Chapter 1 #3
“The implications of the book are funds that help my brother. Beyond that, it’s none of my business. It’s been great talking to you all, but I’m done—”
I went to get off my chair, but Aimee grabbed my arm.
“Actions have consequences,” she fired back.
I braced myself as she turned to the camera.
“For those of you who do not know, Gary Hopely, the father of Alexandria Hopely, died by suicide five months ago, an action many suspect was the direct result of his characterization in the novel and the backlash he experienced thereafter.”
Aimee turned back to me, a withering look plastered across her face. “And Rose, do you feel any responsibility for his death?”
My stomach knotted so tightly that it sent streaks of pain up to my rib cage. I sat frozen in the chair. I could feel the bile rising in my throat.
“No. Not one bit.”
I had an hour before my next appointment, lunch at Balthazar with Archie Fellows—a well-known screenwriter and director who was thinking of adapting the book for film.
It was a big deal, as selling the movie rights could fund the next round of Will’s appeal costs.
As I exited The Morning Hour building into the chaos of Times Square, my purse started to vibrate against my leg.
I reached inside for my phone, hoping it was Flannery calling me to talk shit about Aimee Frasier, so I felt a mild annoyance when I saw Tommy’s name flashing across my screen again.
What could he possibly be so worried about? I sighed and clicked Accept.
“Hey, Tommy,” I said, trying to hide the irritation in my voice. “What’s up?”
I could hear him panting through the phone. “What’s up? What’s up?” He sounded exasperated, his voice high and panicked. “Didn’t you read my texts? Do you have any idea—”
I had to cut him off before he could really get going. His voice already had that squeaky quality that signaled a freak-out, and if I didn’t nip it in the bud now and apologize, it would be a bigger fight later.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I had an insane day. I was on TMH promoting the book and—”
He was shouting now. “Rose! I don’t care about The fucking Morning Hour. We’ve got bigger things going on right now.”
I blinked, surprised at his tone. Outside of that year, when we were all violent and angry all of the time, we had never spoken to each other like that.
“Have you heard from Hazel?” Tommy pressed, his voice desperate. “Please tell me she’s there with you.” I could hear his wife, Suzannah, and the kids in the background. It sounded loud wherever he was.
“What? No,” I said quickly. “Why would Hazel be in Manhattan? She isn’t with Dad?”
There was the sound of something crashing to the ground and then a whine that must’ve come from my nephew, Felix.
Tommy let out a strangled noise. “Shit!”
My stomach lurched and I clutched the phone to my ear.
“No one can find her, Rose. No one has seen or heard from her since yesterday afternoon. She’s not with Dad. Or Mom. Or any of her friends …”
I felt my hands start to shake. Hazel was responsible. She always checked in. She went to bed early. She asked for permission even to go to a football game. She was the great hope of the Dearling clan. Hazel didn’t pull stunts like this. She wasn’t me.
“Is she visiting Will? Maybe?” I tried to say, my throat going dry.
Will was serving his sentence in a maximum-security correctional facility in Miami, an hour and a half south of our hometown. It was an easy drive, one that Hazel could have managed on her own at sixteen, but far enough that they might not have thought to look there yet.
“Nope. I already checked,” Tommy said impatiently.
It occurred to me that there was no one I would think of that Tommy hadn’t already. I couldn’t come up with the name of even one of her friends.
Tommy was still talking. “We’re freaking out here. The police are talking like she was abducted—”
“The police?” I demanded. “You called the police?”
“We had to. It’s been over twelve hours since we last heard from her. We’re all at Dad’s—even Mom. No one can find her, Rose.”
I had stopped walking, frozen in the street by a familiar kind of fear. If both of my parents were there together, in Loxahatchee, so long after they separated …
“Her phone is here,” Tommy continued. “She hasn’t used her debit card. This is serious. It feels like …” He paused.
There was dead silence on the phone. Neither of us needed to elaborate. We were both thinking about eleven years ago, the last time a girl from Loxahatchee disappeared without a trace. The year that ruined our family.
“Tommy—” I started, my voice breaking in two. I could feel the two emotions battling for ground inside my head. Panic or fear.
This couldn’t be happening again. It couldn’t. The events of 2010 were an isolated incident. That’s what everyone said, right? Loxahatchee was safe. It didn’t have an unknown killer systematically preying on young women.
The thing was, I had never believed this narrative.
I knew my brother was not capable of murder.
But if Will didn’t kill Alex, then who had?
I’d spent years following leads as research for my book, and still I didn’t know who the culprit was—despite my creative ending.
As bad as it sounded, I had been waiting for over a decade for a killer to surface.
It was proof of my theory that the real perpetrator was still out there.
And now, it was coming to fruition in the worst way possible.
“Rosie,” Tommy said as he let out a small sob disguised as a cough. I could picture his watery eyes, his pink cheeks. “You need to come home.”