind of person was she? Thinking back to the dinner where she’d rushed out of our house, her constant writing in that notebook, her attempt to record a conversation among me and my friends, I wondered if she was seriously unbalanced. Half the things she said made no sense. She seemed to be existing in some alternate reality, her conversation disconnected from what others were saying, or refusing to speak at all.

“Where is he?!”

She continued staring through me, past me. Her gaze was so intense, I turned to see what, or who, she was looking at. The only other person was Emily, still on the porch, leaning over the railing.

I turned back to Jordan. “What did you do to Patrick? Tell me where he is!”

“It was horrible,” Jordan whispered. “So horrible. I’ve never…”

“What was horrible?” My voice rose, making me sound unhinged myself.

“Stop screaming at me.” Jordan’s voice was soft, trembling.