Chapter 6
Chapter Six
8:45 p.m.
November 2nd, 2022
The Montgomery lake house
T he drive to the lake house was tense, each of them lost in their thoughts, the familiar roads winding through the woods like a path to a place they’d much rather forget. The moon hung low overhead, hidden behind the clouds. The house loomed ahead, shrouded in darkness. It was the same as it had always been—an old, sprawling structure with a wraparound porch and tall windows. But it felt far different now, like a skeleton of its former self. The last time they had been here, they were celebrating the end of finals, laughing and dancing as if the world outside the walls simply didn’t exist. Now, it was just a shell, haunted by memories of what had happened after.
Sebastian was the first to break the silence as they got out of the car, his voice light despite the tension in the air. “Well, if anyone’s keeping a tally, this officially makes us repeat offenders. First grave robbing, now this? Whatever will the public have to say about us?”
Delilah rolled her eyes, pulling her jacket tighter around her. “You need to stop making jokes at times like this.”
“It’s called coping, Delilah. You should try it sometime,” he shot back, offering her a crooked grin.
Eleanor forced a smile, shaking her head. “Can’t say I missed the musty smell of this place.”
“It used to smell like summer,” Augustus said quietly, his eyes lingering on the house. “Now it just smells like dust and memories.”
Lilia led the way up the porch steps, the wood creaking under their weight. The front door was locked, but it only took a few moments of Sebastian’s finagling with a hairpin to get it open. They slipped inside, closing the door softly behind them as if afraid to disturb the ghosts of the past.
The inside was exactly how Lilia had imagined it—frozen in time. Sheets covered the furniture, dust hung in the air, and the light from the outside barely illuminated the room. The police had torn the place apart after Willow went missing, and it was clear no one had been back since.
“Let’s split up,” Augustus suggested. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”
Sebastian and Delilah nodded, heading off toward the kitchen, while Eleanor followed Lilia and Augustus upstairs. The floorboards creaked underfoot, each step a reminder of the nights they’d spent here, the laughter and the secrets they had shared within these walls. Lilia and Augustus veered off toward Willow’s old room. It was almost the same as it had always been, except for the stark emptiness where her belongings had once been. The walls were bare, but the memories lingered in the air like bitter perfume.
“She loved this place,” Gus said softly, as Lilia ran her fingers over the bookshelves. She could see the outlines from where the sun had faded the wallpaper, the spots where Willow’s favorite posters had once hung. “This was her escape.”
Lilia nodded, her throat tight as she reached for one of Willow’s old books, Wuthering Heights. She flipped through the pages, the familiar scent of the old paper mingling with the dust. And then something slipped out, fluttering to the floor. It was an index card.
She picked it up, frowning at the scrawled handwriting. It was an address, nothing more, just a random address. “Gus, come look at this.”
He took the card from her, his eyes narrowing. “Cambridge. When did Willow ever go to Cambridge?”
“Guys!” Delilah’s voice echoed up the stairs. “You need to see this.”
Lilia and Gus exchanged a glance before heading back down the stairs. They found the others in the study, standing around a small stack of books and a dusty photo album. Sebastian held up a Polaroid, his expression unreadable.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said, passing the photo to Augustus.
Gus frowned as he looked at it. It was from the night of the party, the last night they had all been together before Willow had disappeared. But the photo was different. It was of Willow, her arm slung around Tobias Hopkins, a lacrosse player from their university. He was smiling at her, arm encircled around her waist, his lips darkened from lipstick that appeared to be smudged. They were standing close, like they were more than just acquaintances.
“I didn’t know they were friends,” Augustus muttered, his eyes scanning the photo.
“Looks like more than friends to me,” Delilah mumbled.
“None of us did,” Eleanor said, leaning over his shoulder. “I don’t even remember seeing them together that night.”
“Because they weren’t friends. Willow hated lacrosse. She never came to a single one of my games, remember? She said the sport was stupid. She went on that huge tangent two summers ago about how she’d much rather die than date a lacrosse player,” Sebastian reminded them.
“So why was she hanging out with him, then?” Lilia asked, shaking her head. “Do you think that’s where she went after the party—I mean, she left early, remember?”
Before anyone could answer, the sound of footsteps echoed from upstairs. It was faint at first, but then there was a creak, like someone shifting their weight on the floorboards.
“What was that?” Delilah hissed, clutching Sebastian’s arm.
“Nothing,” Sebastian murmured, though his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. “Probably the wind.”
The sound came again, louder this time, and they all turned toward the door.
“Okay, so that’s not the wind,” Eleanor said, her voice shaking.
