Chapter 4
BILLY SCHULTZ’S RANCH
Inside the barn someone’s set up a crappy old sound system, the bass vibrating so wildly I can’t even tell what the song is.
Ashlynn Duvall is playing beer pong with Javier Rodriguez and Preston Holmes.
I hope they realize she’s going to destroy them.
A bunch of other people are sitting on a water-stained living-room set, shouting to be heard over the speakers.
An ancient smell of horse lingers on the air.
Billy’s family built a newer barn closer to their house a few years ago, letting Billy and his brothers use this one as a kind of rec room ever since.
There’s no AC out here, but there are also no parents. So it’s a trade-off.
There’s a line at the bathroom, of course, and it’s almost entirely girls.
The boys just pee in the bushes. It’s okay.
I don’t really have to go. I just want to take a minute behind the closed door to fix the makeup I feel sweating down my cheeks and to make sure I’m ready to face the crowd at the bonfire.
I lean against the wall and close my eyes, letting the thrum of the bass and the sound of conversation wash over me.
The party feels strangely far away tonight, even when I’m in the middle of it.
It would be easy to blame the Koenigs, to say that their appearance at the game is what has me so off-kilter.
But it wouldn’t be true. The truth is, Rocky and Lynette are never really that far from my mind.
Bryce’s words keep running through my mind.
Rocky’s parents just showing up like their kid didn’t blow some girl’s head off.
Caustic and glib, obviously—but it’s also not lost on me that he didn’t say Lynette’s name, even though he’d been in school with her since elementary school, just like the rest of us.
He’s not the only one. Mostly, no one brings up Rocky or Lynette—but there are people that think Lynette did something to “make” him do it.
They said she’d manipulated him into a pact of some kind or that she’d gotten him hooked on drugs.
A few people even blamed me. What kind of girlfriend doesn’t know her boyfriend is cheating on her?
What kind of girlfriend doesn’t stop it?
What kind of girlfriend is boring or bitchy enough to drive her boyfriend to another woman?
Sophie always gets mad about it. She says questions like that are shitty and misogynist, and she’s probably right.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ask them sometimes too.
Not that I think either Lynette or I were to blame—just that I wonder how the boy I knew turned into a boy that could do something like that.
Or had he been a secret monster all along?
Had I been blind to it, or had he been that good at hiding it?
In the bathroom I do my best to clean up, dabbing at the sweaty smears under my eyes, putting on a fresh coat of lipstick.
I run my fingers through my hair and knot it at the top of my head.
There. Look at Iris Henley, pretty (not pretty enough to keep her boyfriend on a tight leash), and popular (popular enough to weather the fallout after his crime), and put together (on the outside, at least).
I move my head right and left in the mirror, making sure I look fine from all angles.
Then I take a deep breath and head back out there.
It takes me a few seconds to feel the way something in the air has shifted, and it takes a few more to realize what.
The line outside the girl’s room is quiet, watching me.
A few push themselves against the wall as I walk past, like they are recoiling.
My face goes warm. Is there lipstick on my teeth, toilet paper on my shoe?
I do a quick scan of my body, but nothing’s out of place.
Assholes, I think. They were talking about me while I was in there.
Maybe telling some dumb freshman the story of who I am, what my boyfriend did.
Outside the barn a strange energy’s taken over.
People looking at their phones, faces lit up, eerie in the glow.
People hurrying across the clearing to talk to a friend.
I can’t hear what anyone’s saying under the thrum of the music.
Something’s probably making the rounds on Sekrit.
I fumble my phone out of my purse but it’s totally out of battery now.
Hayden and Sophie are both at the bonfire, heads together, whispering urgently. When I see their faces, I know. Something is making the rounds. Something they want to keep from me.
Sophie’s the first one to speak. She looks up with a shaky smile and shoves her phone quickly into her pocket. “There you are. Hey, the keg’s totally empty, so we were thinking we should just get out of here. Hayden says she’s sober enough to drive. We could go to Buc-ee’s…”
Her voice trails off as I snatch the phone right out of Hayden’s hand. Sekrit is right there on her screen, open to a fresh post. Time stamp: 11:27. Probably the moment I locked the bathroom door behind me.
U/ROCKYTRUTHER2001
IRIS HENLEY IS A MURDERER
Throwaway account for obvious reasons.
Iris has been going along with the official story but do not trust her.
She knew Rocky was cheating. She wanted to catch him red-handed.
When she got there she took the gun out of his truck.
Maybe all she wanted was to scare him—but she lost it when she found out it was Lynette.
She shot them both and made it look like a murder-suicide.
I didn’t speak up because I thought the cops would run tests and figure it out but they haven’t and now I’m scared that she is going to get away with it.
Do not trust her.
She is a liar.
She is a murderer.
She will do it again if she gets a chance.