"Why?" Pip repeated, louder this time; more demanding.

"Someone made us," she sniffed, wiping her nose on knuckles. "Someone made us do it."

"What do you mean?"

"We—me, Max, Jake, and Millie— we all got a text on that Monday night. From an anonymous number." That's why I didn't know, Evelyn realized. I didn't have a phone, I was 12. "It told us we had to delete every picture of Sal taken on the night Andie disappeared and to upload the rest as normal," Naomi continued. "It told us that at school on Tuesday, we had to ask the principal to call in the police so we could make a statement. And we had to tell them that Sal actually left Max's at ten-thirty and that he'd asked us to lie before."

"But why would you do that?" asked Pip.

"Because whoever it was knew something about us. About something bad we'd done." Naomi explained through the cracks in her voice, hands shaking as they fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Soon, her hands came up from the hem, slapping to her face as she sobbed into them, Cara wasting no time to comfort her sister.

"Max?" Pip said.

Evelyn knew exactly what was coming next. Every detail. Mostly because she blackmailed Max into telling her.

"We, um ... Something bad happened on New Year's Eve 2013. Something we did."

"We?" Naomi spluttered. "We, Max? It happened because of you. You got us into it, and you're the one that made us leave him there."

"You're lying. We all agreed at the time," he said.

"Don't gaslight her, Maxwell," Evelyn mumbled.

"I was scared."

"Naomi?" Pip said.

"We... um, we went to this party out in Stamford," she said. "And we all had a lot to drink. When the party got shut down, it was impossible to find a rider; we couldn't heya. taxi, and it was freezing outside. So Max, who'd driven us there, said he hadn't actually drunk too much and insisted on driving. He convinced me, Millie, and Jake to get in the car with him. It was so stupid. Oh god, if I could go back and change one thing in my life, it would be this..." She trailed off.

"Sal wasn't there?" Pip asked.

"No Sal. I wish he had been because he'd never let us be that stupid. He was with his brother that night. So Max, who was just as drunk as the rest of us, was driving too fast up the highway. It was like four a.m. and there were no other cars on the road. And then"—more tears flowed—"and then..."

"This man comes out of nowhere," Max said.

"No, he didn't! He was standing well back on the shoulder, Max. You lost control of the car."

"Well, then, we remember very differently," Max snapped. "We hit him and spun. When we stopped, I pulled over and went to check on him."

"There was so much blood, oh my god," Naomi wept. "And his legs were bent in all the wrong directions."

"He looked dead, Ok?" Max said. "We checked to see if he was breathing, and we thought he wasn't. We decided it was too late for him. too late to call an ambulance. And we'd all been drinking, so we knew how much trouble we'd be in. Criminal charges, prison. So we all agreed and we left."

"You made us," Naomi mumbled. "You got inside out heads and scared us into agreeing, because you knew you were the one really responsible."

"We all agreed, Naomi!" Max shouted, his face turning red. "We drove back to my house 'cause my parents were in Dubai. We cleaned off the car and then crashed it again into the tree nest before my driveway."

"It was loud as hell too. Woke me up," Evelyn commented, reaching to take a sip from Max's coffee.

"You left her there on her own?" Naomi shouted. "You told us she went with your parents!"

"She was fine, Naomi," Max grumbled. "Evelyn hasn't ever told anyone— I think—and my parents never suspected a thing either. They got me a new car a few weeks later".

"Did the man die?" Pip asked.

"He was in a coma for a few weeks; he pulled through. But... but..." Her face contorted into more guilt. "He's paraplegic. He's in a wheelchair. We did that to him. Max did that to him." Naomi struggled to suck in air between sobs.

"Somehow," Max eventually said, "someone knew what we'd done. They said that if we didn't do everything they asked, they would tell the police. So we did it. We deleted the pictures and we lied to the police."

"But how would someone find out?" Pip's face creased in confusion.

"We don't know," Naomi said. "We all swore to never tell anyone, ever. And I never did."

