Chapter 28
Lizzie
The apartment was loud. Henry and Jack were playing some game that involved a lot of yelling and the occasional thud against the wall that their mother would yell about later.
Lizzie sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open, staring at a blank document that was supposed to be a short story for her Fiction II class.
She’d written three sentences in an hour. All of them were terrible.
Her phone buzzed. Chrisla.
Derek cut my hours in half. Maria’s too. Anyone who was loyal to Sarah is getting punished.
Lizzie stared at the message. She stared at it, wanting to respond but being unable to muster the words. Key West felt so far away and yet ever present.
I’m so sorry. I wish I could help.
She wanted to but there was nothing she could do but send messages.
She tried to stay off social media. It wasn’t like Sarah’s scandal was a nationwide story but there were some mentions of it on social media and she was getting tagged in many of them.
She could barely imagine what it would be like to go back to school next week.
She’d already picked up shifts at the bakery. It felt like a whole different world. Like the past few weeks hadn’t happened at all. Except they had. And she couldn’t stop thinking about them.
A knock sounded at the door and then the front door opened.
Her mother’s voice, then Jasper’s. Henry and Jack came out of their room, hugged him, and left again.
They were both teenagers, now, nearly adults and didn’t show as much excitement about him visiting as they used to.
Of course, he had just been here a couple of weeks ago as well.
“Jasper,” she said with a smile and hugged him. “It’s so good to see you. I didn’t know you were coming.”
He glanced at her mother and smiled. “Well, I talked to your mom,” Jasper said. “You’ve been back for almost two weeks, and you won’t talk about what happened in Key West. Why you came back.”
“I think you know. And there’s nothing to talk about.”
“Lizzie.” Her mother’s voice was gentle. “You barely eat. You don’t sleep. You sit here staring at your computer and don’t write anything.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” Jasper leaned forward. “I know what happened. So does your mom. We’ve seen the stories. I’ve talked to Carlos. But I don’t know your side.”
Lizzie looked at her laptop.
“Tell us what happened,” her mom said. She sat beside
“We were together,” she said. “Me and Sarah. Not just working together. Together together.”
Her mother didn’t look surprised.
“I was thinking about staying. Transferring schools or doing remote learning. We talked about me getting my own place, working part-time at the hotel. We had a plan.” Lizzie’s throat tightened. “Then the reporter called and I said the wrong thing and everything fell apart.”
“What did you say?”
“The reporter told me Sarah had been with other women. That she knew Sarah and I were together. She made a snide comment about our age difference. I got flustered and…And I—I got defensive. I said I wasn’t half Sarah’s age and that there weren’t other women.
Which was basically confirming we were together without actually saying it. ”
Jasper and her mother exchanged a look.
“And Sarah blamed you,” Jasper said.
“Yes. I should have told her sooner. I tried but I didn’t have time to speak to her because the story came out the day after the reporter called.
I didn’t know it was coming out so soon or I would have said something sooner.
I was… I was…Sarah was so mad.” Lizzie wiped her face.
“She told me it was my fault. That I should have just said no comment. And she was right. I should have.”
“Sarah has a hard exterior,” Jasper said.
“I’ve known that since I first met her. But Carlos told me she feels badly about blaming you.
Her world was crashing down and she took it out on the one person who was close to her.
We all do that sometimes.” He looked at Lizzie’s mother when he said it.
Something passed between them. Understanding.
Lizzie realized with a jolt that her suspicions had been right. They were working on getting back together. Or maybe they already were.
“What else have you heard?” she asked.
“Derek Mitchell is making everyone’s life miserable. Carlos and Esmeralda are fighting him but it’s not easy.” Jasper turned his mug in his hands. “The Key West board is trying to influence the national Barnes Hotels board to turn against Sarah too.”
Lizzie felt sick. If she’d had any food, it would be making a second appearance by now. “Can they do that?”
“I don’t think they’ll succeed. Sarah’s always been popular with the national board.
Billy made sure of that. But it doesn’t look good for the Key West side of things, or the lawsuit.
Jonathan’s lawyers are using the article to build their case that the marriage was fraudulent.
But it’s all just allegations. Nothing’s proven. ”
Lizzie looked at her hands. “I wish there was something I could do. To help her. To prove all those lies wrong.”
“There’s always a paper trail,” her mother said. “If everything Sarah told you is true, it can be proven.”
“How?”
“If she was legally emancipated, there’s paperwork for that,” Jasper said. “Some of it might be sealed because she was a minor, but there should be a record. Court filings are public.”
“And if her parents are really addicts, they would have been arrested at some point,” her mother added. “There’d be records. Police reports. Court cases.”
Lizzie sat up straighter. “The neighbor. Mr. Patterson. The one who was hit by the car. He might remember the truth. He might be willing to say something now.”
“Carlos and Esmeralda have known Sarah for years,” Jasper said. “They were there when she and Billy were together. They could make statements. Corroborate that Billy knew about her sexuality, that the marriage wasn’t a secret arrangement.”
“I can reach out to them,” Lizzie said. “Ask if they’d be willing.”
“I’ll talk to them,” Jasper said. “I know them. We’ve worked together for years. It’ll be better coming from me.”
Lizzie’s mother looked at her. “What are you hoping to accomplish with this?”
The question sat there.
Lizzie thought about Sarah in her office. The way she’d looked when she told Lizzie to leave. The shrug when Lizzie asked if they’d see each other again.
“I want to help her,” she said. “I want her to finally have something good in her life. If that brings us back together, that’s wonderful.
