Minneapolis
It had come to her upon awakening.
At his house, Dan had told Sofia to tell Lily the bracelet had meant nothing. That he loved Lily more than anything or anyone in the world. And that while he loved Kate, he loved Lily more. At the time, Sofia had no idea what he was talking about. Now she realized.
He was talking about the cuff bracelet that she’d spotted on Lily’s arm that day when the girls stopped by before going to college. The one she’d also seen on Kate’s wrist in that photo taken the night she was last seen. At Lucky’s.
The photo of Lily’s dead mother that Dan was holding. In that photo, Dan and Carla were on the beach in Mexico. Lily’s mother was wearing that same cuff bracelet. There weren’t two matching cuff bracelets. There was one. And it had belonged to Lily’s mother.
Sofia thought back to the short list of personal belongings that Marley had given her. The cuff bracelet was not on the list. It was not on Kate’s body when they found her. Even though she had been wearing it earlier that night.
Dear God.
Lily had the bracelet that Kate was wearing when she was killed.
Dan had also said Lily had taken Kate’s journal the morning after her death. She was hiding something. Covering up something. Hyperventilating, Sofia jumped up and paced the small space within her cell, shaking her head and muttering.
She went over every interaction she had with Lily after Kate’s death.
And then she remembered something that had struck her as odd. When she had that boy, Jake Walker, in the motel room, he’d said something strange about Lily. At the time, it was so uncharacteristic of Lily that Sofia had dismissed it as nonsense. He’d said that Kate’s friend, the one with the “spot on her face” had told him that Kate was a prude.
But then he had laughed and said, “Her friend sure wasn’t a prude.”
Sofia realized she did not know Lily at all.
And with a jolt, it all came together.
It was Lily.
Lily had killed Kate.
Deep down in her bones, she knew it as fact: Lily had murdered Kate.
That night, at the empty nest party, she’d thought Dan was drunk. But he had known right then. He had sobbed and apologized saying, “Kate was such a good kid. I don’t know what went wrong with Lily. I tried. I swear. I’m so sorry.”
She began pounding and yelling for the guard.
Nobody came.
One man down the hall said if she pleasured him in the transport van on the way to court Monday, he’d make sure she had protection in the holding cell.
Sofia was pulling at her hair when someone stopped in front of her jail cell. Detective Marley. Springing up from her mattress, she clutched the bars, staring bleary-eyed at him.
“Thanks for coming. I didn’t kill Gretchen.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I’m actually not here to see you.”
“What?”
“I’ve got another perp down the row I need to have a little chat with. I’m not investigating your case.”
A voice echoed in the hall: “Yo, Marley, you Rasta motherfucker. What’s taking you so long, man?” The inmate he was there to see, apparently.
He turned to walk away.
“Wait,” Sofia said.
Marley paused.
“I didn’t do it. And Dan didn’t kill Kate.”
Big sigh.
“Yes. We have Ronald Derry in custody for her murder, if you recall.”
“He’s innocent. It was Lily.”
Marley looked pained.
“Really. I think I can prove it. I just need to get out of here.”
“Not happening.”
Sofia squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “Then I need you to prove it.”
“I’m really sorry. But it’s not my case.” He started to turn toward the hall again.
Sofia blew out a big breath of air. “But you want the truth as much as I do.”
He turned back toward her.
“If you find Kate’s last journal, it might be evidence. It’s somewhere in the house. Dan mentioned it. I think that’s why he killed Gretchen, because she had Kate’s journal. And plus, he said a long time ago he wanted out of the marriage but he couldn’t divorce her. It would ruin his marriage counseling practice and it would make his daughter hate him. So, he got rid of her by killing her and blaming me. He did it. Listen, he planted my fingerprints on the knife. He told me he did.”
Marley bit his lip, but remained silent.
“Arriving officers witnessed you shoot at Dan.”
“I know. But I changed my mind at the last minute.”
Marley sighed loudly.
“Please believe me. It was Lily. Everything Dan did … it was because he was protecting her. I bet Gretchen found out and that’s why Dan killed her.”
Marley stared at her for a long moment and then walked away.
Sofia wanted to punch the bars, instead she sat back on the bunk and put her head in her hands.
She needed to find that journal. When it grew dark, she was still thinking about it. Tossing and turning, Sofia sat on the jail mattress and tried to think where it might be hidden. In the middle of the night, she jumped up. Dan’s secret drawer in his desk where he’d hidden the meds from Cuba.
At first light, she asked to make a call. She was refused. Later, when a female guard came on duty, she asked again about procedure to make a call. The woman looked her up and down and then unlocked her cell.
“I seen you on the news. You lost your kid to violence. I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, but I’m a mother. I’ll let you make that call. Two minutes only.”
Sofia got Marley’s voice mail. “Dan has a secret drawer in his desk. Look there.”
Although she waited all day long, sitting up every time the main door to the cellblock opened, nobody ever came to see her.
Monday morning she tried to wash her face in the small sink and slick back her hair. She smelled and looked awful, but she dressed in the black skirt, white blouse and heels. She perched on the edge of her bed and waited, alternately cracking her knuckles and chewing her fingernails. She would scream her theory in court. She would make sure everybody knew.
She watched as one-by-one guards came in and led cuffed prisoners out toward a back doorway.
One inmate winked as he passed her cell. “Offer’s still open.”
The jail grew silent. She stood and tried to peer out the sides of her bars. She couldn’t see far, but from what she could see the other cells were empty.
“What the fuck?” Then she sat back down.
Within a minute, a guard appeared and opened her door.
“Follow me.”
Instead of leading her toward the back door, he turned left, toward the entry.
Sofia wordlessly followed, shuffling her feet. Maybe Jason had come to visit her. She dared to hope it was true. If she didn’t ask where they were going, she could imagine that reality for a few more seconds. She had a feeling the rest of her life behind bars was going to involve imagining an alternate reality.