Page 92 of No One Can Know

Juliette is gone. There are bloody boot prints leading to the back door but no Juliette. Daphne runs outside. She opens her mouth to call for Juliette, then shuts it. Juliette’s gone. She’s alone. Her parents are dead inside and no one is here to tell her what to do.

“Juliette?” she whispers into the dark. There’s no answer.

She doesn’t know what to do. And so she does what she always does when things get to be too much. She climbs into the tree house, and curls on her side. She squeezes her eyes shut and she doesn’t cry, though she thinks probably she should.

She drifts off to sleep.

45JJ

Now

Yellow wallpaper. White grip.

Red hand.

If she closed her eyes, she could remember the weight of the gun. The charcoal and sulfur smell. The deafening crack.

She remembered the bits of bone and hair and pink tissue in the hole through her father’s skull. Heard, echoing in her mind, her mother’s scream, and felt the heat of her blood as JJ knelt down and put a hand against the gushing wound on her chest. Her mother’s hand had closed briefly around her wrist as her breath gurgled in her throat, and then it went slack.

She had tried so hard to think of any explanation but the obvious one.

“Something changed that night,” she said. The others were silent, giving her time to find her words. “I realized I couldn’t keep doing it—pretending. Eventually they were going to find out what I was up to. I kept thinking that they’d kill me. And I kept thinking about how much I hated them. I’d taken something and had too much to drink—I was out of it. I had Logan’s gun, and…”

“How did you get the gun?” Emma asked.

“It was Logan’s,” JJ repeated.

“Right. But how did you get it? Did he give it to you? Why?” Emma asked.

“Does it matter?” Daphne asked.

“She’s asking whether I planned to do it. Whether it was premeditated,” JJ said, and Emma gave her a nod. It would matter if it came out. “I honestly don’t know, which I assume means it wasn’t—at least, it wasn’t a plan I made while I was in my right mind. I didn’t have the gun when I left the Saracen house. I must have gotten it after, but I can’t remember much. Just Mom and Dad, and then—then the next thing I remember is you.”

Emma’s look was bewildered. “What about your clothes? Your hair?”

“According to Logan, he and another friend found me out of my mind and completely soaked through. I have no idea why,” JJ said. “They gave me the clothes I was wearing and got me home.”

Emma didn’t say anything for a long time, sitting with her fist pressed against her stomach.

“You saved me,” JJ said. Emma’s eyes lifted to hers. “They never pushed me too hard. And when they tried to make you sound bad, I didn’t fight them. I let them suspect you so that they wouldn’t suspect me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s what I chose,” Emma said, her voice a croak.

“I was the oldest. I was supposed to protect you,” JJ said. And she never had. All those years in this house, she’d told herself she was being smart, that she was keeping her parents happy and that it mattered. But she’d never stepped in to take a punishment for Emma. She’d never told her parents off for the way they treated Daphne.

Emma looked away. Tears shone in her eyes, but she blinked them clear. “Did you kill Nathan?” she asked.

JJ’s throat constricted. “No,” she said, as clearly and fiercely as she could, and Emma turned to look at her. “No,” she repeated. Emma’s chin dipped once, almost imperceptibly, and she felt something knit itself together between them.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

She hesitated. “I brought over a bottle of wine. He invited me in.We had a glass. We talked. I figured we’d chat and I’d find a way to mention the carriage house and ask if I could poke around. But I—it didn’t work out.”

She didn’t mention the second glass. The way he’d leaned in toward her and the way she hadn’t leaned away, because it was useful, and she’d laughed brightly and let her hair spill to the side the way guys always liked. She hadn’t realized things were going too far until he put his hand on her knee, in that way perfectly calibrated to be excused as innocent if she reacted badly. And she had reacted badly. His expression shuttered. He all but kicked her out.

She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t known what she was doing. But she hadn’t expected him to be so eager to cross that line.

“I left. Nothing happened,” JJ said.

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