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“Yes.” I chew my lip. “Ivy?”
“What?” Her voice sounds distant, like she’s now grappling with what I’ve dealt with for these past weeks.
“Is it you?”
A beat passes.
“What?Why would you ask me that? Why would I do that to you? Do that tous?”
“No one else knew. Who could it be, then?”
“Is ityou?” she counters.
“Of course not!”
“Then who the hell is it?” Her voice goes up a notch, filled with fear. “I have as much to lose as you do. I have afamily, alife, acareer.”
I press my lips together and don’t point out that I have a life and a career, too. And my life isn’t worth less just because I chose to not have a family. “There’s no statute of limitations on mur—” I start to remind her why I’m so freaked out, what’s at stake here. But the word gets stuck in my throat. I can’t say it.
“Oh God.”
“We need to think, Ivy,” I say. “Who else was there?”
“I don’t know.” She’s upset. Even through the phone, I can tell tears have streaked down her cheeks. Ivy was the last person I really cared about, really loved, and it makes my chest clench to hurt her.
“What about Wendell Unger?” I say. “Is he still around?”
“The police chief?”
“He investigated what happened. Maybe he found something we don’t know about?”
“They never even questioned us twenty years ago. And why would the chief of police not arrest you, not arrest us? Instead, he pretends to be a student? That makes no sense.”
She has a point. “You never told anyone? At all?”
Silence. A silence thatmeanssomething. Anxiety spirals through me. Anger, too. Wepromised. We swore up and down we’d never tell a soul.
“Who?” I demand before she can answer. “Who did you tell?”
Ivy’s shuddering breath comes through the line. “I told Father Preston. Not details! I just . . . I confessed my sins a year later.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you do that, Ivy? It’s ourlives!” I clench the phone so hard the plastic shifts. I bang my fist on the table, making the wineglass jump, creating tiny ripples in the liquid. Then I’m on my feet again, pacing. “What did you say? What did you tell him?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t tell him who or any details of what happened—just that . . . that a friend of mine had done something bad, and I’d helped cover it up. I didn’t even say why we did it.”
I scrub my hand over my face and force slow, deep breaths. She didn’t tell him details. That’s good. That means he doesn’treallyknow, right?
“Did you mention the Saint Agnes pendant? Jocelyn?Mr. Sawyer?”
“No, definitely not.”
“How can you be so sure? It was twenty years ago, Ivy!”
“Because I was careful. And I remember every detail of that conversation. I swear, I didn’t tell himanythingspecific. No name, no location, I never even said what the bad thing I’d covered up was.”
She’s sobbing now, and it hurts my heart. I wouldn’t have gotten through that day if it weren’t for Ivy. I’d dragged her into the mess. “Okay, okay. Just . . . don’t do anything strange now, like go see Father Preston and ask him about it. Don’t talk to anyone about it. Okay? I’ll . . . I’ll figure this out. I have to.”
“What are you going to do?”