“No.” I sighed. “I’m just tired, okay?”

She eventually let me go. I got out of the car and was halfway to my front door when she called my name.

“What?” I said, turning back.

“You use people, Remy,” she said. “You’re a user. Cameron, Melody, and now me. We’re just—just things to you. You feed off our attention and then you leave us behind when you’re done.”

And before I had a chance to respond, she was gone.

43.

I don’t tell Detective Ward about our fight, or what was said, just that we had one. A bad one. “I didn’t speak to her after that. I ignored all her texts, emails. I let her calls go to voicemail and deleted them without listening to any of her messages.”

Elise sent me a million texts saying sorry, and a slew of emails when I didn’t respond to any of her messages or missed calls. I deleted her voicemails without listening to them.

But that only lasted two weeks. Then came a string of terrifying texts.

Elise: My dad hasn’t been going to The Realtor’s for a whole week

Elise: I’ve been avoiding him, but I’m basically under house arrest

Elise: I’m scared, Rem

Elise: Please I’m sorry about what I said okay?

Elise: I need you

The scariest thing about her messages was the fact she mentioned her father at all after pretending nothing was wrong for months. I drove over to the Pink Mansion as soon as I saw them, texted her, and waited for her to slip out undetected.

“Remy!” Her whole face lit up when she saw me. I held her tight.

“What happened?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

She was. She’d just been scared, that was all.

“This happened at least four or five times,” I tell Detective Ward. “She’d call, or text, and every time she’d say it was an emergency, that she was afraid of her father. Something. And I’d always come.” I clear my throat, try to hold back my tears. “I know I should’ve told someone about it. I know I messed up.”

Detective Ward jots down notes, and I am desperate to see what she’s written, what she thinks—if she knows it’s all my fault for ignoring Elise’s calls that night.

“She did it several times,” I repeat. “And I always came.” You have to believe me, I am saying. I did everything I could, even if I hadn’t.

“No one is blaming you for anything,” Detective Ward says. “You know that, right? You’re not on trial here.”

Still, I wonder what the folder with Elise’s name holds. What Ward thinks of me, what Vera must think of me, if they think I’m a monster like I do.

SATURDAY // AUGUST 5 // DAY 330

44.

Nothing stood out about that weekend. No dark omen or warning, no thunderstorms or black cats. Long stretches of good days were punctuated every so often with a bad one, forming a rhythm, a cadence. It was almost predictable—almost.