8 #2
Henry shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time a kid from school exacted some sort of revenge prank on us.
Remember the paint?” A couple of weeks after Mariana’s accident, someone snuck onto the property and spray-painted the word Killers over the auto shop’s garage door.
“Maybe Kennedy tried something but got scared off by the security cameras.” Ever since Mariana’s accident and all the rumors circulating about the triplets, Mr. Abbott had a brand-new state-of-the-art security system installed around the mansion.
“Except Lydia said Kennedy didn’t take the path up to the house. She went into the woods.” Almost like she was avoiding being spotted by the family and the cameras.
“None of us were secretly seeing Kennedy,” Henry says, an impatient edge to his voice now.
“Well, this is what Lydia believes, and I think it’s what she told the cops.”
Henry huffs out a breath, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Great. Perfect. It’s always the boyfriend, so if the cops believe one of us was the boyfriend…”
“Yeah.”
“It’s ridiculous.” He starts to pace through the foyer. “We have to give them a different story. Did Lydia say anything else?”
“Not really. I tried to contact Desiree, just to see if she could disprove Lydia’s theory. But she refused to talk.”
Henry rubs at his temple, still pacing in front of me. He looks beyond distraught, and I want nothing more than to calm him.
“Hey,” I say, reaching out to touch his arm. “It’s going to be okay. They need proof to put someone away for murder. Lydia’s speculations won’t cut it.”
“I know,” he says, nodding in an almost maniacal way. “I know. I just wish she would’ve kept her mouth shut about these unfounded theories. I’ve got to call our lawyer, Hayden. You can get home okay, right?” He steps away, and my hand falls down to my side.
“Sure,” I say, though he’s nearly out of the room.
I don’t like this. My chest is tight, and it feels like I can’t take a full breath. For the first time since I’ve known Henry, I’m getting the feeling that he is lying to me.
***
Since two-thirds of the Abbott triplets dismissed me, I’m back at home, staring at the sparkling ocean on my laptop’s home screen.
Something about Adam’s reaction to dating Kennedy isn’t sitting right with me.
Adam has been known to get heated, to have a temper.
But the way he nearly gloated about Dr. Russo’s grave misfortune was so cold it felt almost… inhuman.
Yes, Dr. Russo seems to be an unpleasant man who likely spurred a movement to get the Abbott boys expelled by the school board.
But in the wake of Mariana’s accident, most of the town behaved similarly toward the brothers.
And besides, Adam never wanted to go back to school.
What about Dr. Russo made him react so strongly out in the garden?
Too bad Adam doesn’t seem like he’ll ever willingly answer that question, and most of what I’ve learned about the school board effort has been through word of mouth. That’s not exactly helpful right now.
At a dead end, I decide to go back and read the news stories about Mariana’s case, hoping it will spark something.
Hoping it will remind me what I know to be true: Mariana’s death was accidental.
Back in the mansion, the tension was completely normal, given the circumstances.
The Abbott brothers were not killers then, and they aren’t killers now.
Though I read some of these publications before, back when we were all living through this, it was always from a position of guarded detachment.
When journalists began to come after the triplets, I only absorbed what I needed to keep track of the gossip at school.
To be on the defense. Now, I need to see what my brain couldn’t handle back then.
The bulk of the early articles feature the tragic accident of a sweet small-town girl. There are a few that focus on Adam, such as “Small-Town Hero Fights for Life as Tragic Car Explosion Leaves One Dead,” and another, titled “High School Football Star Risks It All in Failed Attempt to Save Girl.”
Then, about two weeks after those first articles were published, came the bad stories, the ones that mention how the explosion was caused by an exposed engine wire.
I skim a few, refreshing my memory on the details.
According to the articles, investigators concluded that the fire originated in the engine, likely a wire that sparked and ignited when Mariana started the car.
They could not, however, say exactly why Mariana failed to escape the vehicle in time.
When the fire reached the fuel tank, the entire car exploded with her inside.
Police weren’t ruling out foul play. Considering the brothers had been working on the car just minutes before the explosion, the detective on the case had stated that at the very least, they could be facing manslaughter.
The detective added, “At this moment, we have no reason to believe that Adam Abbott’s injuries were caused by anything other than an act of heroism.”
I clench my teeth. By saying this, the detective fed directly into people’s suspicions that Adam’s actions could’ve been something other than heroic. I read on to where the Abbotts’ now-retired dentist said, “The Abbott brothers always gave me a bad feeling. Just something about them.”
Real crackerjack journalism. And it’s only outdone by the next source, Dennis Riggs, the mechanic in Alton Woods, one town over from Silver Creek.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time the Abbotts have made catastrophic mistakes due to carelessness and insufficient automobile education and training.
It’s just the first time the results were fatal.
At my shop, every one of our employees is certified through the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.
” My jaw starts to ache now. Dennis Riggs has been trying to poach auto repair jobs from the Abbotts for the past decade.
When this story broke, he was more than happy to talk to journalists and post slander online.
Sebastian Moore, Mariana’s neighbor, then disagreed with Riggs, stating, “That family worked on countless cars for the members of Silver Creek. This was more than carelessness or lack of education; it was sabotage. It was murder.”
My stomach tenses. Why didn’t Mr. and Mrs. Abbott ever sue this article’s author for libel?
The article goes on to quote an anonymous source, who said, “Abbott Auto Repair has been bleeding money for years. It’s no surprise the boys would cut corners.
Probably learned it from their father. And now, a young girl is dead. ”
If this were a physical newspaper, I’d ball it up and throw it at the wall.
The boys wouldn’t cut corners. They’re honest and hardworking.
But this source’s words catch me off guard for another reason.
Before Mariana’s death, the repair shop had been a highly successful operation.
That accident and its subsequent rumors were the reason business began to tank.
So why would anyone claim the shop has been bleeding money for years?
I click out of the article, making a mental note to ask Henry about it.
Eventually, all online publications reach the same conclusion as the detectives—Mariana’s death was a horrible, tragic accident.
The engine along with the wiring had sustained far too much damage to find any conclusive evidence of foul play.
I move on to Instagram next, scrolling back to the point when things started to take a turn, typing Adam Abbott and Mariana Sanchez into the search bar.
Posts flood my feed, most featuring strangers talking to the camera, rehashing the same baseless rumors; the incident was somewhat of a viral phenomenon, at least in Vermont.
This was a space I avoided a year ago. If the journalism was sketchy, social media was a million times worse.
The horrible things anonymous strangers said about my closest friends had me up at night in tears, worried for them.
But if something in here can help them now, I have to face it.
I narrow down my search by adding murder into the bar.
An image pops up at the top of my results—one that turns my stomach.