Hunter cut me off. “Yup. The same night she died,” he said. So I got what I asked for, even though I didn’t mean it. She was gone, and she never came back.”
“Oh, god,” I whispered, mind spinning from the sheer misery of his story. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must’ve felt when you saw her.”
“I was the first one,” he said. “Everyone else in my family was still out when I got back, and the staff had all gone home. I went looking for Lindsay so I could apologize for all the shitty things I said, and I tried the rooftop garden first. She wasn’t there. Then I looked over the edge and saw her lying on the ground.”
“Was she already…” I abruptly trailed off, realizing how inappropriate my question would sound.
“Dead?” Hunter said. “Yeah. She was cold and stiff. Dead for at least three hours before I got back, apparently.”
A lump appeared in my throat as tears stung my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hunter.”
“I never got to say that to her. That I was sorry,” he muttered. He hung his head in his hands again, shoulders drooping. “The first thing I thought when I saw her was that it was all my fault.”
“You thought she did it because of you? Because of what you said to her?”
He nodded and wiped a hand over his glistening eyes. “Yes.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I said softly, grabbing his left arm. “It’s not your fault.”
“I still feel like it is. Even now that I know she didn’t kill herself, I still feel like it happened because of me. Like I could’ve stopped it somehow. If I’d just stayed home that night instead of storming out, or if I came home earlier and found her before the fucking cunt pushed her… she’d still be here right now. That’s all on me.”
My brows furrowed. “You still think someone pushed her?”
He nodded. “I know it wasn’t you now, but it was still someone.”
“Hunter—”
He cut me off. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m one of those people stuck in the denial stage. But I’m not.”
“Why would they rule it a suicide if there was any evidence that it wasn’t?”
“Because that’s what everyone wanted to believe. Wild teenage girl, gone off the rails. Filled with regret and remorse over the things she’d done.” He shook his head slightly. “She left a note, too. Supposedly.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He nodded. “It was under her phone on one of the seats in the rooftop garden. Folded piece of paper with ‘I’m sorry’ written on it. It was her handwriting, too.” He let out a short sigh. “I think someone else just copied it. It wouldn’t have been hard. Her handwriting was very basic.”
“Oh.”
“But yeah… as soon as that note was found, it cemented one thing in everyone’s mind. Suicide. Apparently she went up to the roof, stood on the edge, and let herself fall backwards.”
“But you don’t think so.”
He rubbed his jaw. “Like I said before, I did at first. I thought I pushed her over the edge with all the shit I said to her. But then I started thinking about it, and a lot of stuff didn’t add up to me.”
“Like what?”
Hunter gestured to my neck. “Like that, for one. How the fuck did it end up in a pawn shop in Silvercreek?”
“Maybe Lindsay lost it somewhere. Someone found it, saw it was worth something, and pawned it for cash.”
“No. I’m ninety-nine percent sure she was wearing it when we were arguing that night. So she would’ve been wearing it when she died, which means someone snatched it off her afterwards,” he said, eyes darkening. “And it’s not just that. The more I thought about it after she was gone, the more I realized she wouldn’t hurt herself. Not like that. It just… it wasn’t her.”
“You can never really know what someone is thinking and feeling deep inside,” I said gently.
“I know, and I would agree in most cases. People can hide stuff really well. But I know Lindsay wasn’t suicidal. I just know it. Even with all the shit going on in her life, she wouldn’t have done that.” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “There’s more, too. I looked through her phone when I was trying to figure out who she saw and spoke to that night.”
My brows rose. “Did you find anything suspicious?”