My heart was in my throat. “Oh—Roland, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t know, Samira, because you never asked. You just assumed that everything written in those journals was the truth without considering my side of things. You did exactly what everyone else did and jumped to your own conclusions, ready to blame me without hearing me out first.”
“No—don’t say that.” I walked toward him as he turned his head. “Roland, I don’t blame you, okay? I—I understand. I just . . . I got a little scared, I admit it. I was worried after reading about that night you grabbed her. I didn’t know what to believe.”
“All you had to do was ask me about it. I would have told you everything. You can’t hide stuff like this from me, Samira. I told you I wanted us to be honest—to communicate—and you promised to give me that,” he pleaded.
“I know, I know.” I shook my head and grabbed his hands. “And I’m so sorry. I feel terrible for making you feel so alone, Roland. She clearly wasn’t good to you. She’s hurt you so much and I don’t want to do the same. I’m sorry.”
He let out a breath, then cupped a hand around the nape of my neck, kissing my forehead. “Where did you go?” he asked after a brief pause.
“I flew out . . . to North Carolina.”
He released me and looked down at me with a frown. “For what?”
“Did you get to the part in the journals about Dylan mentioning a guy named Calvin?”
“I think so . . .”
“Did she ever tell you about him?”
“No—not that I recall.”
“Well, that’s because she accused Calvin of rape when she was fifteen.”
“What?” His eyes widened, jaw going slack.
“Yes. I have the article. And it’s why I went to North Carolina. I wanted to ask this Calvin guy about Melanie but . . . Roland, I—I saw something on him that changes the trajectory of this entire situation.”
“What did you see?”
“He was wearing a chain with a dove on the end of it. When I first moved in, I found that same dove on an earring in one of the bathroom drawers. I think it was Melanie’s.”
Roland narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying, Samira?”
“I’m saying that I think Calvin knows a lot more about what happened with Melanie than he admitted to me, and that Melanie is probably still out there.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Roland stepped away from me, giving me a disgusted scowl. “What? How the hell can you even say that? I saw her body, Samira! It was her!”
“But she had a sister, right? And they were identical twins, Roland! Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“I—I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It definitely matters. Think about it! Same DNA. Same looks. It might not have been her!”
He blinked. “No—even though they were twins, I could tell them apart. Miley was rugged. Melanie was more proper. That body looked like Melanie’s.”
“Are you sure? Because after finding out what I know about Melanie, and how she’s so quick to sabotage people’s lives, it would all make sense. Maybe something happened to Miley that she couldn’t control and Melanie used Miley’s body as a scapegoat. She wanted out of her own life.”
Roland shook his head. “There’s no fucking way.”
“Think about it, Roland. Melanie wanted to get away from you and erase all that’d happened. I don’t know if you got to this part, but in her journals she said she was going to create a fake identity and go to California.”
“No.” His head shook repeatedly and he squeezed his eyes shut, turning his back to me. “If she did that, it means she wanted this to happen to me. She wanted people to think that body had something to do with me.”
“Does this sound like something she’d do?”
“It sounds extreme, Samira.” He faced me again. “And yes, she was fucked up and could be selfish, but that crosses a line. I mean that body looked just like her. It was bloated from the water, but her clothes, her shoes—she was even in her car. It had to be Melanie.”
“So then why can’t anyone find Miley?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know! Miley has always been hard to keep up with and I wasn’t that close to her! She’s probably out there hiding somewhere after all this, still grieving or something!”
“Roland, you can’t just pretend this isn’t a realistic option, despite how fucked up it is. Miley was the one with the drug issues, not Melanie. Why would Melanie suddenly do heroin? I’m sure you would have known that she’d developed a drug habit, no matter how much you avoided her at the end.”
He slumped his large body down in the rolling chair and dropped his face in his hands. I went toward him, lowering to my knees between his legs. “She might still be out there, Roland. And I think that Calvin guy knows more than he told me. What if she went back to him for something?”