Chapter 27

27

Everything has shifted. In the space of a single day, I go from Meredith’s champion to her villain. More people are coming out and corroborating Tanya’s claims that Meredith and I were fighting. Worse than fighting, actually. “Sworn enemies,” one of them called us. “Jealous bully,” another called me. “Meredith’s nemesis,” said another. And on and on.

I lose followers and gain others, but I know that the new ones I’ve gained aren’t my supporters; most of them are here to enjoy the carnage. The trolls start up again, and all my posts are inundated with rape and death threats. I report them to TikTok and Instagram, but there are so many of them that I’m soon overwhelmed. I try calling Liv to ask her to delete them for me, but she doesn’t pick up the phone. How’s that for irony? Mere days ago, she’d been begging me to do cross-promo content with her, and now she’s ghosting me.

I spend the rest of the day trying to ignore the incessant clamoring online and outside my house. And at the back of my mind, there’s still the question of who the hell had messaged Damien to cancel our meeting. I know it feels frivolous to be worrying about that now, but I can’t stop picking at it, like a wound that’s refusing to heal. Someone did this, and that someone is still around. A loose thread, hanging there for anyone to pull. And if someone did pull at this thread, what is going to be unraveled?

We close all of the blinds in the house, shrouding it completely, and whenever I peek through the slits in the blinds, the knot of reporters remains, like a tumor that refuses to be excised. Ben calls an old college friend of his who is a lawyer, and he promises to come up with a referral for me. I swing back and forth between wanting to post a response and wanting to lie low. What the hell should I do? I need crisis control. For the first time in my career, I wish I’d signed with a talent manager. Many influencers do, but so many agencies have predatory contract clauses that I’ve shied away from signing with one. Boy, do I regret that decision now.

I’m about to put down the phone when it rings. I snap it back up and hit Answer before belatedly realizing that the name on the screen is Clara. Oh shit. This is the one call I do not want to take.

“Aspen?” Clara’s voice calls out.

Argh. I raise the phone to my ear. “Hey, Clara.”

“Where have you been?” she demands. “I’ve been calling and calling.”

“I’m sorry, it’s been kind of crazy around here. The cops came by—”

“Yeah, they came here too.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say.

“Aspen—” Clara sniffles. Her voice shakes. “The things I’m hearing…they’re not true, are they? I mean, I know you and Mer weren’t exactly close the last few months, but you didn’t—you need to tell me the truth: Do you know anything?”

“How can you ask me that?” The hurt in my voice isn’t made-up. I am truly offended. Does she understand just how much I’ve done for them? That GoFundMe page is going to set her up for the rest of her miserable life. “You know how much I loved her.”

She sobs. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m just a huge mess right now. I can’t believe she’s gone. Can you—um—I need to go to the coroner’s office to identify the body. I can’t go alone, Aspen. I just—I can’t. Please come with me?”

I swear I’m about to throw up right now. No , I want to scream. I do not want to go with you to a coroner’s office where I will see the half-decomposed body of your sister, whom I killed. But how can I say no to Clara? And , a little voice adds, this is good for your image. You need to go. Think of how good it’ll look to have Clara’s faith. To have the victim’s sister trust in you so much that you are the person she turns to for support. The reporters will eat it right up. Confidence in you will rise.

Yes. Of course. Once I think of that, it seems obvious that I must go. “Of course,” I say to Clara. “Um, when are you going?”

“First thing tomorrow morning.”

“What are you going to do with Luca while you go to the police station?”

There is silence, then Clara gives a broken sigh. “God, I didn’t even think of that. It really is relentless, isn’t it? Having a kid. They’re just there, all the time!” She’s getting shrill, panicking again.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say in a soothing voice. “Just come by my house and you can drop him off here. Ben will look after him and Sabine. It’ll be good for Luca to have some playtime with Sabine. You and I can even drive to the station together.”

“Really? Oh, thank you, Aspen. You are a lifesaver.”

My mouth crooks into a small smile. I am the opposite of that , I think bitterly as I hang up.

