“Sure,” I said. Anything to have a little time to myself.

I pulled on some clothes, purposefully choosing a bulky cardigan so I could hide the journal. Then I tucked it into the back of my waistband and headed downstairs. I had my phone in my back jeans pocket.

“Would you like a doughnut?” Laura called from the breakfast room.

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’ll go get the flowers.”

I grabbed the shears and the special flower-gathering bucket (it’s a country estate thing, you wouldn’t understand) and went outside. I hurried to the garden, aware of my wooziness and trying to make sure I didn’t trip. I did sort of wobble into the bushes at one point, but I righted myself.

In the garden, I hurried around until I had a respectable assortment, and then I sat down on a bench hidden from view of the house. I pulled Lily’s journal out and opened it to a random page.

There were lines and lines, written in Lily’s slightly bubbly, childish handwriting:

The proof of virtue is the ability to obey in the face of inner resistance.

A demand for obedience performed against the will is the ultimate test of rectitude. A child is led to righteousness by the lantern of his parents’ steadfastness and must by firm hands be molded into a creature of exemplary humility and worth. Abandoned to the darkness of parental deficiency, the child’s quality of character will assuredly be as weak as a lily grown in shade.

I could barely breathe. This was the exact text in Agatha’s notebook.

I remembered what Barrett had said: That they’d had to copy passages from Loretta’s book as a punishment. But why was Lily being punished? She was sick.

No, she wasn’t.

I flipped back to the prior entries. The last page before those, the final real entry, was written in small purple print:

Laura came in and told me Missy got hit by a car and died.

She’s lying. She killed her. I know she did. She won’t let me see the body. They buried her already. In the garden. Laura says Dad doesn’t even want me to look at the grave but I told her I just wanted to see it. And she told me “curiosity killed the cat.” She’s evil. She’s vile.

The cat first. Me next. Everything she gives me is poison.

I hate her I hate her I hate her.

The next page had only one line:

I’M NOT SICK.

I dropped the journal as if it was on fire.

My body felt chilled by fear and nerves and a general sort of exhaustion. I thought of the cat collar I’d found—Missy. Had Laura killed her sister’s cat?

Had Laura killed her own sister?

I stared at the page until the letters and words blended together and didn’t make sense anymore:

IMNOTSICK