“So that’s where you went after the procession. To the secret room to mess with the dress. So you have a key?”

Morgan nods again. I wait for her to mention meeting up with Luke, but she doesn’t. Instead, she swings her backpack off her shoulders and around to her front, unzips the smallest pocket, and fishes her fingers inside until she finds something.

A key, very much like the one Bronte used the other day. Twice the size of a normal house key, it’s a gold color, with a square fob embossed with the words do not copy. “Natalie had them made for each of us. Me, Bronte, and Luke. It’s a master key for the school.”

“Not one for Amber?”

“Natalie could only get four made on the DL. Or so she said. Amber shared with Bronte anyway. Here.” She presses the key into my hand, the metal warm. “You can keep it. I don’t want it anymore. It’s cursed.”

I follow the thread Morgan’s started. Every other door at school was locked, except for the pool doors, found ajar.

“Is that how Natalie got into the school that night? With her key?”

The set of Morgan’s mouth is grim.

Four master keys. Bronte seen by dozens of people in the locker room. Morgan slashing Natalie’s dress in the secret room. And hooking up with Luke?

“Cecelia, you can come on in.” Dr. Shelby emerges from her office, kind but weary eyes traveling to Morgan. “Would you like to stay, sweetheart?”

But Morgan’s already out the door.

“Wait!” I call after her, signaling to Dr. Shelby that I’ll be right back before I rush out onto the porch. “After you vandalized the dress, did you hook up with Luke?”

“Uh, yeah,” she answers hastily, eyes downcast. “See you tomorrow.”

Liar, my brain screams as I watch her walk away.

Four master keys. Two accounted for. One liar. And one dead girl.

Dr. Shelby seems fine. But I know better.

Her smile is thin, strained. Fake-it-until-you-make-it vibes. She’s in the numb phase, going through the motions of normalcy. Painfully relatable.

That’s what makes this excruciating. I know my pain will trigger more grief in her. What was Maura thinking, setting this up?

Yet here I am on my therapist’s couch, and her opening volley is frustratingly opaque: “Do you know why you’re here?”

Oh, all the possible ways to answer that question. I start simple.

“My grandmother called you. I asked her not to, for the record.”

“I don’t mind,” Dr. Shelby says. “It’s my job.”

“And throwing yourself into work is a valid coping mechanism,” I say, parroting back at her something she said to me last week.

“Indeed,” she responds. “So how are you feeling?”

A loaded question.

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Honestly, I would hope.”

I remain silent.