···

In the morning, Ben does the school drop-off with the twins. He doesn’t even complain about it; he just nods somberly and herds the girls into the car, his face pale, his mouth set in a grim line. He still can barely look at me, and every time he does, I catch that disgusted twitch in his lips, but at least he doesn’t say anything. I guess he’s probably worrying about his own little secret—he kissed Meredith. I wonder if the detectives will find out about that at some point. They seem to be doing a whole lot of digging. If they do, it’s going to look bad on both of us. It’ll give me a motive to kill Meredith, for one. How cliché it would be; me stuck in the role of an insecure wife who, in a jealous rage, kills her best friend. If it comes to that, I’ll tell them the truth: that it wasn’t about Ben at all. It was about friendship.

Clara arrives ten minutes after Ben leaves, and I see her shocked expression when she spots the clump of reporters outside my house. I open the front door and wave at her to come right in. She bundles Luca in her arms and hurries up the driveway, ignoring the reporters shouting her name, asking her what she’s doing here, and whether she believes I had anything to do with Meredith’s murder.

“Holy shit,” she says, once she’s inside the house.

“I know.” I shift my attention to Luca and force a smile. He looks so much like his mother, it’s eerie to look at him. But I need to keep up appearances, so I hold out my arms and take Luca from Clara, fussing over him. “Oh, look at this little angel. You poor, poor thing. My poor, sweet baby boy.” I kiss the top of his head and try not to gag at the thought that I killed this poor kid’s mother. “Sabbie will be so happy to see you, yes she will.” I carry Luca into the living room where Sabine is already in her playpen. “Sabbie, look who’s here.” Sabine looks up and her whole face brightens. She raises her arms and gives an elated cry. Luca sticks his arms out and writhes in my arms, and I put him in the playpen. The two babies immediately fall into each other’s arms amid giggles and coos.

Clara bursts into tears. “I’m sorry,” she wails. “It’s been so hard. I don’t know how to be a mom. It’s not at all like babysitting. He’s been absolutely miserable. The only way I’ve kept myself going the past month was to tell myself that she’ll be back, and now—” Her sobs are so hard that they rack her entire body, bending it like a banana.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I say, wrapping my arms around her. “There, there. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. We’ll get through this.” I stroke her back the way I do with the kids, firm and soothing.

Ben arrives home then and stops short when he sees Clara crying away in my arms. For a second, he looks unsure, like he’s thinking of running away. But then he clears his throat. “Um, hey, Clara.”

Clara lifts her head and sniffs. Ben comes over, his arms stretched out. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says.

Clara accepts the hug stiffly while I grab a tissue for her. “Thanks,” she mumbles, wiping at her face. “Um, and thanks for looking after Luca while I—you know.”

“Yeah, of course, anytime,” Ben says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. The atmosphere in here is so awkward it’s almost painful.

“Shall we go?” I say. I want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.

Clara looks over at Luca. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with him?”

“He’ll be fine,” I cut in. “He and Sabbie are so happy with each other. They won’t even realize we’re gone. And Ben is great with kids.”

Ben gives a nervous smile. “Call me if you need anything,” he says as Clara and I head for the side door to the garage.

Once we’re inside my car, I struggle to think of something to say. What does one even say at a time like this? I back out of the garage slowly, being careful to avoid the reporters. They crowd around like a pile of red ants, taking a million pictures of me and Clara in the car. Even though all the windows are closed, I can still hear their questions.

“Are you going to see the body?”

“Clara, did you know that Aspen hated your sister?”

“Aspen, were you bullying Meredith?”

It’s a relief when I finally drive out of earshot. I release my breath and glance over at Clara. “You okay?” Well, that was a stupid question to ask. She’s obviously not okay.

“Not really. You?”

“Same. It’s just so surreal.”

Clara’s mouth turns into a thin line. “I’m sorry that the vultures have turned on you.”

“Yeah, it’s not great, but when they find the guy who did this, they’ll go away. I have faith the police will catch the sick fucker.”

Clara nods, looking out the window.

“Do you have any ideas who could’ve done this?” I say, sneaking glances at her from my peripheral vision.

“I don’t know,” Clara sighs. “You know what Mer was like. Always rushing someplace. She didn’t really tell me the details of her life. She was always too busy for long chats.”

