Calla had been right all along. Cooper was a moron.

He glared at the giant slice of cake he'd cut for himself. He still wasn't sure why he'd come here, why he'd driven three hours to show up on Calla's doorstep, unannounced. It had been the thought of his empty apartment, he supposed—stuffed with those stupid heart-shaped balloons, his drawers crammed with Lauren's old t-shirts and hairbands and those goddamn bobbypins—

He used the fork he'd found while rummaging around in the dishwasher to spear the slice of cake right through its center, and then took an angry bite. Chocolate. Lauren's favorite. It tasted like cardboard on his tongue. He shoved the plate aside with a heavy sigh.

"Does it taste as awful as it looks?"

Calla stepped into view. She'd pulled her hair, damp from the shower, in a low bun. He frowned at her as she lifted herself onto the kitchen island, the glass of wine he'd poured for her already in her hands. "It's really not that ugly."

She sniffed at her glass. "It's easily the most foul cake I've ever seen."

"Seen a lot of cakes, have you?" She shot him a look of such exasperation, he had to laugh. "Sorry," he muttered, staring down at his hands. "It's been a long day."

"Right. Why did you and Lacey break up, again?"

He gave her a pointed look. "Lauren."

"Lauren." She rolled the name across her tongue, tasted it. Her lips curled in a humorless smile.

Cooper took a sip from his glass of wine. Sipped again. "We had our differences."

"That sounds ominous."

"It was for the best, honestly."

"If you say so."

He glared at her. "You're about as comforting as a bed of nails. Has anyone ever told you that?"

She tapped the rim of her glass against his in a mockery of a salute. "If you wanted comfort, you should have run to dear Vincent. How is he, by the way?"

Cooper sighed. "He's busy. Big game tomorrow." Which was precisely why he couldn't bother Vincent with his abysmal love life. Not with the rivalry game on the horizon. Vincent would have questions about the breakup—a million whys and what fors. And then he'd probably insist they get shitfaced drunk. Which would normally be fine. Preferable, even. But Penn State's playoff hopes were on the line, and a hungover quarterback was the last thing anyone needed.

Calla considered him for a long moment. "Alright. I'll bite. Tell me all about this dramatic breakup of yours."

Cooper flushed. Glared down at Calla's foot swinging between them. "There's not much to tell. It's just...over. She dumped me. End of story."

"Ouch." Calla gave him a sympathetic pout that was disturbingly convincing. "No particular reason?"

Because I'm broken and there's no fixing it. "Let's call it a lack of communication."

"A lack of communication, huh." She feigned surprise. "Not sure how that's possible, considering you never shut the fuck up."

"You are—" he tried to swat at her foot, but she pulled away from him, cackling, "—the worst."

"Oh, c'mon." She was grinning. "Don't be so sensitive."

"Normal people are sensitive after breakups," he snapped. A low blow.

But her grin only widened. "Oh-ho. He bites back."

His words had missed their mark, but still he felt guilt worm its way into his chest. He'd made the decision to come here, after all. With no warning, no thought spared for her schedule. And Calla had welcomed him inside without question. "Give me that," he said, gesturing to her empty glass. A peace offering.

She handed it to him with a satisfied hum. As he reached for the bottle of wine, her phone buzzed on the counter between them. He glanced at the screen. CALLER UNKNOWN. "Who's—"

She snatched up the phone and held it up to her ear. Listened. Waited. And then ended the call.

The wicked, amused gleam in her eyes had banked. Cooper stared at her, the bottle of wine forgotten. "Who was it?"

"Telemarketer," she deadpanned, slipping off the counter and circling around to the sink. She grabbed a plastic cup from the cabinet and snapped on the faucet. Watched the water run. Tense.

Cooper set aside the wine. "Liar."

"Most telemarketers are liars, yes."

"Calla." He knew her well enough to know when she was lying. She didn't have many tells, not with that clever mask of hers. But there was a seriousness to her eyes, a vicious gleam, that he'd recognize anywhere. Even if he hadn't seen it since—

Bind their hands, Mike.

Calla refused to look at him. "You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you the truth. Trust me. The lie is easier."

Her words reminded him of another conversation, of another life. Back when they'd only just started to contemplate a future outside of Greenwitch. You, going to Penn. Me, going to Cornell. All those miles between us, she'd said then, the graduation ceremony a looming shadow on the horizon. We can go about our lives. Pretend none of it ever happened. Move on.

The lie is always easier, he thought. "I don't care about easy." He braced his hands against the island's cool countertop, eyes trained on the back of her head. On the curl of her hair and the soft rise and fall of her shoulders as she took one breath and then another. Such deceptive calm. "Tell me."

