Page 88 of Only If You're Lucky
“Because they’re going to find things,” I say. “I’ll show you when we get inside.”
It’s strange, the clarity of my thoughts as we walk back into the house. Like Halloween night, swallowing that pill, the edges of everything are as sharp as the knife that’s been scrubbed three times and left to dry in the kitchen. It’s two in the morning bythe time we move Lucy, get the shed cleaned up and the gravel in the driveway rearranged to hide the pressure of her body being dragged across the yard.
The little door on the side of the house latched permanently shut, obscured by the azaleas, only visible if you know just where to look.
“Shouldn’t she have that if she ran away?” Nicole asks as we walk into the living room, gesturing to Lucy’s phone sitting abandoned on the floor.
“No,” Sloane says, the remaining adrenaline making her fingers twitch. “They can track that. If it brings them here but they never find it, they’ll know she’s still on the property.”
I walk toward the phone and pick it up slowly, the collection of stars on the lock screen sending a fresh wave of sadness through my chest. I swipe up, attempting to get inside and instead getting a grid of digits as I rack my brain for any combination that could have some type of meaning, but nothing comes to mind. Lucy never shared anything with us—no special birthday or anniversary; no unique mixture of numbers she held close. We knew so little about her, only her name, and I feel the sudden prickle of knowing on my neck as I punch at the digits and watch the screen open.
Her name, Lucy. 5829.
She didn’t know much about herself, either.
“Here,” I say at last, navigating to her pictures before flipping through them quickly, going back months, years, until I find what I already knew would be there. It’s a picture of Eliza and me taken through her kitchen window, Mr. Jefferson sitting just by our side. We’re all together, laughing, the image grainy enough to know that Lucy had tried to zoom in as she watched us from a distance.
Somehow, after thinking about the picture she stole from Eliza’s bedroom, I had a feeling there would be more.
“Once the police realize she’s missing, we’ll let them find her phone and look through her pictures,” I say, flipping some more, taking in the others: Eliza and me in her bedroom, stomachs-down on the mattress. Eliza and Levi on the dock, her head light on his shoulder as they huddled close on the wood.
“They’ll figure out who she is,” I finish. “We’re just helping them put together a picture that already exists.”
“You’re going to let them think—”
“It explains them both,” I say. “Eliza and Levi. It’ll take care of everything.”
“Why don’t we just tell them ourselves?” Nicole asks, always so innocent. “Save them the trouble?”
“We can’t give ourselves a motive,” I say, shaking my head. “We don’t want them looking into us or the house any more than necessary.”
Nicole stays quiet, her expression unsure, but Sloane is starting to nod along now, too. I watch as she walks with purpose into Lucy’s room, reemerging with her wallet as she pulls out Lucy’s ID, a few credit cards. Things she would have taken if she decided to skip town.
“This is what Lucy does,” she says. “She takes off without warning. In the beginning, we act completely unfazed. Totally unbothered to hear that she’s gone.”
“Like it’s normal,” I add. “But after a while, we start to get nervous, scared. Everything they learn about Lucy, we act like we’re learning it for the first time, too.”
“Then one of us has to crack, just for a second,” Sloane says. We both look at Nicole, the weakest link. “Accidentally tell them something that will confirm their suspicions.”
“Like what?” she whispers, her face draining into a ghostly shade of white.
“That night at Penny Lanes,” I say. “The boys will remember it, too. They can corroborate it if they’re asked.”
Nicole nods, her cheeks hollow and pale before walking to the couch and collapsing onto the cushions, pushing her head deep into her hands.
“They’ll just think we’re naïve,” I say, walking over to her now and rubbing her shoulders. “That our only crime is being too innocent to see her for who she really is.”
“That we’re just girls,” Sloane adds, her eyes distant and detached. “Just a couple of harmless little girls.”
CHAPTER 67
NOW
I enter the apartment to find Sloane and Nicole on the living room floor, boxes ripped open and all our belongings scattered across the room.
“How did it go?” Nicole asks, standing up fast, eyes hopeful and afraid at the exact same time. She’s looking better, though, a certain buoyancy to her I haven’t seen in months. The color blooming back into her skin and her cheeks filling out, all fleshy and pink like a ripening fruit.
“Good,” I say, smiling weakly. “It’s all good.”