“Right.”

“Although she did mention she was maybe interested in some guy…”

“Oh?” I grip the steering wheel, trying to contain my curiosity.

“She didn’t tell me anything about him, though. Not even his name.”

“How did they meet?”

“Who knows? She met so many people from ‘the industry,’?” Clara says, using air quotes. She smiles wryly at me. “God, I used to hate that word. The ‘industry.’?”

I snort. “We can be pretty pretentious at times, huh?”

“Yep.” She lets her head fall back against the headrest. “I keep obsessing about it. Trying to remember any details she might’ve mentioned about the guy, but I got nothing.” There’s a tremor in her voice again. “My little sister was murdered, and I know nothing.”

“Don’t do that,” I say softly. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.”

She nods, sniffling. We drive the rest of the way in silence.

Somehow, there are reporters in front of the police station. I stare dumbly at them, wondering how they beat us here. Then I realize, of course, that they didn’t. They’re probably colleagues of the ones camped outside my house. Not that it matters. A reporter is a reporter is a reporter. Clara and I brisk-walk from the parking lot through the throng of cameras clicking in our faces and shouts of “How do you feel right now, Clara?” and “Are you ready to see the body?” I put an arm around Clara’s shoulders, and the cameras click away with ferocity. Good , I think. Let them see what a supportive friend I’m being . And how innocent I am, obviously, because what killer would march into a freaking police station to identify the body of her own victim?

Of course, it’s easier said than done. Inside the police station, the tiny kernel of unease in my belly grows into a lump as Clara speaks to the reception officer, telling her why we’re here. We’re told to have a seat, and so we do. I look around me at the depressing state of the place, and at all the officers at their desks talking, typing away. They’re probably working Meredith’s case, I realize, and the lump grows into a rock.

“Ms.Lee?” someone calls out, and I jump. It’s a clean-shaven man in his midforties. “Hi, I’m Matt, the coroner. Can you follow me, please?”

We hurry after him down a long corridor until we reach a door that says “AUTOPSY ROOM 2.” Matt stops in front of the door and regards us solemnly. “Before we start, I’d like to warn you of the nature of this procedure. It’ll be disturbing. There’s no other way of saying it. And I’m sorry for your loss. Now, are you ready to identify the body of Meredith Lee?”

The rock metastasizes into a boulder. No , I want to scream. Leave me out here in the hallway. I’m not even a family member . Next to me, Clara slips her hand into mine.

“Yes,” she says, so quietly I almost don’t hear it.

Matt nods and leads us into the room. It is lit by harsh fluorescent lights and smells so strongly of formaldehyde that my eyes start to sting. And there, in the middle of it, is an examination table with a figure lying on top of it. There is a thin blanket covering the figure. Matt steps toward the corpse and places both hands on the top edge of the blanket.

“Are you ready?” he says gently.

No!

Clara nods. Matt lowers the blanket. I avert my eyes. Clara squeezes my hand so tight I wince. I hear her strangled moan. “Oh god,” she says. “Mer. Oh my god. Mer!”

I realize Matt is looking at me for confirmation too. I’m trapped. No other way out. I have to make myself see her body. Slowly, painfully, I drag my gaze toward the table.

The first thing I notice is how shockingly gray Meredith looks. I never gave much thought to the amount of pink and yellow there is in our skin, but the absence of pigment is striking. She is not the color of a human being. Bile rushes up, and for a second I think I might vomit. My hand is on fire. I pry it loose from Clara’s death grip. Now I see more details, ones I will carry with me forever. The signs of Meredith’s flesh breaking down. Her eyelids and her lips look like little creatures have been nibbling away at them gently, revealing enough of her teeth to make it look like she’s grinning at us. It’s too much. I wrench myself away and stumble out of the room.

Outside, I take deep gulps of air, trying to convince my lungs to keep working. Clara joins me, still sobbing. Matt comes out a second later, carrying a stack of papers. “Come with me, please,” he says, and leads us to a different room. There is a single desk with four chairs around it. “Please, have a seat. There are a few forms I need you to sign.”

