I Know What You Did by Cayce Osborne

Author:Cayce Osborne [Osborne, Cayce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

10

I DRAGGED MYSELF OFF the futon at dawn. At the kitchen table, I curled around a mug of coffee and stared down at my notebook. It was still open to the list of truths and fictions I’d made the night before. At the top was the first lie, apparent from page one of No One Suspected.

TRUTH

FICTION

Megan Hollister

Miriam Rowley

Jenny Isaacs

Izzy Jacobs

Names and lies, lies and names.

I’d noticed the moment I read the blurb on the back of the book that mine was the only real name used. Maybe it was seeing the other names in my own handwriting, or side by side in the notebook, that allowed me to see them in a new way. If the point of using my real name was to get my attention, there might be a point to the fake names too.

When I’d first noticed that Miri had been given the last name Rowley, I’d assumed it was another dig at me. Aunt Shelly’s house had been on Rowley Avenue, and the comforting memories of her had drawn me to the Airbnb cottage on that same street. It was where I’d lived when I knew Megan and Jenny. One more connection to the past. My past. The overlap of street name and character name could be as simple as that. But my gut didn’t think so.

I drained my coffee and picked up a pen.

Hollister, I wrote on a new page. Rowley.

I turned the two names over in my head. I filled my mug at the tap and chugged the coffee-tinged water.

Rowley. Hollister.

The two names were linked in my mind, and not because of the book. The connection was older than that, fogged by the decades I’d spent trying to forget Madison and everyone in it. I stared out the window over the sink, watching a female cardinal nibble at the bird feeder hanging behind the cottage. This neighborhood was a coveted area of Madison, close enough to the isthmus that you could still feel the city’s pulse but with a more discreet brand of charm than the chaos of downtown. The houses were well made, well kept, and eclectic. The trees were tall and the streets were quiet.

The answer clicked into place: this neighborhood. These streets.

Hollister Avenue—another street in this same neighborhood, not far from where I sat.

Was I reading too much meaning into the names? Probably. But that didn’t stop me. The Rowley-Hollister connection was a stray thread, and I would pull it until the whole thing unraveled. Even if the “whole thing” turned out to be me.

I brought up a local map on my phone to remind my middle-aged brain of the street layout. Hollister Avenue was three blocks long, running parallel to Rowley Avenue.

Megan and Miri: parallel girls with parallel deaths.

Hollister and Rowley: parallel streets.

It had to mean something. But I didn’t know what.

I shushed my angry stomach and assessed the clothes I’d fallen asleep in. I had others in my backpack, unwrinkled and without pizza grease stains, but it would take time to dig them out.

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