CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FOUL PLAY
LEON
My entrails were on fire.
I wanted to believe the police, especially since they were supposed to know what they were doing—they certainly knew a lot more than we did—but it wouldn't be the first time I'd witness them lying. They had lied to me, wanting me to confess to a crime I hadn't committed.
I couldn't believe them. I couldn't trust them.
It all sounded so convenient, too; it was the easy way out, the solution that wouldn't force them to keep searching for evidence or for a suspect. It was so much easier to rule it an accident and expect us all to go our merry way.
Christina glanced at me from the corner of her eye, but quickly looked away as soon as I met her gaze, as though she was scared of me. I didn't understand why, nor I thought there was a valid reason for it, but no words came out of my mouth. If I tried to speak, I'd probably throw up all over the living room.
On the other corner of the room, Meridian's face was as pale as bone, knuckles so white as he gripped the back of a chair with all his strength. That I could handle; what I couldn't, however, was Sofia. I knew that even shooting the briefest of looks her way would result in a catastrophe, so I tried my hardest to ignore her presence in the room and focused on something else.
Anything else would do, so I used my anger.
Meridian was on the phone by the time anything of relevance happened, as we slowly pulled ourselves out of our frozen, shocked states, and it took every ounce of strength in my body to remain rational. If we were in San Francisco to find answers, we had to find them at some point; after all, June had been the one to point us in this direction.
The problem was that I wasn't entirely sure what else we were searching for. All we knew was that June had been terribly unhappy before she died, possibly a combination of her pregnancy, her ruined plans, and the career-ending injury weighing on her ankle. We knew she couldn't have hit herself on the back of the head. We knew she was heavily intoxicated—I knew about it firsthand.
But how had the police ruled out foul play? What were we missing?
It made no sense.
I'd known June like the back of my hand, and I knew she would never do something as irrational as drinking so much she couldn't even control her behavior. It went against everything she stood for—she and her type A personality—and she'd know better. Even if her drunken state explained some things—most of the entire situation, honestly—I knew there was more to it.
Why had she sent all those texts? Why hadn't she talked to me?
Meanwhile, Meridian had switched to French during a heated argument on the phone. My French skills were subpar, even though I'd tried to learn it because of June, but I could still understand some of it. He was pissed off, which was a given, and frustrated; he wanted answers, explanations, more details.
Even if he got them, he'd keep them all to himself—he'd share them with Sofia, if she was lucky, and she'd keep her mouth shut about it, as if no one else deserved to know. That was what frustrated me the most about all of this—the feelings of entitlement, as though they were the only ones who cared about June.
I stood up. Every head in the living room turned to face me, except for Meridian, as he retreated towards the kitchen.
"That's bullshit," I declared. "That's a blatant lie. They're just making it all up just so no one can complain that they didn't do their jobs properly. There's no way there was no foul play involved—"
"And how can you be so sure, then?" Grace questioned, eyes narrowed. Christina set a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to relax, but she shrugged it away. "Saying that just makes you sound awfully guilty."
I opened my mouth to protest, but, before I could say anything, Courtney intervened.
"Actually, it doesn't," she pointed out. "If Leon were guilty, he'd be pushing the accident narrative, don't you think? The killer would want everyone to believe it was an accident and, if there really was foul play, they're probably ecstatic right now." Grace dramatically rolled her eyes, as if she weren't entirely convinced I wasn't guilty, and I didn't know what else I could do to make her believe me. "I think that, by now, we should all be standing on the same side instead of pointing fingers at one another. No one here would ever hurt June."
"You don't know that," Grace insisted. "How well do we know each other?"
"Better than that," Sofia muttered, already exhausted from having the same argument for the nth time. The one time I dared look in her direction, I found her with her cheek resting on her hand, hiding her face from everyone sitting on my side of the living room. "At least, I thought we did."
"Sofia, you can't—"
Sofia dropped her hand. "I trust these people, Grace. I agree with Courtney on this one."
"Yes, because we all saw how well things worked out for you with June."
Sofia instantly stiffened. Under any other circumstances, I would have protested, as Grace had no right to talk about June that way—someone she used to be friends with, even—but this wasn't about us. It had stopped being about petty arguments and teenage vendettas a long time ago, but Grace refused to let go of whatever narrative she'd constructed in her head.
It didn't even make sense.
