Page 74 of The Missing Half

“But the police never even suspected Jules was hit by a car that night. They thought she was taken—because that’s what you staged it to look like.”

“I couldn’t be sure what the police were thinking,” she says. “For all I knew, they were getting close to the truth.”

“Why didn’t you at least tell me?” My voice is pleading, desperate. “I’m your sister. You could’ve trusted me.”

“I know that,” Kasey says. “I do. But…I needed the whole thing to be as real as possible. Let’s face it, you’ve never been great at hiding your emotions, and I didn’t want to put you in the position of lying to the police. It wouldn’t have been fair to you.”

“And you think it was fair to let me believe you died? Because that is what I thought. For years.”

I’m expecting this to jolt her into an apology, but instead, she says, “I did what I thought was best.”

I want to yell. I want to swing my fists against the dash of Jenna’s truck, but something stops me: Beneath all my anger and frustration, something feels off about all of this. I just can’t put my finger on what. It feels as if Jenna and I put together a puzzle with one final missing piece, which Kasey is handing over, only for me to find out it doesn’t actually fit. “Why did you wait?” I say. “You went missing two weeks after Jules did.”

Kasey hesitates.

“Were you waiting for the money from Sandy?”

She snaps her head sideways to look at me. From the horrified expression in her eye, it’s clear she understands the implication of my question. I don’t just know about the money. I know about the affair too.

“I regret that,” she says eventually.

“What? The money or the affair?”

“Both. But the affair.”

“How did it even happen in the first place?” I say. “Brad’s practically our uncle.”

“Believe me, Nic, I already feel shitty enough about it. It was…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I was home from college for the first time, and I felt antsy, out of place, like I’d outgrown the person I was before I left. And I think I wanted something to match that, something I thought was mature.” She lifts her fingers from the steering wheel. “I know, I know. Sleeping with Brad was the most immature thing I’ve ever done. Then Sandy caught us and the accident happened and suddenly the police were investigating Jules and that’s when I got the idea to leave. I knew I could get some money from Sandy, which would help me start over. And I knew she’d never tell anyone about it, because if she did, she’d have to explain that her husband had slept with his best friend’s daughter.”

“What about Lauren Perkins?” I say. “She knew about the affair. You weren’t worried about her talking?”

Again, Kasey shoots me a surprised look. “How did you…”

“I told you,” I say. “Jenna and I were looking into your disappearance. Yours and Jules’s.”Look at how hard I worked to find you,I think.And here you’ve been all along. Seven hours away.“We found out a lot. About the affair, you fighting with Lauren, McLean—”

“Who’s McLean?”

For a moment, I’m speechless. Here I’d been convinced McLean was the one who took Kasey, meanwhile she doesn’t even recognize his name. “Steve McLean. He worked at the barbecue place next to the record store. You guys used to call him Skeevy Steve.”

“Why were you looking into him?”

I let out a small, hysterical laugh. “Because I thought he killedyou, Kasey! Because I thought you were dead! Because he raped Jules and I didn’t know you hit her with your car and got rid of her body because you lied to me!”

“What was I supposed to do, Nic? Huh? I’d slept with a married man. I got rid of a body to cover up a crime. I didn’t want to burden you with any of that because it would have ruined your life.”

“You know what ruined my life?” I say. “Losing my only fucking sister. Did you really not consider the damage that would do?” The words are spilling from me now like blood from sliced skin. “Did you honestly think I’d just get over it? Here I’ve been mourning your death, and the whole time you’ve been selling records in Nashville fucking Tennessee?”

Kasey’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel. Her mouth is clamped shut.

“I get that you were trying to protect yourself,” I continue, “but you were pretty selfish.”

“Don’t,” she says. Her voice is like venom.

“Don’t what? Call you selfish for letting everyone in your life believe you were dead? Your disappearance tore apart our family, Kasey. Mom’s gone, did you know that? She left a year after you went missing. Dad can’t even say your name, and I—” My voice cuts out. I am a mess. I am a walking wound, a collection of pain. “So, yeah. I thinkselfishis pretty fucking spot on.”

“Everything I did,” she says through gritted teeth, “all of it, was for you.”

“Right, I forgot. You were saving me from the secret of your affair. And from lying to the police. That would’ve really ruined my life, Kasey. I much preferred believing you were dead. Thank you so much.”

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