Page 195 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

But another part of me can’t move without knowing what happened to her. The dread is starting to wind through me, icy-cold tendrils that I can’t shake.

I sit on the couch and curl my legs up to my chest, and I wait.

I wait.

I wait.

And when I can wait any longer, I make two phone calls: one to the police to report her missing, and the second to my father.

Finally asking for help.

“I thought she’d come back,” I repeat.

“You were probably furious,” he says in a low voice, leaning forward. “Were you mad at her, too? Underneath all that worry, were you mad that she decided to pull the same stunt? Disappear when you need her? And before that, the bracelet she sold out from under you?”

I jerk. “I was upset that I couldn’t find her, Detective…”

He taps his fingers on the table. “So what did you do when she came back without the money? When she walked in the door three, four, five days after walking out, and said, ‘Sorry, Sydney, I lost it all. I blew it on drugs.’”

“She didn’t?—”

“Were you mad enough to kill her?”

“Don’t answer that, Sydney,” Mr. Asher snaps. “Detective. What is going on?”

He slides another folder out from under the first. I hadn’t noticed it, or realized, but now he opens it and retrieves two photos. He shoves them toward me.

My chest seizes up.

The first is of her lying in the snow at an odd angle. There’s blood around her head.

The second is a close-up of her face… her skin has a grayish pallor, her eyes are closed. She’s lying on metal, her hair brushed back. Not the way she’d ever wear it.

She’s dead.

There’s absolutely no fucking question that she’s dead. I don’t think the horror could echo inside me any deeper. I grip the edge of the table and squeeze my eyes shut. If there was a way I could go back thirty seconds and erase those images from my mind, I would.

But when I open them, the photos are still in front of me. My stomach rolls, and saliva fills my mouth. I’m going to throw up.

In the back of my head, maybe I knew she wasn’t coming back. But seeing her like that…

Mr. Asher moves suddenly, flipping the photos to face the table.

This detective—he thinks I did it? Is that why he showed those awful pictures to me?

“Where is this?” Mr. Asher asks. “And when?”

“She was found here. In Framingham, on the St. James side.” His gaze sears into me. “Yesterday.”

My chest hurts. But now I can’t take in a deep breath, or any breath at all. I sit back and cover my face. Not that it matters. All I can see is her face behind my eyelids, permanently burned there. I think I’ll be seeing her like this in my nightmares.

“We’re leaving.” Mr. Asher helps me up, his grip on my elbow firm and stabilizing.

I drop my hands and focus on my feet. Everything is blurry, but he navigates us through the door, past the bullpen, and into the lobby with little trouble. My breath is coming fast and shallow, but he shakes his head at my dad and Carter. He doesn’t let me stop for them.

Not until we’re outside and he bodily puts me into the backseat of Dad’s truck.

Carter slides in behind me.