My mother is bathed in the glow of a streetlight. She leans up against the cemetery fence with her hair swept over a shoulder. She rearranges her T-shirt and pushes her breasts higher in her bra. Everything’s a performance with my mother, down to the way the shadows fall on her face.
She’s not waiting for me. I don’t warrant any of her current preening. I hide out of sight to find out who she’s meeting. I don’t have to wait long. Minutes later, Matthew bounds over. They talk, accompanied by angrily gesticulating arms.
The argument doesn’t last long. Matthew spots Beatrix emerging from their van with a cardboard box and immediately puts a few feet between him and Amber. He shoos her away and goes to intercept Beatrix.
I wait until he’s out of sight; then I step out of my hiding place and approach my mother.
If I surprise her, she hides it well. “Erin, darling. I was worried.”
There’s a slight slur to her voice. No one else would notice, but to me, it’s clear she’s had a few drinks.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“Rose invited me to play this game with you, so here I am.” Her laugh is like breaking glass. “And someone has to keep an eye on you, don’t they?”
She reaches to smooth my hair, but I duck away. “What are you doing with Matthew? You’ve been weird with him all night, and that discussion you just had clearly wasn’t friendly. Is something going on between you two?”
“It’s nothing,” she says breezily.
Usually, I’d argue and get nowhere. Only, I’ve had enough of letting people lie to me. I try a different tack. “You’re right,” I say.
“Right about what?” Her lips purse in confusion.
“Of course there’s nothing going on between you and Matthew. What would he want with you, anyway?” I say.
“Oh, Matthew wanted plenty with me.”
That was easy. She’s so predictable. I fold my arms and wait.
“Fine. We kissed, if you must know. I hope you’re not too jealous.”
Of her and Matthew? What a joke. I raise an eyebrow. “When was this? Back when he was a seventeen-year-old child?”
Her smug expression falls at the corners. “He was eighteen, so get off your high horse already.”
“Did Rose find out?”
“Yes, Rose knew.” She sighs. “That picture of Matthew leaving the hotel caused a big drama, and she figured it out.”
“That was you? You were having an affair with Matthew?” Wow. What was he thinking?
“It wasn’t an affair,” she says reluctantly. “We met for a drink and went to my room, only he panicked and ran away before anything happened.”
I believe her. She wouldn’t make up a story in which a man didn’t want her, even to save her own reputation.
I eye her closely, looking for signs of guilt on her overly smooth, expressionless face. “Did you kill her?”
She laughs again. “Why would I want to kill Rose?”
“Because it would have ruined you if she’d revealed the truth about you and Matthew, never mind your financial situation.”
“Like I said, nothing happened with Matthew. Besides, she was never going to tell, or call a social worker, or give me up to the press.”
“No?” I say. “Because from what I saw, she hated you.”
Amber looks at me slyly. “She didn’t hate you though, did she?”
The truth hits me like a bucket of icy water thrown in my face.
Rose kept those secrets to protect me. First Amber’s almost affair with Matthew, then her financial problems and her poor parenting. I wish I could rewind time and ask Rose why. Ask her what I ever did to deserve that. But the last time I saw her, all I cared about was making sure she kept her mouth shut.
I nod slowly, trying to take it all in. I’ve never felt so much disgust for my mother. It’s not the Matthew thing. It’s everything else. The selfishness, the lack of accountability for the things she’s done, the manipulation and lies.
I move to walk away. Amber scurries to block my path, a sickly-sweet smile tightening her plump lips. “Erin, wait. Come on, darling. We both said some things we regret earlier, in the heat of the moment. Can’t we put it behind us?”
I don’t trust myself to answer. It’s a trap that will lead me right back to the beginning.
“I’m a mess, Erin. But my own mother wasn’t a kind woman, and it started me out on the wrong foot.” Her voice takes on the rehearsed rhythm of someone who has practiced this same speech a thousand times. “I was never good enough for her. When I got pregnant with you at seventeen, she cut me off. If I made some bad decisions along the way, please know that I did my best.”
I’ve heard it all before.
“You have no idea what it was like, Erin,” she continues, her voice wavering. “I did everything to give you the life she didn’t let me have. All you’ve ever done is throw it in my face. I wish I knew what I was getting so wrong.”
And there it is. The twist where everything goes from being her fault to mine. I laugh softly, which confuses her.
