Unless she knew about our affair?
I stand perfectly still as though frozen in fear, while Cat continues to loosen the knot. She stares at me the entire time with a look of pure hatred on her face.
Him
Thursday 01:15
Priya’s eyes stare at the phone then back at me.
“Why do you have the cameraman’s mobile?” I ask, hoping she has an answer and that I can believe it.
“I didn’t know the phone was his. It was on the ground next to the broken glass, outside the back door.”
So she does have an answer, but I don’t believe her. Not anymore.
She looks scared again and I wonder whether I do too. If Priya is somehow involved in all this, then the smartest thing I could do now is play along. Hopefully she will lead me to Anna.
“Richard must have been here,” I say. “Someone smashed the glass in the back door to break in, and I’m sure he’s involved in this somehow. That’s the only explanation. I knew he was no good and I should have trusted my instincts—”
“We don’t know anything yet.”
Her interrupting me is a first.
“Why else would his phone be here?”
“We need to stay calm and stop jumping to conclusions, Jack.”
“Jack,” not “sir” or “boss” again, I notice. But then another thought pushes that one aside. Something she said earlier.
“The fifth girl in the photo, you said she was married, who to?” I ask.
Priya puts Richard’s phone back in her pocket, then takes out her notepad, flicking through several pages.
“What was the cameraman’s surname?” she asks, still turning them.
I doubt she has forgotten; she never forgets anything.
“Jones. Richard Jones,” I reply, trying to hide the mistrust from my tone.
Priya stops turning the pages and stares at what is written on them.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. Then she says something that instantly shifts all my suspicion from her to him.
“It is him. The fifth girl is married to Anna’s cameraman, Richard Jones.”
Her
Thursday 01:20
Cat Jones’s eyes stay fixed on mine as she pulls the tie-shaped noose up and over her head before dropping it to the floor. She rubs the angry-looking red marks on her neck with one hand, while using the other to slowly remove the friendship bracelet that was tied around her tongue. She stares down at it, before looking at me again. I snatch my phone from the dressing table behind her, and start stepping backward toward the door. With her white dress, it’s like watching a ghost come back to life.
My survival instinct finally exceeds my fear and I run.
I don’t look back as I race out of the room, along the creaking hall, and down the stairs. I trip and fall before I reach the bottom, twisting my ankle and landing in a crumpled heap on the floor. I stare at the phone still in my hand. I turn it on and feel a surge of hope when it comes to life. There is enough battery to make a call now … but no signal.
“Anna.”
I hear Cat say my name, in a strangled, haunting voice. It’s animal-like.
I pick myself up and hobble to the front door, but my hands are shaking too much to open it. I can hear someone behind me. I don’t want to look, but I can’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder. Cat is standing at the top of the staircase. Her head is tilted to one side at a strange angle, as though her neck might be broken. She starts to walk down the stairs, taking slow but determined steps, her unblinking eyes never leaving mine.
I turn back to the front door and yank the handle, almost falling backward as it flies open. I find my balance and run as fast as I can, out of the house and into the woods. Branches scratch my face, twigs shaped like bony hands claw at my body, while sticks on the ground constantly trip me up. It’s uneven and boggy. I try to ignore the pain in my ankle, but it isn’t long before I fall again. I land hard, slamming into an old tree stump. The impact winds me and I drop my phone.
* * *
When Catherine Kelly never came back to school, rumors of her suicide started to circulate. They were started, of course, by Rachel. I think she worried I might tell someone the truth about what had happened, so there were some rumors about me too. I wish I had told someone. But before I could, Rachel slipped a naked photo of me inside my locker as a warning. I recognized her writing, scribbled in black felt-tip pen on the back of the picture, along with the date it was taken, my sixteenth birthday:
If you don’t want the whole village including your mother to see copies of this, I suggest you keep quiet.