Yesterday, Sofia had told me all about how she'd chosen June over me, which would have bothered me a lot more back when we'd broken up than it did right now, but I never thought she regretted her decision. We'd both moved on and were perfectly content with loving and trusting June, even though we had valid reasons to resent her.
A light lit up on the back of my head. That was the real problem, wasn't it? I'd never known June was into me until Sofia and I broke up, when she was the one to come after me and check if I was okay—over and over again—but I hadn't questioned it. I'd never thought twice about her motives, nor had I thought about the implications it'd had on their friendship, even before the breakup.
Sofia looked miserable when our eyes met as she got up from her seat and followed Meridian into the kitchen. My mouth was dry as my vision blurred, thanks to how quickly the world spun around me as realization dawned on me.
That had been straight up manipulation.
I stayed put like a good boy until Meridian exited the kitchen, still livid, still muttering to himself in French. Sofia didn't follow him, choosing to head upstairs instead, and no one went after her. All we wanted to know was what he knew—if he found us to be deserving of the truth.
"Spill," Felix demanded, before anyone gave Meridian a chance to regain his footing. "Were you talking to your parents? You were, weren't you? You never speak French with anyone, and your last name is Beaumont, so you clearly know French through your parents and you're just flexing on us—"
"Casse-toi," Meridian retorted. "I should have made that call away from you."
"And leave us all in the dark?" Xena argued, while Felix nodded in support. "I thought we were past that. We're a package deal."
Meridian looked around the room, possibly weighing his options, then gave in. He slowly set his phone on the coffee table, then turned off the TV, even though no one was paying any attention to it. All our eyes were on him.
"I was talking to my parents, yes," he explained, lacing his fingers between his knees. "I spoke in French so you wouldn't understand because I didn't know if I was allowed to tell you the truth. For all I knew, it could be a fake out."
"So?" Christina asked. "Is it?"
He shook his head. "It's the truth. They followed all the leads, interviewed every possible witness and every possible suspect, considered every possibility . . . and this is the only one that makes sense. They interviewed every single person that was staying at the motel that night and the entire staff, and not one of them saw someone else enter her room after you left." He pointed to me with his chin. "There was no sign of forced entry or that there had been anyone else besides you. Since they had already ruled you out because someone actually saw you leave . . ."
". . . it couldn't have been foul play," I concluded, in a voice so low I could barely hear myself. Shivers ran down my spine and Courtney reached out a hand towards me to gently squeeze my shoulder, which didn't help much, but was still appreciated. "She was alone."
"Yeah. There was no one else there, which was the problem." He didn't look at me. He didn't sound accusatory. Still, I felt attacked—I already knew I was to blame for what had happened, even if just partially, and I didn't need to be reminded of that once more. Guilt already weighed on my shoulders as much as the world. "The medical examiner theorized that, had she kept drinking, she would've gotten alcohol poisoning, possibly a lethal case of it. Considering how drunk she was when you were there and considering she didn't seem to want to stop . . ."
"She was a ticking time bomb," Sofia said, standing at the bottom of the staircase. "Remember the text she sent Xena? Do you ever feel like you'll never be anyone outside of your accomplishments? That's how everyone saw her. That's how she saw herself—she lived for ballet. It was her only plan for the future and that ankle injury ruined everything. Blaming Leon for it . . . she was blaming the pregnancy instead just so she could blame someone instead of taking responsibility. I'm not saying it was her fault she got injured," she added, as soon as I prepared to fight back, "but it's always easier to blame other people for things you think you could have prevented. Losing ballet meant more than just losing her future—it meant losing her identity. Who was she without it? Who else could she blame for it other than herself, in her head?" She exhaled, arms firmly crossed. "We know she knew she was pregnant because Grace saw her buying a pregnancy test. She knew what would happen if she drank that much while being pregnant, but she didn't care. She didn't care about anyone—" Sofia gulped. "She didn't care about anything else. She drank too much, tried to fix things with Leon, decided she didn't want to take responsibility for her mistakes, sent him away, broke a bottle, then slipped and hit her head. That's what happened."
A beat.
"That's what the police said?" Courtney asked.
"Yes," Meridian confirmed. "I believe them. Looking back . . . it checks out. She stopped showing up for ballet classes, lied to people about where she was." He let out a deep sigh. "My parents wanted closure. They've gotten it. We wanted answers. We've gotten them."