Clara accepts the papers and a pen with shaking hands. As she signs the forms to confirm that the body is, indeed, Meredith, I struggle to keep the screaming in my head down.

Matt clears his throat. “It looks worse than it really is, due to the state of decomposition. But um, I think she died a relatively painless death.”

“Painless—” Clara seems to have lost the ability to speak. She leans back in her chair, breathing hard.

“It’s a good thing,” I say. I need Clara to understand this one kindness I have afforded her.

“The killer probably drugged her before putting something over her face—probably a pillow—and asphyxiating her,” Matt says. “I’m sorry, I know this must be hard to hear.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Clara screams.

Matt grimaces. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms.Lee. But I can’t answer that. I hope the team finds the killer. Thank you for your time. You can have the room for as long as you need.” With that, he slides the forms back and leaves the room.

I sit there wordlessly while Clara howls. I try to will the tears to come, but in the face of her unimaginable sorrow, my own tears seem to have dried up, so I sit and wrap my arms around Clara’s shoulders and whisper meaningless, soothing words to her. My own emotions are a hurricane inside me. I don’t know what I should be feeling, but every emotion feels wrong. Do I have the right to mourn my best friend’s death when I was the one who caused it?

It’s an eternity before Clara calms down enough for us to finally leave. I walk her out of the station and into the car, where I make sure she’s buckled in before I start the engine. I take a moment to ground myself. Focus , I remind myself. Getting into an accident right now isn’t going to be cute .

As I’m pulling out of the parking lot, my phone rings. I glance at it, see Ben’s name, and immediately leap to the worst-case scenario: something has happened to Luca or Sabine. I hit Answer, putting him on speakerphone.

“Aspen,” Ben says, and there is so much urgency in his voice that both Clara and I stiffen.

“What is it?”

“Where are you right now?”

“Just leaving the police station, why?”

“You need to come straight home,” he says in an acidic tone.

Fear claws at me, ripping into my skin. “What’s happened? Is everyone okay?”

“Is it Luca?” Clara cries.

There is a pause. Then Ben says, “Am I on speakerphone?”

“Yes, oh my god, Ben, just tell me what it is, I’m driving.”

“Pull over and put me off speakerphone,” he says, and it comes out practically as a snarl.

Clara’s mouth drops open. “What is it?” she’s practically screaming. “Is Luca okay? Just tell me that right now!”

“Luca is okay. The kids are fine,” Ben says, obviously fighting to put his anger in check. “I need to speak with Aspen privately.”

I shoot Clara an apologetic look and pull over, my stomach churning like I’m about to be sick. I pluck the phone out of the holder, turn it off Speaker mode, and press it to my ear. “What is it?” I hiss. “I hope you know you’re being really rude right now.”

“Fuck being rude,” Ben hisses back. “What the fuck did you do, Aspen? Someone posted a video of you.”

My insides turn to ice. “Wh-what video?” In the second it takes Ben to answer, my mind whizzes ahead, coming up with a thousand answers, each one more dire than the last. Does someone have footage of me killing Mer? No. It can’t be that. They would’ve released it way before.

“It’s a video of your morning routine.” Accusation drips from every word.

“Oh.” That doesn’t sound too bad.

“Except…it’s not a morning routine.”

“Oh.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Now I know what he’s talking about, and it’s so much worse than I thought. I want to dig a hole for myself and cover it up and never come back up.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “It shows you getting the twins off the couch and into their bedrooms to pretend to wake up. It has you snapping at Elea. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Aspen, this is what I’ve been warning you about. I’ve been telling you that people will find out how fucking fake you are, and now”—he pauses, his breath coming in a sharp hiss—“the person who posted it—Tanya—she’s saying that Meredith sent it to her months ago. You know how bad this looks, you stupid—you—fuck! I can’t—”

My stomach is twisted so tight that I think I might actually faint. I manage to mumble, “Okay, be right there.” I hang up and stare out the windshield.

“What was it?” Clara says. “Aspen?”

I can’t bear to look at her. “It’s fine. The kids are having a great time.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from afar.

“Bullshit it’s fine,” Clara shoots back. “You look like shit. What is it?”

