Which meant, logically, that someone thought that Allison was close to getting that diary.
It followed that there was something in that diary
that was worth killing for. Which meant it was Sabrina Abbott—perfect, wonderful, hardworking Sabrina—who was somehow at the center of this.
The burgers and milk shakes came, and Stevie started in on them while letting her focus rest on the reading room across the street. She softened her gaze, letting the contours of the building blur. Sabrina. Reading. Writing. Checking out books right up until the time she died.
Her brain began to settle. Stevie reached for the tablet, trying to maintain the mental state, and flicked back to the pictures of the room of mementos in Allison’s house—all those tidily arranged things. Books, clothes, knickknacks, photographs, record albums. A teenage life, frozen in time in 1978. She looked at the picture of the interlibrary loan slips for the books Sabrina had requested right before she died: A Woman in Berlin and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Serious reading for a serious person, someone preparing for her future at Columbia University. She thought about Sabrina’s 1977 diary, with the list of subjects and amount of time studied. Sabrina was a detailed reporter of events.
The shadow of an idea danced through the halls of her mind again. And another, and another. Dancing shadows on the wall. Ghosts. Answers—intangible answers, taunting her.
“Shit,” she said.
“What?”
She tapped her palms on the table in disgust.
“I’ve seen it,” she said. “Bits of it. Little flashes. Like that
time I saw a moose behind some trees. I’ve seen something. Or heard it. And I can’t work out what it is.”
“Sounds like writing,” he said. “It’s the worst.”
He took a long sip of his milk shake as Stevie set her forehead down on the table. Perhaps sensing that she wasn’t coming back up anytime soon, he kept talking.
“People ask stuff like ‘What’s your process?’ I don’t know what my process is. I sit down and type stuff about monsters. Or I think about it. Or I type-think.”
The shadows flashed back up on the wall, the edges clearer. More of a shape.
She lifted her head.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“What? When? Which thing?”
“Writing. Typing. Thinking. What?”
“What?”
“Stop saying what,” she said. “What do you mean? You type and think?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I kind of think with my fingers? That sounds bad. You know what I mean.”
“You type stuff,” she said. “You type. Shit, shit, shit. . . . Give me your computer.”
“Are you going to finish my book?” he said, pushing it over to her. “Because this is good news for me.”
Instead of typing, or even looking at the screen, Stevie instead stared at the keyboard, lightly running her finger from the L key all the way over to the return, then back again.
Then she grabbed her tablet and frantically swiped back and back until she found what she wanted.
“Oh my god,” she said. “I have to go.”
“What?”
“Stop saying what! I have to go.”
“Stop saying you have to go,” Nate shot back, grabbing the bike lock key. “Go where?”
“Allison’s house,” she replied, waving her hand for the check.