“Dad,” she said. “I really messed up.” And she began to tell him everything. About the party and the house, about what had happed to Maddie, and about how scared they all were of getting caught. She told him about Hunter, and how he had asked her for help. She’d thought it through so many times that it was like reciting lines from a play. “And then,” she said, “one day he left his phone on the counter and I grabbed it. I hadn’t planned it out in advance. I just did it. I guess I was thinking we could use it somehow, maybe to blackmail him? It was crazy. As soon as I did it, I realized how crazy it was. I deleted it from his phone. I didn’t know that it could still be found. He had no idea. It was me. He really, truly didn’t do anything.”

“Rosie, I can’t believe you did this. I thought I raised you better than that. You told me you weren’t at that party.”

“I know, Dad. But I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to disappoint you.” A few tears had slipped down Rosie’s face, but now she began to really cry, like she did when she was a kid, gasping for breath and tasting salt in her mouth.

“You’ve done nothing but lie to me. I thought we agreed to always be honest with each other,” he said, shaking his head. “This is bad, Rosie. We have to figure out what to do. You messed with some powerful people.” He shook his head again as if he couldn’t believe it. “Jake Tillman is a district attorney. Did you think about that? I tell everyone how responsible you are, but now I feel like I don’t even know you.”

“Don’t say that, Dad,” Rosie said miserably.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, raising you out here,” he said, his voice catching. “After your mom died, I thought maybe we should move back to the city, be closer to family. But you had your friends, and I had the restaurant. I don’t know. Maybe it was a mistake. It’s been hard, doing this on my own . . .”

“Dad,” Rosie said. “Please. This isn’t your fault. And I’m going to fix it. Somehow.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said.

Rosie swallowed. “What do you think I should I do?” she asked.

“I wish you’d asked me that before all this happened.” He cleared his throat. “You need to come forward and tell the truth. After that, ask for forgiveness. I’m not sure what else you can do, but you can’t destroy someone else’s life to protect your own.”

“There’s been a lot of that going on around here,” Rosie said in a small voice.

“Maybe,” her father said. “But not in my house.”

47