I don’t bother replying. Instead, I put my phone away and resume driving.

“Are you serious right now?” Clara says.

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“Unbelievable.” She shakes her head and gazes out the window, taking in a shuddery breath. Then, shaking her head again, she mutters something and takes her phone out of her bag. For a few blessed moments, there is silence. I pray that it lasts the rest of the trip home. But then Clara goes, “What the fuck?” And she turns the volume up on her phone.

A video is playing. A video with my voice.

“—you get in bed, please? Just for a second,” my voice says.

“I’m busy,” says Elea.

“It’ll take a second. I just need you to pretend that you’re waking up, okay? You’ll get a star for this.”

“What the hell is this?” Clara says, glaring at me.

I clamp down on the steering wheel and keep my gaze forward. My guts twist into tight knots, making me want to throw up, but somehow I manage to keep driving. The video continues playing. I hear myself scolding Elea for rolling her eyes. I hear myself chirping at them to rise and shine. Then it ends, and out comes Tanya’s hateful voice.

“This is the video that Meredith sent to me. She wanted to show me what a fake bitch Aspen is, and I’ve held on to this video for months because y’alls know I’m not one for airing dirty laundry. But Aspen’s lies have gone too far. She knows something, you guys. I mean, come on, Meredith sent me this video, and months later she’s brutally killed? You’re going to sit there and tell me that Aspen had nothing to do with it? I call bullshit. Justice for Meredith. Lock Aspen up!” The video ends there.

There is a shocked silence. Then Clara says, in a soft, dangerous tone I’ve never heard her use before, “Is this true?”

I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. I can barely breathe. Please, let this be nothing more than a bad dream. Please.

“But it is you in the video.”

I nod and clear my throat. Get a freaking grip. “Yes. We make things up, you know that. It means nothing.”

“How did Meredith get ahold of it?” Clara says.

“I don’t know,” I cry. “I—look, I promise you, Clara, I had nothing to do with it. Nothing!”

For a second, it looks as though Clara is about to say something. Then she thinks better of it and sits still, though I notice that her right hand is now clutching the armrest of the door, as though she’s preparing to open the car door and jump out at any moment. It’s the longest drive of my life, the air thick and toxic with tension.

When we finally arrive at my house, Clara leaps out before the car rolls to a full stop and dashes inside, calling out, “Luca? Luca, where are you? Luca!”

Ben hurries out of the living room. “Hey, you—” Clara rushes past him. I hurry behind her. Ben looks at me questioningly, and I give a small shake of the head. We watch as Clara scoops Luca out of the playpen and shoulders past us, refusing to meet our eyes. At the door, she pauses long enough to say, “Don’t come near us ever again.”

“Clara—” I say, but already she’s opened the door.

She practically sprints away from our house, her shoulders hunched, her expression probably thunderous. The reporters are clamoring at her, shouting, “Clara, did Aspen kill your sister?”

I slam the door shut and let my head fall back against it. Oh god. How could I possibly have thought that things couldn’t get any worse? Anytime now, I’m going to be arrested , I think. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is Ben, still staring at me with that awful expression on his face, like he’s seeing a particularly disgusting centipede crawling across his meal.

“Did your friend get back to you with the lawyer’s number?” I manage to say.

Instead of answering, Ben’s mouth twists, his face turning ugly. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Aspen.” He steps closer to me, and now I feel afraid. I am a tiny animal trapped by a hungry wolf. Ben might feel small, but physically he is anything but. The muscles in his arms ripple as he raises them, and I shrink back.

“Don’t—”

“Did you kill her?” he snarls, his face so close to mine that I feel the heat of his breath on my skin.

I can only shake my head. Ben stays there for a few seconds, taking me in, his face completely devoid of any affection. Nothing but the detached look of a hunter wondering how best to cut open the carcass of his latest catch. Then he says, “If I find out that you’ve been endangering our family, Aspen? You’ll be on your own.” He turns and stalks off.

I’m shaking. My legs give out from under me, and I slide to the floor. For a few moments back there, I was convinced that I’m not the only one in this house who’s capable of murder.