She turned to face him, propping a casual hip against the lip of the sink, water still spilling steadily down the drain. "Fine. Here it is." She folded her arms. "I spent my afternoon burying a body."

"Funny."

"The guy I buried certainly didn't think so."

Cooper just stared at her.

You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you the truth.

But he did believe her. And that was exactly the problem.

He grabbed the wine and pressed the bottle to his lips. Fuck the glass. When he'd swallowed enough to steel his nerves, he set the bottle aside and said, "Calla. What the fuck."

"You asked," she said simply, reaching across the island between them for the wine. She drank down to the dregs. Frowned when she hit the bottom, and sighed. "Like you said. It's been a long day."

He watched in silence as she turned from him, disappearing into her bedroom. She emerged seconds later with a—

"Is that a King James Bible?" he asked, aghast. "Calla. I think it's a bit late for absolution."

She gave him a droll look and leafed through the pages until, to his surprise, a torn scrap of notebook paper—no, not again—fluttered to the floor, setting his heart to racing—not again not again not again—

"Relax," she said, noting his frozen expression. "It's not what you're thinking." She smiled without humor and retrieved the note from the floor, tossing the Bible aside with a careless flick of her wrist. It landed on the floor with a dull, irreverent thwack. "It's worse."

With those bracing words, she handed him the slip of paper. He unfolded it carefully. As if afraid it might bite.

I KNOW YOUR SECRET

"I know your secret," he read aloud. He turned the note over in his hands, but there was nothing more to be found. No script from some morbid fairytale. Nothing to indicate it was anything more than what it was: a hastily scrawled note.

"Two years ago, someone planted that note in my graduation cap," she explained, sounding rather bored. He looked at her then, startled.

We can go about our lives. Pretend none of it ever happened. Move on.

At the time, it had been her words he'd latched onto, her words he'd worried over night after night, wondering when she might disappear from his life, because that had seemed inevitable after everything she'd said, everything she'd done. But now, standing there in her apartment, in a college town so far removed from their old life it was nearly laughable—now he remembered how the rest of that conversation had gone.

Calla, shoving his graduation cap on his head. Calla, sliding her own cap into place—a piece of paper clenched in her fist. What's that? he'd asked. Thinking nothing of it, wanting only to leave her words of farewell far behind.

"I remember. You told me not to worry about it," he recalled, feeling foolish.

"It was my problem," she said quietly. "Not yours."

He wanted to argue, wanted to rage. But he knew that would get him nowhere, so he just waved her on.

She eyed him, speculative. He feared she would stop, insist he hear nothing more of it. But then she shrugged. A why not gesture. "I wasn't sure what to think of it. I thought maybe the note was supposed to be someone's idea of a joke, or at the very worst, an empty threat. It wasn't like anyone had any actual proof of anything." She stared at the wall between them. "I had Steph's flash drive. I thought that was enough. But then a few days after graduation, I got an email from some random, untraceable address. I asked Blake to give it a look, but he couldn't find anything on where it originated."

"Blake?"

"I met him at the Diner over the summer. Just the once." She smiled at the look of bewilderment on Cooper's face. He couldn't picture it—Calla and Blake at the Diner, chatting it up over scrambled eggs and pancakes. "I wanted to make sure there were no...loose ends."

"Loose ends," he repeated dully. "What loose ends? Like you said, you took the flash drive, and Blake said he wiped Steph's computer. And he cut the feed to the cameras in the gym—"

"But not the cameras at the police station."

Cooper immediately deflated. For several long, agonizing seconds, he could only stare as he endeavored to retrace the path her mind had already traveled so long ago. "You were worried they'd try to pull the old case files," he said at last, haltingly. "Because of Steph. Because she was brought in for questioning for the old murders, the night Tracy died. And if they tried to access that information to piece together her involvement in everything, and noticed the file had gone missing..."

"They would've checked the security feed, yes. And there we'd be, smuggling out the old file." Calla nodded, as if sensing where his thoughts had strayed. "Blake took care of it. Don't worry."

Cooper blew out a relieved breath. While he'd been busy daydreaming about undergrad girls and house parties, Calla had been covering their tracks, ensuring their safety. He felt a sudden rush of gratitude for her—gratitude and resentment and fear of the unknown. Fear of what she'd become.

I spent my afternoon burying a body.

"Calla..." He hesitated. "You said Blake couldn't trace the email. But what was in it, exactly?"

He watched with trepidation as she pulled up a video on her phone, already two steps ahead. Cooper inched closer to her and stared at the grainy images on the screen. His stomach twisted as he realized what he was looking at. Who he was looking at.

Calla. And Tracy Smith. 

"There was a video attached to the email," she said matter-of-factly. "A video that's problematic for obvious reasons."

