The girl glanced around again, broke into a fast trot. I matched her pace. In another few seconds she would round the corner where a throng of people waited at the bus stop, and lose me in the crowd.

Five feet away. Three. Lunging, I snagged her shoulder and spun her around.

“What the hell, lady? What you chasing me for, huh?”

This girl was so not Vera.

“I’m-I’m sorry, I th—”

“Weird psycho.” She whipped out her smartphone and began snapping pictures of me. “These are going on my Instagram page.”

“I don’t think so.” Oliver snatched the phone out of her hand and deleted the photos with a few deft taps, and handed it back. The girl stood there gobsmacked as Oliver grabbed my waist and led me back to the car.

“You don’t have to explain,” he said, pulling me closer. “I thought it was her too, for half a second. But Vera’s a lot prettier.”

I cracked a tiny smile. “That’s for sure.”

We arrived back at the car, adrenaline spent, optimism faded.

“Okay, so we’re back to square one,” Oliver said. “What do you think this means?”

“I don’t know.”

Skimming the torn edge with my fingertip, I wondered if I’d be able to match it to a missing page from the journal to get an idea of when it had been written. I reread it, interpreting every word. A secret. Fraud. Austin. Do something drastic. A picture of some sort. They were all clues to finding her. If I could piece them together just right…

“She obviously found out about what you did,” Oliver speculated. “Do you think she was planning to out you?”

“Maybe. But she didn’t.”

A tiny thought crawled into my brain. Had Vera planned to turn me in until something—or someone—stopped her? But who? Only me, Oliver, my in-laws, and Cody knew about what I had done…and possibly Marin. She had always been a loyal sister to me until I found out she wasn’t, but capable of hurting Vera…? No, she couldn’t have. But then there was Austin Miller. What was his part in all of this? I grabbed Oliver’s arm, tightening my grip as I imagined confronting the boy who hurt my daughter once. Got kicked out of school for it, even. Was destroying our family his way of getting revenge?

“All I know is Austin Miller hasn’t been honest with us and I’m going to find out what he’s hiding.”

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Marin

I hadn’t been to this house in ages. Now that I was here, I remembered why I had avoided it for so long.