“I’ve been calling Lillian every week. To check on you.” My mom and Lillian had issues. I had the sense I was supposed to take those phone calls as some kind of grand gesture, but it fell flat.

“Lillian said you girls were the ones who found the body.” My mom reached out to touch my shoulder. “That couldn’t have been fun, Sawyer.”

I stepped back from her touch. “Campbell thinks it might be Ana.”

Whatever she’d been expecting from me, it wasn’t that. She stared at me. When her response did come, it was only two words. “My Ana?”

I hadn’t realized until that second that as ill-conceived and ridiculous as the pact was, it meant something to her. Ana meant something to her. Once upon a time, Greer had, too.

“Her family hasn’t heard from her in twenty years,” I said, feeling the weight of that more strongly now than I had when Victoria had told me.

“If she wasn’t with her family . . .” My mom looked like I’d hit her. “If she didn’t leave town with them, why didn’t she come to me?”

“Did she know where you were?” I asked. “Where you went when you got kicked out?”

“No.” My mom’s hand went to her stomach, like she was pregnant still. “I had to leave town so fast—but she had my number. When Greer lost her baby, Ana and I agreed to tell our parents we were pregnant. We picked a night. I told Lillian. You know how that went.” She shook her head. “I called Ana afterward, but her phone was disconnected. I went by her house—her entire family was gone. They just… moved. Her grandfather was some big deal in Dallas. I always assumed Ana’s parents went back home. Ana, too.”

Not Ana.

“She never got in touch with me, Sawyer.” My mom pressed her lips together. “Why would you think that body is hers?”

I don’t think that, I told myself. Campbell does.

“Davis Ames knew Ana was pregnant,” I said out loud. I swallowed. “He told me that he handled the situation.” Looking back, that conversation sounded even worse.

“Not the kind of thing he’d tell anyone if he’d killed her,” my mom pointed out, sounding incredulous and overwrought and, somehow, like she was about to start cracking jokes.

“That wasn’t what I thought he meant, either,” I said.

My mom got very quiet. “Ana wouldn’t have gotten an abortion, if that’s what you’re implying. She wanted that baby. She loved her.”

The way you loved me. I couldn’t keep that from hurting, but I didn’t let myself dwell on it. “Ana’s baby was a girl?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” my mom admitted. “I was further along than she was. It took Ana longer to get pregnant.”