45

As soon as she disappears down the hall, I quicken my pace to the third floor and go straight to Alicia’s room. I don’t care how disturbing those books are. If they hold any evidence about why my sister kept this facet of her life hidden from me, I need to know what it is. It’s like she lived a double life. One was the soft, sweet Alicia who came to find me and buy me things. And then there was the mentally unwell Alicia whom Margot hated so much, that she ended up automatically hating me just because we look the same. My hand turns clammy as I sit cross-legged on the floor, my back to the bed, and read from the book. Six Minutes. It takes me a while to get past the first chapter, even though it isn’t long. Every paragraph, I have to pause, take a deep breath, and stop myself from getting flashbacks of the victims’ faces or the members of the public that came to find me, before I continue reading. After the first chapter of a man burying a body, we’re taken back to three months in the