“It’s not,” I say. “Madeline’s handwritten manuscript is at my house. I lied. But your behavior here shows my guess was right.” Something aches inside of me, like my guts are full of ground glass. “I thought you were better than Lance. I so hoped it wouldn’t be true. But you just made it clear I was right.”

“Fuck you, Connor.”

“What happened? Did Lance see her at the reading? I saw Madeline there. Another student did too. Is that what started it?”

“I didn’t see her. But she was a fool to go like that.”

“But Lance . . . ?”

“Why do you think we came to your house that night?” he asks. “After the reading. To celebrate? No. Lance was terribly jealous that you published that book. You’re younger than he is and a constant reminder of what he hasn’t done with his life. I admit I was jealous too. A novel . . . Anyway, we wanted to see if you knew anything about Madeline because Lance swore he’d seen her at the reading. He turned white as a sheet when he saw her standing there. It was a dumb move on her part, but she was a kid. And kids do stupid things. And she’d been to your house, right?”

“She had.”

Preston shakes his head. “Lance nearly blew his stack. He was so scared. He thought everything would come out. I was the one with the most at stake. Not him. I have the better job. A family. A future at the university. His life is—or was—whatever it was.”

“So what went wrong?” I ask. “What happened to Madeline? How did she end up dead in the cemetery?”

“I don’t know what the fuck she was doing out there,” Preston says. “Maybe she was looking for you. Did she know you went there?”

“I think I told her I liked to go there in difficult times. To find peace and quiet.”

“Lance was looking for her. I’m sure he followed her. I wanted Lance to get her to leave town, but he . . . he took a more extreme approach. He said we couldn’t leave anything unresolved.”

“What did she know about Sophia? That you had killed her to protect Lance?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Connor. Don’t you know who I am? I’m Preston the Peacemaker. That’s what I tried to do with Sophia. Make peace.”

“How did you do that?”

“Connor, burn it. The book. We’re running out of time. If you plagiarized from Madeline, and that manuscript is the only proof, then burn it. Go home and get rid of it. And let it go. And neither one of us has to go down. Let Lance take the fall. He’s gone. He’s not coming back, and he has nothing to lose anymore.”

“Just tell me, Preston. . . . What did you two do to Sophia?”