Free This Is How It Ends by Jen Nadol Page A

started to walk away, but I called after him. “Where was she? When it happened?”
    He paused, and I saw his jaw tighten. He shook his head, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he did. A single word. “Inside.” He sighed heavily. “Go home, Riley. Hug your mom. Say some prayers for that poor girl.”
    ***
    The four of us stood out in the cold for more than an hour. The sun rose gradually, light bouncing off the white trailer, but there wasn’t much else to see or learn. Nat was gone. The police came in and out. Mr. Peters waved to us, his face tight and unsmiling, but aside from what Bob had told me, no one was talking.
    I told the others what he’d said. That was why we stayed, hoping to get even the smallest clue what it meant. “If she was inside, she must know who did it,” Tannis said. “Right?”
    â€œYou’d think so,” Trip answered simply. We stood, watched, waited.
    Eventually we gave up, piling back into Trip’s car. It wasn’t until we were driving slowly down the hill that Tannis brought it up. “You don’t think . . .” She paused. I knew what she was getting at but wasn’t about to be the one to say it.
    â€œWhat?” Trip glanced at her in the rearview.
    Tannis shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you know how the other day when she had the bruise . . . and, I mean, this is what she saw, right? In those binoculars.”
    â€œOh! Shit,” Trip said. It hadn’t occurred to him before.
    â€œWhat are you saying, Tannis?” Sarah asked. Her voice was low and controlled. I could tell she’d already considered it, just like I had.
    â€œI don’t know,” Tannis backpedaled. “Just that . . . you know, what Riley said at lunch that day—about, like, our hidden desires . . .”
    â€œYou think she did it?” Trip’s eyes in the rearview were wide in disbelief.
    â€œNat would never, in a million years—” Sarah started, but Trip didn’t even let her finish.
    â€œNo way, Tannis,” he interrupted. “Nat’s been putting up with his shit for years, and she was fine when we dropped her off last night—”
    â€œBut who knows what happened after?” Tannis argued. “You saw the way he was acting at the mountain, Trip. How was he later? When you guys got him home?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “Wasted? Unstable? Fine one minute and pissed off the next.”
    â€œAnd if he was in the same mood when Natalie got home from the party . . . ,” Sarah said slowly.
    â€œOr was whacked-out on some drug . . . ,” I added.
    None of us said anything else, letting it hang there. The idea that Natalie might have shot her own dad was suddenly fairly easy to imagine. Trip turned down Main Street. The town was just starting to wake up. A few tourists walked quickly from the coffee shop, steaming cups in hand. We let the radio play, watched sun light the metal ski lifts strung across the mountain face. We’d run there yesterday. The start of the season, almost anything seeming possible. Except this.
    I turned to Tannis, thinking about the after-party. “What happened to you last night?” I asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œMatty?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
    â€œGod,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t remind me.”
    It was just after eight when Trip dropped me at work. I’d texted George that I’d be late, explaining why. He’d already heard, of course, and I knew by the end of the day, it’d be all over town.

CHAPTER 8
    THE FIRST REPORTER WAS ALREADY at the restaurant when I arrived. A skinny guy in jeans and a button-down. He’d come from Burlington the day before to cover the Dash—I guess it was a slow news week—but suddenly found himself with the scoop on a much juicier story.
    Not that any of us were answering his