Chapter Seventy-Four. Ingrid
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INGRID
“We’ll need to cover the gym exits, the pool deck doors, and the service entrance by the kitchen,” Sheriff Ryan says, already pointing men toward different wings of the building. “Every lock, every bolt—check them all.”
The place seems to have a thousand doors and windows. Each one suddenly feels like a hole in the hull of a sinking ship.
The burly man from before crosses his arms. “I’m not leaving him alone,” he growls, jerking his chin toward Ben. “Not for a second.”
“He’s the one who came to warn us,” I say.
Dad’s hand clamps gently around my arm. “Let the sheriff handle it.” His face is drawn tight with worry, and I let him steer me toward the cluster of chairs where Mom is already settled close to a heater, a blanket around her shoulders.
The sheriff orders us to stay put, everyone in this room within sight of everyone else.
Then the men scatter through the hallways, rattling handles, sliding bolts home.
The echoes carry back, sharp and metallic, while Ben stays planted at the welcome table, the big guy looming over him like a guard.
The whole room feels jittery, the air stretched thin.
That’s when Kennedy Claire slips up beside me, her nails digging crescents into my arm. “I can’t believe he’d show his face here,” she hisses.
My eyes drop to the shoebox I’ve been carrying, soggy cardboard soft against my fingers. Seeing her, remembering what’s inside—it feels like the moment I’ve been circling all night.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Well, sure, honey.”
We find a pair of chairs out of earshot of anyone. I set the shoebox in my lap. “I was going through some stuff in my parents’ attic, and I found this.” I lift the lid and hold up the two pieces of the broken heel.
For a moment, Kennedy Claire’s face doesn’t move, just her eyes from the shoe to me and back, quick flicks like she’s doing calculations in her head. Then her eyebrow raises. “What’s that?” she says, her voice perfectly innocent.
“It’s the shoe I was wearing when I twisted my ankle,” I say, each word slow and measured. I don’t take my eyes from her face, needing to see each subconscious twitch of her muscles. “Right before Miss Lone Star. Right before you won.”
She laughs. “I can’t believe you still have that. I guess your mama really doesn’t throw anything away, does she?”
I turn the heel so the sliced end points straight at her. “If it had broken on its own, this whole piece would have torn off from the sole.”
Kennedy Claire’s acting is good, because she looks genuinely confused. “I’m not sure—”
“Did you sabotage me?”
“Iggy,” she says, a horrified reprimand, like I’ve slapped her.
“I think you did,” I say, picking up steam, as the anger and the adrenaline of confronting her swirls my chest into a furnace. “I think you cut this heel, glued it back on, and then just watched me fall. How could you? You were supposed to be my best friend.”
“I am your best friend,” she snaps. Then she closes her eyes, inhales through her nose, and tips her head up to the ceiling, like she’s trying not to cry.
She shakes her head slowly so that her hair, still somehow perfectly curled, sways down her back.
“All right,” she says softly. She looks at me, chews the inside of her cheek.
“I wanted to win, okay? I’m sorry, but you didn’t care about it.
Not like I did. We were kids. It was twenty-five years ago, Iggy. I’m sorry.”
I drop the shoe back into the box and close the lid. “What about after Izzy went missing? Did Ben ask you to tell me to meet him?”
Her brows knit together. “Who told you that? Have you been talking to Ben?” She whips her head over her shoulder to look at him across the room, then leans in and grabs my hand. “Are you crazy?”
I pull my hand away from hers. “Did you see Izzy? The day she disappeared?”
Kennedy Claire’s face turns to stone, so fast it sends chills down the nape of my neck.
She sits back in her seat, her spine a perfect line.
“You never could think straight around him.” Then she stands, her eyes flicking over me once, head to toe, dismissive.
The chatter of the room and the roaring of the storm all hum together into white noise, until all I can hear are the stabbing steps of Kennedy Claire’s stilettos across the floor.