Augustus shushed her, scrambling for his phone to turn on his flashlight. “Be quiet.” He inched toward the door.
“Gus,” Lilia hissed.
A distant murmur of voices caused them all to freeze. There was a faint laugh that followed. Sebastian took Augustus’ flank, nodding his head toward the hallway. Delilah grabbed the closest weapon she could find, a random bookend, and kept it close behind them. They crept down the hallway, their movements slow and cautious. The house was silent now, but as they reached the end of the hallway, a soft light flickered from the living room.
They turned the corner to find the television on, playing a grainy video. It took them a moment to recognize the figure on the screen, but when they did, a collective silence settled among them.
“Do I look pretty like this?” Willow’s voice was soft, almost teasing as she twirled in front of the camera, wearing nothing but lingerie. She giggled, and her voice echoed through the room. “Have I rendered you speechless?”
“Oh my God,” Lilia whispered.
It was strange to see Willow like this, alive and carefree, so vastly different from the last time she had laid eyes on her. She had been so lifeless, so cold. Void of her familiar flushed cheeks and brilliant smile. Her hair had been so dull, her skin caked with makeup, pale and drawn.
“Turn that thing off and come here,” Willow purred, holding a camera in her hands. “I want to take some pictures with you. They’ll be like a souvenir while you’re on your trip.”
“Who is she talking to?” Eleanor wondered aloud, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The camera moved closer, the perspective shifting as the person filming seemed to sit on the bed. Willow’s expression softened, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
The silence in the room was thick, heavy with the weight of a thousand questions. The video looped, and Willow’s voice echoed again, “I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
“Gus,” Lilia spoke quietly, her eyes on Augustus.
“That isn’t me,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the screen.
“Turn it off,” Delilah hissed at Sebastian, her voice panicked.
“I’m trying. I can’t find the remote.”
“It’s probably in the console cabinet,” Eleanor suggested, her voice shaking.
Lilia didn’t wait for them to figure it out. She marched over to the wall and ripped the plug out of the socket, plunging the room into utter silence.
“Gus?” Eleanor placed a hand on his shoulder, her voice gentle but filled with concern.
Before he could respond, a gust of wind blew through the house, slamming the front door against the wall. They all jumped, the tension snapping like a rubber band stretched too far.
“We need to go,” Augustus said, his voice firm as he moved to the DVD player. He ejected the disc and slipped it into his pocket. “Come on.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. As they hurried out of the house, the oppressive atmosphere clung to them like a shadow. Whatever secrets Willow had been hiding, they were pulling them deeper into a web they were increasingly unsure they could escape.
As Augustus drove through the quiet streets, the tension between him and Lilia was palpable, a heavy silence neither seemed willing to break. He had dropped their friends off at their homes. The events of the evening lingered in the air like a storm cloud, threatening to unleash at any given moment. The headlights cut through the darkness, casting fleeting shadows on the empty sidewalks. Lilia stared out the window, her mind racing, trying to piece together everything that they had uncovered. But no matter how hard she tried to focus on the mystery, her thoughts kept drifting back to Gus.
“Gus,” she said when she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Please say something.”
Augustus kept his eyes on the road, his jaw clenched. “She was cheating on me,” he murmured after a long pause, his tone resigned. “I can’t say that I’m surprised. I had a feeling she was.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to us?”
He shrugged, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “What good would it do? Willow was going to do whatever she wanted. That’s who she was.”
“You should’ve told me,” she insisted, her voice softening.
“What would have changed?” Gus glanced at her, his eyes dark and unreadable. “It wouldn’t have made what we did any less shitty if you had known.”
Lilia’s breath caught in her throat.
So, they were talking about that.
“We’re not talking about that,” she said quickly, her voice firmer than she felt.
“Shouldn’t we?” Augustus shot back, his frustration bubbling to the surface. “It doesn’t matter how much we avoid the conversation—it happened.”
“It was a mistake. We were drunk.”
“Lying has never been your strong suit, Chen.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated, her voice wavering. “We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about you. Your girlfriend cheated on you, and you had no idea.”
Augustus sighed, pulling the car over to the side of the road. He turned the engine off and frowned. “I knew,” he admitted. “I just didn’t want to see it.”
“You didn’t deserve that.”
He looked down at her hand and then back up at her, a conflicted look on his face. “Maybe I did. Maybe we all get what we deserve.”
“Gus . . . ”
He shook his head. “No, it’s true. We all have secrets, Lilia. Things we’ve done, things we’ve kept hidden. And now it’s all catching up with us.”
“We’ll figure this out,” she said. “We have to.”
There was no other way.