But even if it doesn’t—” Her voice cracked.
“I still feel guilty. About the reporter. About all of it. This is something I can do. Something that might actually help.”
Her mother reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“Then let’s get started,” Jasper said.
They spent the next two hours at the kitchen table. Jasper making notes. Lizzie’s mother googling Wisconsin court records. Lizzie writing down everything she remembered Sarah telling her. Names. Dates. Places.
San Francisco. The Fairmont. The homeless shelter.
Wisconsin. The car accident. Mr. Patterson.
The emancipation at sixteen.
It wasn’t much. But it was a start.
And for the first time since she’d left Key West, she felt like she was doing something other than drowning.
***
“Call him again,” Maya said from her spot on the bed, laptop balanced on her knees. “He sounded like he wanted to help.”
Lizzie stared at Mr. Patterson’s number on her phone.
The man Sarah’s mother had hit with her car.
She’d called him three days ago. He’d been kind, said he remembered Sarah, said he’d always felt terrible about what happened.
He’d all but admitted to lying about seeing Sarah drive but had ended the call when she’d asked him to make a statement.
“What if he says no?”
“Then we find something else. There’s got to be more in the court records.” Maya scrolled through another page of Wisconsin public filings. “Social services had to have been involved at some point.”
The doorbell rang.
They both looked up. Nobody used their doorbell. Everyone texted first.
Lizzie went to the intercom. “Hello?”
“Lizzie? It’s Emma. Emma Truseau. Can I come up?”
Maya’s laptop nearly slid off the bed. Lizzie pressed the buzzer without thinking. Two minutes later Emma stood in their doorway.
“I’m sorry to just show up. I didn’t want to text because I figured you’d delete it.”
“It’s fine. Come in.” Lizzie stepped back. “You know Maya, of course.”
Emma nodded at Maya and sat on the edge of the couch like she might need to leave quickly.
“I wanted to talk to you about Key West. I saw the story about Sarah Barnes and that they mentioned you also. And… well. I feel like I have to come forward. First off, I’m not friends with Cynthia anymore. I needed you to know that.”
Lizzie sat in the chair across from her and waited.
“I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t know what she did. What she’s been doing since we got to Key West.” Emma stared into her coffee. “She was determined to make you miserable from day one. At first it was just stupid stuff, like making dumb comments and then the puddle incident.”
She looked at her shoes, clearly ashamed. “Then something happened on the island during the storm. She wouldn’t tell me what, just that you’d humiliated her and she was going to make you pay.”
“The iguanas,” Lizzie said.
Emma frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. But I know what you’re talking about.”
“She was looking for something to use against you after that. She was convinced you and Sarah were together, but she couldn’t prove it. She said she saw you sneaking off somewhere and she was determined to out you.”
“What did she do?”
“After she saw Sarah’s mother slap her she saw her chance. She followed her. She paid her, Lizzie. She paid Sarah’s mother to go to the newspaper with the story.”
The radiator clanked. Someone walked past their door in the hallway. Lizzie heard all of it too clearly.
“Cynthia told me the mom almost backed out the next day. She said Sarah paid her mother to stay quiet,” Emma continued. “Some kind of blackmail thing. But Cynthia promised her monthly payments if she followed through.”
“Jesus,” Maya said.
Lizzie couldn’t find words. She’d known Cynthia was involved, had guessed at pieces of it, but hearing the whole plan laid out made her sick. All this deliberate destruction of someone’s life over a college group project and wounded pride.
“I should have said something sooner.” Emma looked at Lizzie directly for the first time since sitting down.
“I should have stopped her. She’s been my friend since freshman year, and I was scared of what she’d do if I went against her.
But what she did was wrong. You didn’t deserve it. Sarah didn’t deserve it.”
“Why are you here now?”
“Because I can’t live with myself knowing what happened and doing nothing.” Emma’s voice got steadier.
Lizzie grabbed her laptop and opened a document. “Write down what you told me. Please. I’m trying to gather evidence to refute the story.”
Emma pulled the laptop closer. “Okay.”
She wrote for several minutes. Lizzie watched her fill the page with details that could actually help Sarah fight back if she chose to.
Emma paused halfway through and looked up. “There’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“The newspaper was already working on a story about Sarah before Cynthia got involved. Some guy at the hotel had been feeding them information about her. Pushing them to dig into her background. Derek something.”
“Derek Mitchell.”
“That’s him. Cynthia told me he’d been trying to get Sarah fired for months.”
Maya leaned forward. “That assistant GM who got her job?”
“That’s him,” Lizzie replied. It was all beginning to make sense.
When Emma finished, they printed the page, she signed her name at the bottom and dated it. “I really am sorry. For all of it.”
“Thank you for doing it now.”
After Emma left, Lizzie and Maya sat on the couch and read through the statement three times. “It’s coming together,” Lizzie said.
“Yup. A bit more digging and then Sarah can actually fight back if she chooses. And you can stop feeling guilty. And maybe get her back. If you want. Lizzie thought about that for a while. It was odd. She should be mad at Sarah for blaming her, but she really wasn’t.
She could how Sarah had become so withdrawn, so willing to think the worst of people.
These last few days looking through records and talking to people had made her see Sarah in a new light. And at the end of the day, the only feeling left in Lizzie wasn’t anger or disappointment. It was sadness for Sarah and the pain she’d gone through.
And all Lizzie really wanted to do, was hold her close and tell her that she loved her.