Chapter 3

Daniel frowns.

"What does my mother have to do with this?"

"Call her."

"Rachel."

"Please."

His phone rings before he can answer.

Brooke.

He turns away from me.

"What is it?"

Her voice is loud enough to carry across the kitchen.

"Someone sent me a picture."

Daniel straightens.

"What picture?"

"Us. On Mercer Road. Beside her."

He lowers his voice.

"Send it."

A moment passes.

I watch his face as he opens the message.

"They said they saw the crash," Brooke says. "They're asking why I left. What if they post it?"

"Don't answer."

"What if they already called someone?"

"Brooke. Listen to me."

He looks at me.

Then away.

"I'll handle it."

His mother lives in a duplex less than a mile from us.

She walks Mercer Road to the shops.

So does mine.

Same route.

Same bracelet.

I move toward the stairs while he's looking at his screen.

He catches the movement.

"Where are you going?"

"To get something."

"What?"

"My mother's bracelet."

He stares.

I stop at the foot of the stairs.

"You said you identified her by it. I bought two."

For several seconds, he says nothing.

Then he laughs once.

It's an ugly sound.

"You're not doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Dragging my mother into this because you're angry."

"I'm asking you to call her."

"She's fine."

"How do you know?"

"Because she wasn't the one on the road."

"You didn't recognize the face."

He comes toward me.

I stay where I am.

"Rachel. Stop."

"There were two bracelets."

"Enough."

He grips my arm and turns me away from the stairs.

The narrow door beneath them comes into view.

The spare room.

In my first life, he took out the lamp before he locked it.

I slept against that door until I stopped expecting footsteps.

My body reacts before I can think.

I pull back.

"No."

Daniel looks at me.

Then at the door.

Something cold settles into his expression.

"Then cooperate."

His phone rings again.

He answers without letting go of my arm.

"I said I'd handle it."

Brooke is crying now.

"I can't lose everything. My sponsors—Daniel, people are going to think I'm a murderer."

"No one can see who's driving in that picture."

I turn toward him.

He stops speaking.

The idea arrives on his face before he says it aloud.

I know that look.

I watched him wear it once already.

"Stay off your phone," he tells her. "Let me call you back."

He ends the call.

Then he releases me.

"Rachel."

"No."

"You haven't heard me."

"I have."

He ignores that.

"The car was borrowed. Plenty of people have access to it."

"I wasn't driving."

"I know. But no one else has to."

I press my hand against the wall.

He speaks faster.

A plan becoming more reasonable to him because he's saying it out loud.

"You're her daughter. People will understand you panicked."

"People will understand I killed my mother?"

"I'll explain that you didn't mean to. We'll get a lawyer."

"We?"

"I won't abandon you."

I nearly choke.

In the first life, I heard him say exactly that through the locked door.

He left a bottle of water on the floor.

Then he went to Brooke.

"You'll make a video," he says. "Just explain what happened. Once that's out there, she can say the photograph was taken afterward."

"And when the witness tells the truth?"

"I was there too."

There it is.

He isn't asking me to save Brooke.

He's telling me he will help her destroy me.

I look toward the stairs again.

Mom knows what she's hearing.

She knows what to do.

I need time.

Daniel's phone vibrates.

He checks it.

His expression changes.

"What did you tell the school?"

My stomach drops.

Before he arrived, I emailed Sophie's school office.

Keep her there. Do not send her home with anyone until you've spoken to me.

I thought I had more time.

Daniel turns the screen toward me.

The office has copied him on a message asking for clarification.

"You're trying to take my daughter?"

"I'm trying to keep her safe."

"From me?"

I don't answer.

He makes a call.

His friend Mark answers.

Mark sometimes helps with school pickup when Daniel works late.

"Can you bring Sophie home?" Daniel says. "Family emergency. I'll call the office."

"Daniel, don't."

He looks at me while he speaks.

"Bring her straight here."