The Cheerleaders(47)

“I’m not the only one who was skeptical about the accident and the murders,” Ethan says. “You were probably too young to be paying attention, but plenty of people were talking. Five girls, who all knew each other, gone in a matter of a month? It was too wild to believe.”

I was too young, maybe, but also consumed by grief. All I remember from those days is mourning Jen and worrying about Tom’s job. Jen and Tom. Tom and Jen.

Two dots.

“Wouldn’t there have been tire marks from the truck?” I say.

He cracks a knuckle. “No. It was raining.”

“But tons of people in Sunnybrook drive pickup trucks,” I say. “The odds are almost zero that it was the same truck that you saw outside the Berrys’ house.”

“And what are the odds that five girls from the same school, all friends, would die within a month of each other?” Ethan shoots back.

Ginny makes a small sound in her throat, as if reminding us she’s still sitting here. “Sorry. But this sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory.”

“I get that it’s hard to believe the crash wasn’t an accident,” Ethan says, staring back at Ginny. “But think about it this way—isn’t it weird that Tom Carlino was the first on the scene in all three cases?”

A sharp pain hits me in the stomach. I have to force out the words: “Do you realize what you’re accusing him of?”

“Of being involved in all five deaths and orchestrating a grand plot to cover it up?” Ethan shakes his head. “No, I don’t really believe that’s what happened.”

“Then why send the letters?” I say. “Why taunt him when you have no idea what really happened or whether he’s involved?”

Ethan stares at me for a moment. Something in his face softens; I wonder if he’s seeing her. My sister. It makes my blood drain to my feet.

He shakes his head, as if he’s composing himself. “The only thing I know for sure is that he’s the best chance at finding the truth. He just has to want to.”

I think of what Mrs. Ruiz said to me on the phone: At some point, you have to choose to live in the light. Is that why Tom refuses to talk about the murders—because he can’t bear fumbling around for answers in the dark?

Or is he just afraid of what he’ll find in there?





When we’re back in the car and my heartbeat slows down, I turn to Ginny. Her fingers are drumming the steering wheel.

“I don’t trust him,” Ginny says, letting her words hang in the air for a bit. “I don’t think he’s reliable. He was obsessed with your sister, and he obviously has a vendetta against your stepdad.”

My throat goes tight. “What he said about Tom threatening him—I need you to know he would never do that.”

“You don’t have to convince me.”

A funny feeling settles over me. She’s never even met Tom. She must sense my confusion, because she takes a deep breath.

“When I was a kid, I was in the car with my dad one night. He’d been drinking, and your stepdad pulled him over.” She picks at a raw cuticle, avoiding my eyes. “He drove us both to the station, and I was embarrassed and crying, like I’d done something wrong.

“My mom couldn’t get someone to cover her at the hospital, so we had to wait at the station for a couple hours. Your stepdad…he let me hang out in his office. He brought me some food from the vending machine and showed me all this stuff, like how he filed police reports.” Ginny looks at me. “I didn’t realize until my mom picked us up that Tom did that so I didn’t have to sit in the lobby with people staring at me.”

That sounds like the Tom I know. The man who’s always nearby to put a calming hand on my mom’s shoulder when she’s going apeshit on my brother or me. The man I’ve always felt cared about me more than my own father, a virtual stranger who calls me on my birthday and Christmas for molasses-slow conversations of people who have nothing to say to each other.

“So I don’t trust Ethan at all,” Ginny says, interrupting my thoughts. “I think all that stuff about Tom not taking him seriously is a lie. He must have had a convincing reason not to believe Ethan.”

My throat tightens. “The shooting…His job—”

Ginny cuts me off, shaking her head. “I don’t think your stepdad is the type of person to let a killer walk free just to save his own job.”

Her words have a calming effect on me. The debris clouding my thoughts starts to settle, and another possibility emerges, one where the police and Tom aren’t hiding anything.

“Ethan didn’t think to go to the police right away,” I say. “If someone else saw or heard something that night, maybe they didn’t think it was unusual. If that makes any sense.”

“It does,” Ginny says. “Smaller details could have been overlooked if they didn’t fit the bigger picture. Someone other than Ethan may have even seen the pickup truck and told the police.”

A funny feeling washes over me. Nerves, maybe, but also a shot of clarity. “There’s one way we can find out for sure what the neighbors saw.”

Ginny stops tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Raises her eyebrows.

“Witness statements,” I say.