Chapter 3

Weeks passed in a blur of feigned normalcy and covert planning.

I aced the SATs, just as I had before. The score report arrived, pristine and promising. I hid it immediately.

Jessie, predictably, bombed. Her score sheet was a sea of red.

Mom saw it and her face tightened into a familiar mask of displeasure, but then a cunning light entered her eyes as she looked at me. The old plan was already forming in her mind.

"Don't worry, sweetie," Karen cooed at Jessie, loud enough for me to hear. "We'll make sure you get what you deserve."

Jessie smirked at me over Mom' s shoulder.

I felt a cold wave of anger, but I kept my face neutral. Let them think I was the same scared, helpless girl.

Ethan was a rock.

He used his network of friends, discreetly. Soon, we had a collection of photos and short video clips: Jessie, undeniably her with that ankle tattoo, at raucous parties, drinking, smoking, surrounded by her delinquent friends. The very things Mom would later try to pin on me.

He also managed to get photos of Mom and Rick meeting secretly at a cheap motel on the edge of town. Their body language was unambiguous. He even found some records of money transfers from Rick to a new account Mom had opened.

"Brenda Rickman, Rick's wife, is a force of nature," Ethan told me, handing over a file. "If she finds out, she'll explode. Publicly."

Perfect.

The hardest part was Dad.

The memories were like shards of glass in my mind. I remembered the shouting match between Mom and Dad the night he died. I remembered Rick' s distinctive, loud car pulling away from our house late that night. I remembered Mom, pale and frantic, scrubbing the kitchen floor the next morning, muttering about a "spill." The police had called it a hit-and-run, a tragic accident. But the pieces didn't fit.

I needed Karen to confess.

I started small, dropping hints, asking innocent questions about Dad, about that night.

"Mom, do you ever miss Dad?" I asked one evening.

She scoffed. "Why would I miss that man? He was a millstone around my neck."

"But his death... it was so sudden. Were the police sure it was just an accident?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you getting at, Sarah? It was a tragic accident. End of story."

But I saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. She was hiding something.

The day the university acceptance letters were due to arrive, the atmosphere in the house was thick with anticipation.

Mine came first. Stanford. Full scholarship.

I let Mom see it, just for a moment. Her eyes lit up with a greedy fire.

"This is wonderful, Sarah!" she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "But you know, Jessie has worked so hard too..."

Jessie' s rejection letter from the local community college arrived an hour later.

She tore it open, her face contorting in rage. She threw it on the floor. "It's not fair!"

Karen put an arm around her. "Don't you worry, my love. I told you. You will go to Stanford."

She turned to me, her smile gone, replaced by cold command. "Sarah, you will give Jessie your acceptance. You will write a letter to Stanford saying you' ve changed your mind. You will say you' re not well enough to attend."

"No," I said, my voice quiet but firm.

Karen' s eyes blazed. "What did you say?"

"I said no. That' s my acceptance. I earned it. Jessie will not steal it this time."

Jessie lunged at me. "You bitch! You' ll ruin everything!"

I sidestepped her easily. "It's already ruined, Jessie. By you and Mom."

Karen stepped forward, her face a mask of fury. "You ungrateful child! After everything I' ve done for you!"

"Done for me?" I laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "You've done nothing but try to destroy me. But it won't work this time."

This was it. The beginning of the end for them.