Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Praise for Sara Shepard
- Also by Sara Shepard
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- —
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- PART TWO
- Piper
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Piper
- Eighteen
- Piper
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Piper
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Piper
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Piper
- Thirty-Four
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
She went to a drawer in Lane’s desk, which housed office supplies, a curious array of keys, canceled credit cards, and a small handbook of all the students and parents who had attended Silver Swans last year. Most parents only had their child’s class list, but the teachers got a more comprehensive picture of everyone attending the school.
Ronnie opened it; the first page were the children in the baby class. But her theory was short-lived: Silver Swans kids were assigned student IDs, but they were six-digit numbers, not the long strings on the spreadsheet. She sighed, closed it up again, and tossed it back in the drawer.
“Even if this is nothing, I still don’t like having this in my house,” she told Andrea as she padded back to the kitchen. “It proves I went into her office.”
“Don’t get rid of it just yet,” Andrea said. “Take a picture of it for me first.”
Ronnie recoiled. “I don’t want evidence of it on my phone!”
“Okay, okay, mail it to me, then.”
“Why do you want it so badly?”
“We can’t rule anything out. Just pop it in an envelope. I’ll text you my address. It’ll be in my possession—and you’ll be blameless.”
Ronnie reluctantly agreed. Before she hung up, she said, “So how are you doing, anyway?”
Andrea sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me you aren’t reading that shit online,” Ronnie said. “That Facebook group.”
“Are you?”
“Trying not to. But I’m so afraid my face is going to appear somewhere.”
“It hasn’t yet, right?”
“No.” Ronnie sighed. “It’s why I’m not leaving the house, for the most part. I’m worried about sending Esme to school. I don’t want her to be judged.”
“I know. I’m worried about that with Arthur, too. But you’ll be okay. Your lawyer said he’d keep your image from showing up online, and that’s all you need to worry about. As for what people are saying . . . well, you can’t stop that.”
“Did Arthur go to school today?”
“Oh God, no.” Andrea sounded sheepish. “Sorry. I don’t practice what I preach.”
Ronnie sighed. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she felt the same way. “I was wondering something else,” she said, hoping Andrea wouldn’t mind that she asked. “That young person? The one they caught you upstate with? What was his name again?”
Andrea took a breath. “Roger.”
“Do you hear from him ever?”