All That Really Matters, Nicole Deese [best detective novels of all time .TXT] 📗

confessions, as if the very idea of a resident admitting wrongdoing prior to getting caught was ludicrous. And perhaps he was right.

Then again, perhaps he didn’t have to be.

“You can’t prove anything.” Her words were clipped, icy.

“You’re right. I can’t yet, and to be honest with you, Sasha, I don’t want to have to prove anything. Because I’m hoping you’ll let me help you.”

“I don’t want your help.”

Which was exactly what I’d figured she’d say. “That’s probably true, but I think you need it.”

Sasha twisted her body to face me head on. “And so what? If I play nice with you, tell you all my dirty secrets, then you’ll keep my sins hidden from your boyfriend?”

I hadn’t expected that. Not even a little bit. Glo and Clara knew about Silas and me—we’d told them, of course—but we had been so careful while on campus. We didn’t touch, we didn’t flirt, and we definitely didn’t discuss the status of our personal relationship with the residents.

Her laugh was nothing more than a weakened rush of air. “Secrets don’t keep long here. Obviously.”

I willed myself to dig deeper. In all my time at the house, this was the most Sasha had ever spoken to me. Times three. “I would imagine that carrying around such a heavy secret would start to weigh on a person. That at some point, even if they wanted to come clean, they might feel like it was already too late. Like there was no hope left for them even if they wanted to change.”

This time, she had no response.

I lifted the glasses away from my eyes and folded them into my hand. “But there is hope. We all make mistakes. We all choose the wrong path at times. Nobody has to stay there, though. You don’t have to stay there, either.” I took a breath and silently prayed she would accept my next words. “I can’t promise you there won’t be consequences, but I can promise that if you’re willing to come clean and confess, those consequences will be less.”

Her jaw ticked back and forth, an inner battle raging behind her veiled expression.

“I bet if I were Wren, all I’d have to do is bat my pretty little eyelashes and all my sins would be forgiven.”

Deflection. I recognized the tactic immediately. “We’re not talking about Wren. We’re talking about you.”

“But maybe we should be talking about Wren.” She glared me down. “It’s her fault.”

Though I felt an instant defensiveness flare up in my spirit, I worked hard to keep my voice in check. “How so?”

Sasha shook her head, and I knew she was calculating how much she could say. “Forget it. It’s not like someone like you could ever understand.”

“Someone like me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Like you. Pretty. Rich. Gets everything she’s ever wanted just by matching her lipstick to her designer handbag. Your life is like a freaking fairy tale, only worse. More pathetic.”

It was getting more and more difficult to channel my inner Clara as I breathed through my nose. “My life hasn’t been a fairy tale—”

“Whatever. Just . . . do whatever you need to do. I don’t care anymore.” She started to turn, and I reached out for her arm, just above her elbow.

“I don’t believe that for a minute. I think you do care, Sasha. I think you’re angry because of how much you care.”

She ripped her arm away from me as if I’d burned her. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Then tell me.” The internal fire stoked in my gut matched her intensity. “Tell me what you think somebody like me can’t possibly understand about someone like you.”

Fury erupted from her throat. “How ’bout how it feels to lose your only friend? Let’s start there!”

Her words knocked the breath from my lungs as the image of Val’s face swam just out of reach. Unfortunately, I did understand that. Too well. It took me a minute to recover, to push the sting down the way I always did when the guilt of losing Val over my own stupidity slipped back into my subconscious. “I understand more than you know, actually. It’s horrible. A pain I wouldn’t wish on anybody. I’m so sorry.”

She sniffed and glanced away.

In her silence, I took another stab in the dark. “Am I right to assume you’re talking about Monica?”

“She’s a traitor.”

“What happened between you two?” Because maybe if I could understand what went wrong between them, I might understand how she got to the place she was in now.

“We had a plan. And she ruined it.” She sharpened her glare. “Life sucks.”

Though her explanation brought more confusion than it did clarity, I could tell she was closing off to me again. Pulling down an iron gate I likely wouldn’t be able to get through again, even if it meant her walking to the gallows alone.

Timidly, I touched her shoulder. “Sasha, I want to help you, but I can’t keep what I found this afternoon a secret from Silas. I do want to give you an opportunity to tell him yourself, and you wouldn’t have to do it alone. I would go with you.”

The back door to the cottage opened behind us. “Ah, there you two are. Everything okay out here?”

As I turned to answer Glo, Sasha’s unblinking gaze focused on me. Like a dare.

Like a test.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” I said.

“All right. Well, Silas is waiting for you out front, Molly. Oh, and Clara’s made each of you a bowl of popcorn. The girls just started The Proposal a few minutes ago. They have their clay masks on. Looks like a Halloween party in there.”

“Great. Thanks for the update,” I said as casually as possible while a nineteen-year-old stared at me like she could sift through my soul. “We’ll be right in.”

Glo closed the door once more, and I mentally prepared for the conversation I’d need to have with Silas in a matter of minutes, wondering if his protocol would mean Sasha would be forced to leave tonight or—

“Can you at