DAY OF BOOKER LANE RELEASE

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2022

11:49 PM

NYPD Interview Transcript

Tiffani Rosswell: She texted me this morning, Lily texted me this morning. She was three minutes away.

Officer Decker: Ma'am, you're going to have to wait to talk to us until you've calmed down a bit.

Detective Lin: Hi, Ms. Rosswell. I want you to tell me what happened, in order, from yesterday morning through right now. Can you do that?

Rosswell: Yes.

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1 DAY BEFORE BOOKER LANE RELEASE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 2022

8:04 AM

"You know that you don't have to be tweeting about this constantly, right? I hired Rosalie for a reason."

            "And she's doing a phenomenal job," Lily's voice came through the other end of the phone, "but I'm excited about this, Tiff. I want to make sure everyone knows about it."

            Tiffani sighed half-heartedly.

            "I know. I'm excited for you, Lil. It's gonna be big."

            "That's an understatement." Lily laughed, "Have you seen my social media activity over the past few months? My likes and retweets are going up like crazy. Who would've thought that social media would be the way to market my books?"

            Everyone who isn't living in the Stone Age, Tiffani thought.

            "Did you see Rosalie's tweet from the author account this morning?" Tiffani asked, "It's doing well, numbers-wise."

            "Author account? I'm the author."

            Tiffani laughed.

            "Yeah, I know that. We set up a 'Lily Reed Updates' account for Rosalie to tweet from."

            Lily was silent for a moment, and Tiffani worried that she was upset. She could have sworn they all discussed the author account a few weeks previous.

            "Well, if the numbers are doing well, then that's great." Lily finally said, causing Tiffani to breathe a silent sigh of relief.

4:07 PM

            "Is there anything better than this?"

            "No," Lily shook her head and stared out the window of her new house, "I really don't think there is."

            The two women watched a light snow fall onto Lily's backyard, dusting everything it touched with a light, translucent layer of white. They sipped their hot chocolate and hummed along to the Christmas music playing softly from the stereo—Lily refused to stop listening to Christmas music until January was over. Tiffani had stopped being bothered by it years ago.

            The sun was starting to set, and the trees behind Lily's home let just a little bit of the orange light peek through. It was faint, covered by the snow-filled clouds, but it was still there.

            "You know, this is what we always dreamed of," Lily whispered, "this life. The two of us, conquering the world. Being successful. Together."

            Tiffani smiled lightly and took another sip of her drink.

            "I know," she replied, "sometimes I still don't believe it's real."

            "Maybe it isn't." Lily shrugged, her gaze still aimed out the window, "Maybe this is a dream, and one day, we'll both wake up and realize that we're still twelve years old and living in those townhomes on Booker Lane."

            Tiffani looked at Lily, eyebrows raised.

            "You haven't brought up the real Booker Lane in years. I was surprised you named the book what you did."

            Lily's eyes darkened for the briefest moment; so brief, that Tiffani thought she may have imagined it.

            "I don't like to live in the past." She said after taking two long sips of her drink, "This book is my way of writing Booker Lane out of my life for good. It lives in the book now. It doesn't live in my reality."

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Officer Decker: Booker Lane had a significance to Ms. Reed's real life?

Tiffani Rosswell: Lily and I grew up on Booker Lane. We met when we were twelve and my family moved into the townhome next to hers. She had lived there her whole life.

Detective Lin: Why did Ms. Reed have an aversion to her childhood street?

Rosswell: I don't know. Lily just doesn't like to talk about it.

Decker: Have you seen these tweets, Ms. Rosswell?

Rosswell: No. What are they?

Decker: Have a read, and then let me know what you think of them.

Tiffani Rosswell: She would never fake this. Lily wouldn't stage something this extreme just to sell a few more books. We knew the book was going to do well already; it had over ten thousand presale orders before this morning. She didn't need to pull any stunts to help it.

Bartholomew (Barry) Thomas: I don't want to sound difficult, but I would appreciate it if we definitively denied that rumor. I don't want that to cause any investigators to not take Lily's disappearance seriously.

Detective Lin: I'll see what we can do. You may have your phone back, Ms. Rosswell.

Thomas: Come on, Tiff. I'll drive you home.

End of Tiffani Rosswell Interview 1.

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Hilarie Print: Any news on Lily? I can't believe this happened

Eric (Publishing House): Call me when you get a second

Danielle (Publishing House): We need to talk about this little stunt of Lily's

Carey Reed: Has Lily contacted you? Is she missing? Can you call me?

212-555-0926: Hello Ms. Rosswell, this is Cory Weeks from Channel 5. Are you able to come on our morning show Monday morning? We'd love to chat.

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A/N: Welcome to Booker Lane! I haven't regularly updated a book on Wattpad in a long time, and I am SO excited to start again! I thought it would be fitting for my first book back to pay homage to Dear Sydney's style, so I hope you enjoy!

Katherine