“No.” I shook my head back and forth like a whiny toddler.
“For the longest time … I thought … I thought maybe he … he…” Chrissy sputtered.
“No. Don’t even say it,” I warned.
But Chrissy wouldn’t stop talking. “When I saw her that day, crossing the field … I thought she was coming to me. But she wasn’t. She was on her way to your house.”
I leaned forward, elbows grinding into the edge of the forgotten chess board.
“Don’t you see? She wanted to deal with the John situation the way most girls do … she wanted revenge. Jack liked her, of course he did! Every fucking guy in this town swooned over Jenny! And my first thought was: she’s going to get back at me by sleeping with the guy I love. I slept with John and now she’s going to take my Jack…”
Hearing Chrissy refer to my brother as “her” Jack made my stomach coil in disgust.
He wasn’t her Jack. He was mine … my brother, who I thought told me everything. Who I loved more than life itself… My mind flashed back to his lifeless body on the bedroom floor, his skull blown to pieces with our daddy’s gun. Did his suicide have anything to do with this? Nonono…
Oh, Jack. What kind of secrets were you hiding from me, from us…?
Chrissy said, “The next time I saw Jenny, she was lying dead in the field. The sun hadn’t come up yet. And I wasn’t wearing shoes out there … I rarely did. So, I don’t know how those muddy Converse got in my closet. They were mine, but I didn’t put them there … and Jenny was with your brother before she died. That’s all I know…”
Chapter Twenty
Three truths.
One lie.
Chrissy Cornwall loved my brother.
My brother loved her back.
Jenny tried to hook up with him to get revenge.
Chrissy didn’t kill her.
I threw my wallet on the kitchen table, then started digging. I fished out two twenties and a couple ones and thrust them into Chrissy’s hand.
“Here’s money for a cab or Uber. I’ll even call one for you. But you have to leave. I need time to think.”
When she made no move to leave, the money frozen in her hand, I said, “Please.”
Chrissy looked like she was on the verge of tears. As bad as I felt for tossing her out, I couldn’t deal with her being here for one second longer. If she’s implying that my brother killed Jenny … no. No, I refuse to believe that.
“I can’t think straight. My head is throbbing…”
“But you didn’t even let me finish. I don’t necessarily think your brother killed her. I don’t have proof of that…” Chrissy said.
I was shaking, my head spinning like a tilt-o-whirl.
“Those first several years in prison, when he never wrote me back or came to see me … I was devastated. But then, he did. He was like an angel on the other side of the glass, with that messy hair of his … he hadn’t changed a bit…”
My brother visited Chrissy in prison? This is news to me…
“I thought he’d come to tell me the truth. To thank me for taking the fall. But then he asked me why I did it. Said he’d been trying to forgive me those first couple years but couldn’t understand. When I told him about Jenny going to the farmhouse, that I saw her going to see him … he swore he never slept with her. He said they talked for a while, then she went home. He thought all along that I was the one who killed her as she left that day. And I thought it was him who did it … I thought I was covering for him. Proving my love.”
“Well, of course he thought you did it, Chrissy, you confessed!” I said, exasperated.
“But I did it to protect him, don’t you see?! He never told the cops he was with her the night before. And … and … I thought I was doing the right thing. His future was so much brighter than mine…”
“That’s such bullshit, Chrissy. My brother didn’t kill her. He wouldn’t…”
But Chrissy was rambling now, talking more to herself than to me. “I— I thought he and I were the only ones who knew the truth. But, as it turns out, neither of us really knew it. I swore to him it wasn’t me … but, just like you, I don’t think he believed me. He said he saw her that night. He admitted to me that he was hanging out with her, even kissing her … but he swore she left. So, somewhere between your house and mine, that little girl was murdered. I thought it was him. He thought it was me. If it wasn’t one of us, who was it? That’s what I’m trying to understand. That’s what I need you to see…” Chrissy whined.
I allowed myself to fall back in one of the kitchen chairs, my head and heart pounding with disbelief. How could any of this be true?
Sure, there were all sorts of wild theories online. The conspiracy theorists on Reddit loved to pick apart the case. I’d read theories about my mom and dad … and Chrissy’s brothers and parents. Hell, some of the theories even cast blame on Jenny’s own parents and the local police chief. But they were all just tales … never any evidence to support them. And Jack was cleared right off the bat, because he was staying with my Aunt Lane. Supposedly…
Chrissy turned away slowly, and I watched as she trudged upstairs. I sat at the kitchen table, wondering if she would stay after all. I shouldn’t force her to leave … she seems honest, like she’s telling the truth … but this isn’t the truth I want to hear.
Moments later, I heard the jingle of her
