And then he had said it. Liv. I’d thought he was using a nickname.

“They were all just going to leave her there,” Aunt Olivia continued, eyelids flying open, “but then they saw the marks the fight had left on her arms. It didn’t look good—for any of them. Sterling’s DNA was all over her. J.D. had a motive. Charlotte, too.”

“So they sank her.” Campbell seemed to be taking this better than I was.

“It was Julia’s idea,” Aunt Olivia said. “She cared about her brother more than she ever cared about Liv. Even Thomas, who was new to the group—he went along with it. They promised him the moon, and he promised to keep his mouth shut.”

I forced myself to connect the flurry of names to the people I knew. Julia and Thomas were Boone’s parents. Charlotte and Sterling were Campbell’s. “They weighed her body down,” I said, trying to imagine how they could have made a decision like that. “And then they told everyone she’d run away.”

“I kept expecting the body to be discovered,” Aunt Olivia said. “I thought about calling the police, but for all I knew, Liv’s rich friends and their rich families would try to find a way to turn it all around on me.”

“So you didn’t say anything.” I stared at her. “You didn’t call the police. You bided your time, and then you took over her life.”

There was a moment of elongated silence, and then Victoria burst into a speed of rapid-fire and very emphatic Spanish. She ended in English. “Who are you people?”

She meant the question as an indictment of just how twisted this situation was, but I repeated her question with a different framing—and intent.

“Who,” I said, taking a step toward Aunt Olivia, “are you?”

“I’m Olivia Taft.”

“You’re Ellen’s daughter, not Lillian’s.”

“I’m Olivia Taft,” she repeated, chin held high. “I’m Lily’s mama—and John David’s. I am the perfect daughter to Lillian. I have been a wonderful wife. I knew you were my husband’s child, and I welcomed you with open arms, Sawyer, because you were like me. You grew up with nothing, and you deserved everything, and I helped give it to you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

There was truth to those words. I hadn’t expected the woman my mom had referred to as an ice queen to welcome my presence in Lillian’s house, but Aunt Olivia had. She’d hugged me and loved me and taken care of me.

Drugged me. Tossed me in a hole. Pointed a gun at me.