"Me neither," Max said, hands slapping the table in defeat.

Naomi glared at him with a scoff.

"What?" He glared back.

"Me, Jake, and Mille always thought you were the one to slip up."

"Oh, really?" he spat, crossing his arms like a child.

"You're the one that gets blackout drunk every other night."

Evelyn softly nodded in agreement.

"I never told anyone," shooting a glare at Evelyn. "I have no idea how someone found out."

"You have a pattern of letting things slip," Pip admitted. "Naomi, Max accidentally told me you were MIA for a while the night Andie disappeared. Where were you?"

"I was with Sal," he said. "He wanted to talk to me upstairs, alone. About Andie. He was angry at her about something she'd done; he wouldn't say what. He told me she was a different person when it was just the two of them, but he could no longer ignore the way she treated other people. He decided that night he was going to end things with her. And he seemed... almost relieved when he came to that decision."

"So just to be clear," Pip started. "Sal was with you all at Max's until twelve-fifteen the night Andie disappeared. On Monday someone threatens you; makes you go to the police, say he left at ten-thirty, and to delete all traces of him from that night. The next day Sal disappears and is found dead in the woods. You know that this means, don't you?"

Max looked down, picking at something on his hands. Naomi buried her face in her hands again.

"Sal was innocent."

"We don't know that for sure," Max said, not looking up to fully acknowledge Pip's conclusion.

"Sal was innocent. Someone killed Andie, and then they killed Sal, after making sure he'd look guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Your best friend was innocent, and you've known for over five years."

I've known for over five years.

"I'm so sorry." Naomi cried. "I'm so, so sorry. We didn't know what else to do. We were in too deep. I never thought that Sal would end up dead. I thought that if we just played along, the police would catch whoever had hurt Andie, Sal would be cleared. and we'd all be okay. We told ourselves it was just a small lie at the time."

"Sal died because of your small lie." Sal died because I didn't try to stop him.

"What are you going to do with the photos?" Max asked almost silently.

Pip's eyes darted from Cara's puffy face to Naomi's even more puffy face.

"Max," Pip said. "Did you kill Andie?"

"What!?" He shot up from his seat. "No, I was at my house the whole night."

"You could have left when Naomi and Millie went to bed."

"Well, I didn't, okay?" Max was finally telling the truth.

"Do you know what happened to Andie?"

"No, I don't."

"Pip," Cara said quietly. "Please don't go to the police with that photo. I can't have my sister taken away as well as my Mom." Her bottom lip gave out, her face contorting into silent sobs.

Pip stood in the middle of this all, her eyes darting to Evelyn.

"While on the topic of alibis and with new updates, should we discuss Evelyn's alibi?" Pip offered.

"How 'bout it, Evelyn?" Max said.

"So, Max kicked me out of the house to the Ward. I helped Mr.Ward grade papers and then started to walk home at about 10:30 p.m.. When I got home, Sal was still there and then left at 12:15 p.m.. That's it." Evelyn explained, plain and simple.

"Are you sure that's completely it?" Pip said, raising a brow at Evelyn.

She nodded.

"Apparently, your family had a history of lying." Pip shot a glare at Max.

"Well, I'm not lying. There's not much else that happened." Lying was always easier when you told a half truth. Well, this was more of a half-the-story type thing.

Pip blew out a breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I won't go to the police."

Everyone in the room sighed in relief, Max's the loudest.

"Not for you, Max," Pip assured. "For Naomi. For what your mistakes have done to her."

"They're my mistakes too," Naomi admitted. "I did this too."

Cara walked to Pip, Evelyn still in her curled up position, taking a large gulp of Max's now cold coffee, finishing it off. Max tugged Evelyn's sleeve, nodding his head toward the front door of the Ward's house. Evelyn packed her stuff up in a similar fashion to Max, slipping her shoes on and leaving to go to Max's car.

"Someone was awfully quiet," Max snorted, twisting the keys to the car.

"What was I supposed to say then? Tell them about other stuff you've done?"

Silence.