"So now what?" I questioned, unable to stop my hands from shaking. Sofia's eyes were red-rimmed when she looked my way. "What do we do?"
"We go home," she simply answered.
MERIDIAN
It was raining when we went back to Palo Alto.
No one spoke as we carefully stored our bags into the trunks of the two cars we'd brought here, still processing all the information from the previous evening. I had profoundly apologized to my parents for yelling at them and for saying some really nasty stuff I'd regretted right as they came out of my mouth, but they insisted there was nothing to apologize for.
They'd gone through worse. I suppose I had, too.
Sofia hoisted her last bag and placed it on top of one of mine, standing on her tiptoes to close the trunk. It echoed in the silent property with a dry thud, the first real sound any of us had made since I last locked the front door of the lake house.
"You okay?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. She shrugged, fixing the hood over her head, and leaned her back against my car, staring down at her combat boots. "Listen, if you want to talk . . ."
"They talked to me before you got to my house," Sofia murmured. "The police. I got up early to check the mail, since everyone was getting their college letters, and they just . . . they let themselves in. Paul covered for me after they left. I didn't want to worry you."
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and stopped next to her. "What did they want?"
"To rule me out as a suspect, I guess. Took them awfully long to come after me, don't you think? We all knew it was somewhat suspicious that I was the only one June didn't reach out to." Even though I couldn't see her face, hidden behind a curtain of dark hair, I knew she'd rolled her eyes. That would be the Sofia-like thing to do. "I told them everything. My suspicions, our suspicions, my alibi . . . they let it go. I kept thinking they'd find a loophole in my story, something they could use as an excuse to frame me for it and hearing the news last night . . . God. I felt horrible for feeling that way, but I was so relieved. I was happy your family got the closure they wanted"—she reached out for my arm, skin still warm in spite of the weather—"but I was glad we found out the truth. I was so glad they believed me."
"Hey." I turned to face her, hands resting on her shoulders, and she barely found the strength to look up at me. "What happened that night wasn't your fault. We all made mistakes, but it was no one's fault. It was an accident."
"I still think I could have done more. Checked in with her more often. Grace knew she was pregnant long before I did; that was the type of thing I expected her to share with me, you know?" I nodded, not quite knowing what to say. It wouldn't be something June would have shared with me, so I couldn't fully relate to that feeling. "Grace helped me realize . . . a few things. I'm still trying to come to terms with it and I don't think it'll be easy to live with, at least for now, but it was an eye-opening conversation."
"Want to tell me more about it inside? Before Grace and Christina get here?"
"Yeah."
I turned on the heater, in an attempt to create a more comfortable environment, yet Sofia was unable to look me in the eye as she filled me in. It was apology after apology, even though I still failed to understand exactly what she was apologizing for.
She explained. I couldn't say I knew about her relationship with Leon—though that, alongside the way it had ended, explained a lot about their present dynamics—or anything that had happened around that time, but part of me was beginning to feel the same way she said she'd felt.
I wondered why she hadn't told me anything earlier. That should be the type of thing we'd talk about with each other, after everything we had gone through. Right?
"I ended up feeling so betrayed," she whispered. "Betrayed. Ashamed of the way I felt. Ashamed that I was so furious at her once I realized she'd treated me like crap. Ashamed that I thought she was selfish." She sniffed, then raised a hand to wipe the corners of her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mer. I know she was your sister, and this is definitely not what you want to hear someone say about her, but, God, I'm so pissed. I'm hurt. All I thought was why? Why did she do all those things? For a guy? Because she could?"
"I don't know." She leaned forward, face hidden behind her hands, elbows set on her knees. "Babe. Hey. Sof."
"I don't know either. I keep trying to understand, but only she would be able to give me an explanation." She raised her head, expelling a frustrated sigh. "The worst part was that I wasn't even surprised when you told me about the police's theory. It was so easy to put things together based on what Grace helped me understand and I hated that I could simply stand there and say June didn't care about anyone other than herself."
I knitted my brows. "That's not true."
"Maybe not. That's what it felt like, anyway."
Our conversation was cut short thanks to Grace and Christina, who slid into the car before any of us had a chance to think about what to say next. I didn't hesitate to start the engine, ready to drive back home and never set foot in San Francisco again.
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