Problematic. Cooper swallowed a broken laugh and looked away. He didn't want to watch the video. He already knew how that night played out, had been the one to stumble over the body and the blood and—fighting a wave of panic, Cooper felt along the wall, searching for the lightswitch. He took one step and then another. His sneakers made a horrible squelching sound, sinking deeper into the moist floor—

Cooper shuddered. No, he didn't need to relive that night.

Calla barely seemed to register his discomfort. "Stephanie wasn't lying. It's just like she said. She was upstairs that night at the Halloween party, same as Cory, and she caught everything on camera. Everything, Cooper. That video is proof of my crimes." She snorted. "The first of them, anyway."

"I don't understand." Cooper tried and failed to ignore that last remark. "Steph's locked away in some mental welfare rehabilitation facility, isn't she? How the hell did this video get out?"

Calla blew out a breath, as if she'd gone over this very same question a hundred times over. A thousand. "Well, either someone else somehow got their hands on this little treasure, or Steph handed it off willingly. Maybe as insurance, in case her grand plan to ruin my life backfired."

Fuck. Cooper pressed a hand to his forehead. "Fuck," he whispered aloud. And then, because it felt good to say it, to say something, he said it again. "Fuck."

"I think that adequately sums it up, yeah."

He pinned wide, horrified eyes to her blank stare. "How are you so calm?"

She shrugged. "I've been dealing with this for two years now."

"Dealing with—" Two years. Cooper dragged his hand through his hair as the realization sank in. "This wasn't your first time burying a body." Not a question. A horrified statement.

"No. It wasn't."

Cooper could hardly believe what he was hearing. "You're being blackmailed."

"Yes." No other explanation was forthcoming. She folded her arms, expressionless. 

Classic, he thought bitterly. He glared at her. She stared back listlessly. Finally he asked, "Blackmailed to do what, exactly?" He couldn't keep the bite from his words. "Kill random people?"

"Well," she said dryly, "I assume it isn't at random. But, yeah. Essentially that, Coop."

Someone is using Calla Parker as their own personal hitman. He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes. Starbursts spotted across his vision. "Does the name Treadstone mean anything to you? Anything at all?" He cracked open an eye. "Blink once for yes."

She turned away from him with a loud, impatient sigh. "Here we go, with the jokes."

"Wait. Sorry." He sighed as she turned back to face him. "Fuck." There really wasn't anything else to say. Except— "How could you keep this from me?"

She shook her head. "Cooper—"

"Don't Cooper me." He shoved aside the rational voice in his head and let his anger take the driver's seat. "You've been sitting on this for two years. I've come here at least half a dozen times—"

"—to drink and shoot the shit and complain about midterms and that airheaded ex of yours," she snapped, her anger far more formidable than his own. "You had a life. A normal, boring life full of normal, boring people. You got out, and there was no reason to drag you back in. This is my shit. My problem."

"Our problem," he shouted back, and was rewarded with her slow blink of surprise. "Tell me everything. Everything, Calla. I mean it."

They glared at one another. Cooper steeled himself, refusing to consider the ramifications of this spectacularly poor decision. He could still declare ignorance, could still walk away from this. Return to his normal, boring life. The same life Calla had envisioned for him at graduation. The life she'd granted him, in the end—by keeping him firmly out of her business.

If you've got any shot at a normal life, you've got to do it without me.

Lauren had been his shot at a normal life, he knew. And the girls before her—the endless parade of date nights and drunk texts and that one random hookup in his freshman dorm (a horrifying experience he didn't like to dwell on).

There were others, too—pieces that made up the whole of his life. Bill Hathrow and the stoned delivery guy and the barista at the coffee shop on the corner of Garner and East Beaver street, and his mom, of course. Vincent and Nat, most of all. Nat had become like a sister to him, patient and kind and everything his best friend deserved.

It was a good life. Normal, Calla would say. But Cooper had always felt somewhat like a stranger in it—an intruder peering down through a microscope, waiting to see what happened next and not particularly caring one way or the other what the outcome would be.

He was alive. And somewhere between the nightmares and the normalcy, he'd started to realize it just wasn't enough.

Calla inhaled deeply. Exhaled. "Once you know—"

"Please don't lecture me on plausible deniability." Cooper's anger drained away. "That train left the station a long, long time ago, in case you were wondering. So just...talk. Please," he added for good measure.

She looked like she wanted to argue, like she'd already prepared a statement of defense for just such an occasion. Cooper didn't doubt that she'd planned for this in some shape or form, had expected him to find out somehow and knew just what to say to get him to back off—

"Fine." She jerked her head toward the fridge. "But first, we're going to need more wine."