Page 140 of Our Daughter's Bones
“I know why. The oldest reason in the book: jealousy.”
Abby shot up in bed. Her wild brown hair fell on her shoulders. “No! You still don’t understand. It wasn’t aboutjealousy.”
“Then what?”
“Ambition.” She sounded resigned. “I wanted more. More than what this town was ready to give me.”
“So, you killed Erica. You thought it would get you attention through sympathy.”
“I didn’t mean to kill her. It just happened.”
“What went wrong?”
“Erica was getting away from me because of Quinn. I would have been a forgotten friend. I might as well not have ever existed.”
“Which is why you systematically broke her ties with them all. You spread rumors about Quinn cheating. Didn’t let her get too close to anyone else. You did all this to keep Erica to yourself. She was your ticket to recognition.”
“Imattered,” she confessed in a small voice. “Even if it was just by association. But Quinn was in love with her. He kept trying to get back together with her, and she was reconsidering. She texted me that night that she wanted to see me. I knew that Quinn had convinced her that I was lying.”
“Erica wanted to confront you. She couldn’t believe that her best friend was lying to her and had sabotaged her relationship.”
“Iwasher best friend!” Abby yelped with wild, fluttering eyes. “I pushed her to be excellent. I tutored her. I listened to her go on and on about her insecurities with her body. I encouraged her to focus on her studies and to be a better version of herself. That’s what best friends do. Without me, she would have accomplished nothing except for being born in the right family. She thought she was incapable of more. Of course,Iknew better.”
“You knew better than Hannah, too. But she wouldn’t listen to you either.”
A disappointed but brittle smile curled Abby’s lips. Quietly, she wiped a tear. “The only useful thing that woman has done is give birth to me. I recognize a hopeless case when I see one. Then she had to go and blackmail Arthur Bishop, of all the people. What a stupid thing to do.”
“Going back to that night, Erica left to confront you when you didn’t reply.”
“I had left my place to see her. I thought I could explain myself better in person. I could appeal to her generosity. She saw me in the woods.”
“You got into a fight.”
“I came up with every excuse in the world. Begged for forgiveness. Cried. But she was so sick of me. She said I was obsessed with her, inlovewith her. That I was pathetic. Bringing her down.” Her lips quivered. “Can you believe that? Those words hurt me the most.”
“After everything you invested in that relationship.”
Abby rested her head on the pillowcase, dejected and tired. “After how I dedicated myself to her and our friendship. Of course, I got mad. We started hitting each other. I picked up a rock. She tried to push me away and broke her nail on my face. She stood there, crying and cursing me. I bashed the rock against her head, and she collapsed. I panicked… I-I thought she was dead. I buried her. Dug with my hands. Took me hours.” She glared at her broken nails, bored. “Look at them. They’re ugly now.”
“But Erica’s death didn’t work in your favor.” Mackenzie’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and snuck a glance. A message from Nick.
Ready when you are.
“Even after she was dead, everything was about her. No one cared about the best friend,” Mackenzie prompted.
“Nope.” Abby’s smile was distressed. “People tolerated me before. They could pretend I existed because of her. With her gone, they went back to ignoring me completely. I grieved her death. I would cry. I would have breakdowns. But no one looked.” Her voice dropped to a whimper. “Isn’t that sad? When nobody cares about you?”
“You hatched a plan.” She ignored the strange sincerity in Abby’s eyes. Like she genuinely yearned for care. “When Erica’s death didn’t give you the attention you wanted, you decided to be the victim yourself. You took advantage of the fact that Erica’s case was unsolved. And then you heard about Club 916.”
“From my grandmother, when I was visiting her at the retirement home.” She shrugged callously. “She wasn’t lucid and went on a rant about football players and their privileges in this town. Apparently, they targeted her back in the day.”
“You decided to plant the seeds that there was a new Club 916 and that they had killed Erica. You started acting paranoid and scared. You pretended to be investigating. Even wrote about how terrified and upset you were over the Monster. You manipulated your journal. Entries were missing from random dates. It was strange how you wrote in blue ballpoint pen with enough force to leave an imprint on the other side. But the missing entries and the entry about you never giving up on Erica were written in black pen. The handwriting was so neat and clean. Why would your pen and style of writing switch randomly? You wrote those later. They were staged.”
Abby ground her jaw. “Max got annoying. He wouldn’t leave me alone. It was so obvious he was in love with me. Have you seen him?”
“Quinn was your type. You even tried kissing him after Erica died. You were ready to swoop in and be the shoulder for him to cry on. But Quinn actually was loyal to Erica. Even after she died.”
“Can you believe that? Erica gets the perfect face, the perfect family, and the perfect boyfriend. She didn’t have to lift a finger. She was just handed everything on a platter. What did I get? Insults? Negligence? Poverty?Max?He was poking into my business too much. I had to think quickly. I told him I was going after Club 916 alone.”
