Chapter 2

"Half sisters?" the male detective named Buxton asks, his thin, nearly translucent eyebrows pushed together like he doesn't trust what I'm saying, that it's not quite adding up.

"I'm ten years older," I say. "And we don't look alike."

"Big age gap, huh?" he says. His partner, Detective Williams, crosses her legs as she leans back in the lounge chair that sits in my mother's sprawling living room. I wonder when my mom bought the chair, if she bought it. Most items in this house arrived with a catch instead of a price tag. Payment in the form of promotion. It's what she does, and I can hardly blame her for that. But I wouldn't know where, exactly, the chair came from because I haven't been in this room, in this house, for a year now.

"Surprise!" I hear my mother from the kitchen, her voice moving closer to where the three of us are sitting. My skin prickles. "Evie was a surprise."

She stops in the doorway at the edge of the living room and leans on the frame, drying her hands with a towel, like she was just baking bread or chopping fresh herbs from her garden. She throws the towel over her shoulder, letting it rest there as she starts to roll up the sleeves of her linen button-down, which manages to strike the perfect balance of lived-in without seeming wrinkled or sloppy. All of it, right down to that damn dish towel, makes her seem cozy and laid-back, but thoughtful. Warm. Straight out of a Nancy Meyers set. But I can't be the only one here who realizes that most things in this house are like this. They can all double as props.

"Best surprise ever," she says softly, her face breaking into a pained smile before it falls apart, and suddenly she's pursing her lips to keep herself from crying.

Jesus Christ.

The ten years between Evelyn and me sometimes felt like they might as well have been a hundred. To grow up not side by side but staggered, not in the same world but in two vastly different ones, was exhausting. It made closeness something that required work, effort, energy that only I, as the older one, could give. It always seemed to feel so easy for Evie, but that was only because I made sure I was there. Present. That I tried. But as hard as that closeness could be, it was also wonderful.

I was old enough when Evie was born that I can remember it all. The scent of her skin, the fluffy patch of hair that would lift up from her head, staticky and soft as silk. The tiny curve of her finger around mine. The solid feel of her in my arms. I was ten when she was born, too young to mother her in any significant way, or to resent her for the chores she added to my only-child life. I was also old enough to appreciate the wonder of a newborn, then a baby, then a toddler. Unlike other sisters I knew, there was never competition between us when I was at home, never a battle over friends or being left out. We were in two separate worlds, and in a lot of ways, that made loving her that much easier. People sometimes assume that my fractured relationship with my mom has something to do with the way Evie was born and changed everything I had known. That I was used to a level of attention and then I suddenly had to share it. That I was jealous. But it was never that.

The thing that blew up all of that is not how old I was when Evie was born but how old I was when my mother hit POST on that first video, when that suddenly became the new foundation of our lives. Being old enough to have a choice and realizing that my sister wasn't—that's what changed it all.

"But it's also what makes us so close now," I explain to people who ask about what it's like to be Evie's older sister. "It's what helps me protect her. And I think she needs that, you know?"

People usually nod then, somberly, like they understand the logistics of what it means to be eighteen and have the kind of influence that Evie has, the kind of connections, the kind of money. The kind of mother. Like they understand what it means to think you chose a life when you never could have. Like they really want to talk about the fact that no one has agency when they're so young that they haven't yet learned to read.

"All right, ma'am, thank you. But we're just wanting to talk to your daughter right now," Buxton says before cringing and realizing his word choice. "Your other daughter, I mean. Hazel." He clears his throat and nods to where I'm sitting.

Well, someone had to remind her.

I give something like a half wave that says, Yup, here I am, and despite this being the worst day in the worst year I've had in my adult life, I almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of the interaction.

And then, right on cue, there are sobs.

My mother covers her mouth with her palm to stifle the noise. I steel myself to avoid rolling my eyes. I'm just as upset as she is, of course—or as she appears to be, anyway—but this is obscene. Utterly unhelpful. I don't know why I thought she would have turned it off now, though. Of all times.

"I understand this is a difficult situation," Williams says, softly. "But it will make everything more organized if we really take our time with the interviews, make sure we talk to people one-on-one. My colleague spoke to you at length yesterday, correct?"

"Yes." She shakes her head in a way that says stupid, stupid me, like we're all supposed to pity her. She inhales deeply, eyes closed. "Of course. I understand. I'm so sorry. I'll just be in here."

She heads back into the kitchen and the detectives watch her leave the room before they focus on me again.

"So," Williams asks me, pausing in a way that resets the conversation. "Would you say that you and Evelyn are close?"

I meet her gaze and take a beat as I decide how to answer. All the years of being the one degree that separates everyone else from my internet-famous sister, and it finally matters. Finally, someone else is realizing the thing that I've always known: That it doesn't matter how many people think my sister is their virtual best friend or little sister or big sister. It doesn't matter that she's beautiful enough to be aspirational and down-to-earth enough that it makes her impossible to despise. My sister makes everyone who follows her think that she's talking to them personally, that they're two people hanging out while she puts on her makeup or chooses an outfit, but it's never, ever been as much of a two-way conversation as people think. That's why the detectives are here talking to me and not them. It finally matters.

I'm sure the detectives have to ask these questions, all of them, even the obvious ones. But our relationship isn't really the point. Like everything else about Evie Davis, what they're looking for lives somewhere deeper, wedged between who she is and who she is to the world. That thing, the tiniest sliver of truth, is what it will take to figure out how, exactly, we got here. It's also what will determine why, if I'm as close to my sister as I think I am, that I'm left with the same question everyone else in this room is asking: where is Evie Davis?