“I’m trying, Erin. I’m going to keep trying because you’re everything to me. Amber and Erin Love is everything to me.”
This is what always happens. She attempts to plaster over the cracks in our relationship with sugary words. Pretend that everything’s fine. Go back to normal. But it’s not my normal. It’s hers. It’s always about her.
I keep walking, stepping past Amber without another word. She tries to argue, but Rose gets between us. Or Rose’s avatar, at least. We fall silent and wait for her to speak. “Me again,” she says, sounding bored. She spins her wheel with no fanfare. “Want to meet our final suspect?”
I wait for the wheel to stop spinning. There’s one more person left to have their secrets laid bare. Beatrix.
Rose smiles. “We were like family: me, Anton, Matthew, and Beatrix. But of course, Beatrix really is Anton’s family. His little sister, to be precise.”
Beatrix has always seemed so quiet if you ask me. Happy to blend into the background with her pigtails and constant smile. But I suppose there are unanswered questions too. Like what was she doing by the river where Jesse’s body lay?
“Beatrix would do anything for Anton, but he wouldn’t give her what she wanted. A starring part in his videos. That was my role,” Rose says. “And I can tell you, this used to make Beatrix very jealous.”
It’s true that Rose used to be the star in Anton’s stunts. I never knew that Beatrix was jealous. She’s always seemed so happy to be the kooky, giggly one. The adoring little sister and Rose’s best friend.
“Here’s the thing,” Rose whispers. “Beatrix was the one who found my body. Only the timelines don’t add up. It took her a whole hour to call the police, so what was she doing during that time? Interesting fact—a member of the staff saw her carrying a bucket of cleaning products at close to four a.m., and it’s said that the pool house smelled of bleach when they fished me out of the water.”
“Covering up the evidence,” I say to myself.
Rose swishes her hair. “Your job, Anton fans, is to figure out what Beatrix was up to. Was our under-the-radar Accomplice simply house proud, or was she trying to hide something more sinister? And who was she protecting—herself or someone extremely close to her?”
Matthew or Anton. Beatrix would do anything for either of them.
“We’re going to have a little treasure hunt,” Rose declares. “If you’ve played any of the Shadow City minigames, you’ll know all about ‘Sleeping Ghosts.’”
I don’t have the time—or the interest—to play Shadow City, but I did my research. I know this game.
“Anton has hidden a hundred virtual bones in the cemetery,” Rose says. “Your total at the end of this round was supposed to determine his top four. Now it will decide whether you get to stay in the game long enough to rescue Anton.”
“What’s the prize?” I say, frowning. There has to be a prize. It makes me extremely nervous that she hasn’t told me what we’re playing for.
Rose drops her voice to a dramatic whisper. “But be warned: Do. Not. Scream.”
She vanishes to the soundtrack of a woman screaming like she’s in a horror movie. Wearily, I make my way toward the cemetery gates, Amber tottering several yards back, too cool to be seen with me. I bump into Charlotte and Emma outside the entrance.
“Erin, you’re here,” Charlotte says, pulling me into their secretive huddle. Her hand is surprisingly warm. “Emma says she’s found something.”
Emma glances around nervously. When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “I looked through my photos from the party where Rose died and—”
We all jump and turn at a rustling in the undergrowth. Emma gives a panicked shriek. A head and shoulders appear.
“Grayson,” I snap. “Could you not creep up on us outside the deserted cemetery?”
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, picking a leaf out of his hair. “I didn’t want to face everyone after…that letter. So I hid. In a bush.”
“You’re such a weirdo,” I say.
He shuffles out, refusing to look any of us in the eye. I can feel the embarrassment radiating off him. It’s understandable. That love-hate letter was painfully pathetic. But at the same time, there’s something sweet about caring so much for someone that you completely fall apart when they leave you. This night couldn’t have been easy for him.
I punch him on the arm. “Welcome to the suspect club,” I say.
He rubs his bicep and tries to smile. It comes out as a pained grimace.
Right then, there’s a scream from deep inside the cemetery. A second later, Matthew bursts out of the gates.
“I don’t know where Beatrix is,” he cries. “She ran off into the cemetery, and I was looking for her when I heard her scream.”
Rose has raised the stakes in this game of hers, and Beatrix is the prize we’re playing for.