Chapter 34
HENLEY HOUSE
“Iris Henley, you have five minutes to get out of bed and get some clothes on.”
My mom’s voice cuts through a series of feverish nightmares—dreams where I am falling into jagged, chaotic holes, where I am alone in a dark maze feeling along walls.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in bed. I’ve been tumbling in and out of sleep and panic attacks for what feels like hours.
Now Mom is in my doorway. It’s not even eight but she’s fully dressed, not a hair out of order.
She’s in her powder-blue suit, the one that always means business; it’s what she usually wears to talk to the HOA or the city council.
“Mommy?” The word comes out as a rasping croak. Her carefully made-up lips disappear into the line of her mouth.
“You heard me. We have to be at the sheriff’s station at eight. Get up, do something with your hair, and be ready.”
I sit bolt upright. “The sheriff’s station? Why? Nothing even happened, it was just…”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She holds up her hand. “Meet me downstairs when you’re ready.”
When we pull into the sheriff’s parking lot, I let out an involuntary gasp. There’s one car in the lot. Only one, but it’s one I know well.
A dark gray Jeep. Pom-pom-shaped sticker on the back window that says HAYDEN beneath.
Mom parks right next to it. She narrows her eyes when she sees it, but she doesn’t say anything.
But the door of the station opens just as we approach, and there she is, eyes swollen and baggy, dark red hair frizzing out of its ponytail.
Even with everything going on, my first thought is that she’s been hurt.
I remember the way Carter looked at homecoming, the way his muscles strained against his suit.
I take a step toward her. “Hayden, oh my God. Are you okay?”
I stop in my tracks as her eyes meet mine. They’re hard and flat, without a trace of warmth. She stares for the briefest moment, then looks away and walks quickly into the parking lot.
I want to chase after her, to grab her arm and make her look at me. But there’s no time. Sheriff Ramos is standing just inside the door. He holds it open.
“Come on in, Mrs. Henley, Iris.”
My mind spins as I follow him into the conference room. I take a seat at the big faux-wood table across from him.
“Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Mom holds a hand up to cut me off. “What’s this all about, Sheriff?”
Ramos takes a long time to get settled into his chair. He makes a show of opening a manila folder, scanning over the top piece of paper inside.
“Well, Iris, it looks like I need to ask you one more time to go over the night of April fifteenth and the morning of the sixteenth,” he says. He rests his forearms on the table and leans forward.
“I already told you everything I know,” I say. I glance at Mom, her expression still tight, and then back at him. “I was at the cheer party. I was there all night.”
The sheriff leans back slightly in his chair, like he’s in the middle of an enormous meal and needs a moment to savor it.
“That’s interesting,” he says. “Because now we have a witness that says you left your house that night just after one AM.”
I gape at him. My face feels numb and strange—like I can’t quite control it, or even guess what it might be doing. I put my hand to my mouth, covering up what I can, suddenly desperate to hide.
“Hayden,” I say faintly.
He shrugs. “I can’t identify informants.”
That makes me want to laugh. “You did a crappy job hiding her identity, then.”
He ignores this. “But what I can tell you is that someone who previously confirmed your alibi has retracted her statement and now claims she woke up in the middle of the night to see you slipping out the front door.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s not true.”
Ramos taps the table with his pen and stares at me. He’s trying to wait me out. I’m not going to let him force me to talk, but then my mom intervenes.
“Iris, tell the sheriff what he wants to know,” she says coldly. “I’d like to be out of here by lunch.”
I almost want to laugh in her face. Sorry to inconvenience you, Mom. Sorry to make you experience an iota of what I’ve been going through.
“I can only tell you what I already told you,” I say. “My parents were out of town. I had a sleepover. The girls all showed up between six and eight, I guess.”
“Your previous statement says between five and ten,” Ramos interjects.
I give a helpless shrug. “Then that’s probably more accurate. It was six months ago, I don’t remember all the details.”
“You don’t remember the details of the night your boyfriend and best friend died?” Skepticism drips from his voice. Where was this investigative aggression six months ago?
“No,” I say, a little snarkier than intended. “Why would I? It wasn’t like I knew ahead of time it was going to be the most traumatic night of my life. I didn’t keep a time-stamped journal or anything.”
“You need to lose the attitude, Iris,” Mom says.
It startles me so much I can’t keep a poker face. I turn to look at her, feeling like she slapped me. I don’t know what kind of help I’d expected from my mother—but I’d hoped she’d at least have my back.
“I’m not trying to have attitude. But I don’t know what you want me to say. I had a sleepover. We ate a ton of Ben & Jerry’s. We watched TV. I drank too much. I woke up to my phone ringing with the news the next day.”
“Do you remember falling asleep?” Ramos says. “Or did you black out?”
Mom draws in her breath sharply. “That’s enough. Sheriff Ramos, did you bring us in here to interrogate my daughter? Because if you did, I’m going to have to insist we reschedule for a date when our attorney can be present.”
“I don’t think there’s any need to lawyer up,” Ramos says, his voice suddenly much more friendly. “We just want to get to the bottom of things, Mrs. Henley, and I want to make sure I understand Iris’s version of the story.”
“Of course. I understand why you might want to investigate a closed murder investigation six months after the fact, based on one kid’s story,” Mom says. “You know my daughter’s been getting harassed online? People are spreading rumors about her.”
“The way I heard it, she’s been spreading rumors of her own,” he says steadily. Mom cuts her eyes quickly toward me, and I look down at the table, cheeks burning.
“Regardless,” she says. “You have one unsubstantiated claim, from a teenager with a grudge, that my daughter wasn’t in her bed when she said she was.”
“Well, we will be working on substantiating that claim,” he says. “I’ve got the other girls from the slumber party coming in this afternoon to go over their stories one more time.”
“And if you find out anything incriminating, we will be happy to come back. With our lawyer.” Mom stands up abruptly. “Come on, Iris, don’t say another word.”
I hesitate, looking across the table at the sheriff and then back at Mom. Sheriff Ramos looks annoyed, but he doesn’t do anything to stop her. I stand up too and follow her out.