Tom Royce.
There’s no mistaking it. Dark hair, longish in the back, too much product in the front.
Katherine never took this photo.
Which means it was saved not on her phone but on her husband’s.
The only explanation I can think of is that Marnie was right about the deception, wrong about who is doing it and why.
Tom posted this photo on his wife’s Instagram account.
And the person being deceived is me.
The hardest part about doing Shred of Doubt eight times a week was the first act, in which my character had to walk a fine line between being too worried and not suspicious enough. I spent weeks of rehearsal trying to find the perfect balance between the two, and I never did get it completely right.
Until now.
Now I’m perched precisely between those two modes, wondering which one I should lean into. It’s easy now that I’m living it. No acting required.
I want to call Marnie for guidance, but I know what she’d say. That Katherine is fine. That I should leave it alone. That it’s none of my business.
All of that might be true. And all of it could be dead wrong. I can’t be sure until I have a better grasp on the situation. So it’s back to social media I go, leaving Instagram behind and diving into Tom Royce’s brainchild, Mixer.
First, I have to download the app to my phone and create a profile. It’s a brazenly invasive process requiring my full name, date of birth, cell phone number, and location, which is determined through geotracking. I make several attempts to do an end run around it, entering Manhattan as my location instead. The app changes it to Lake Greene every time.
And I thought I was being nosy.
Only after my profile is created am I allowed to enter Mixer. I have to give Tom and his development team credit. It’s a well-designed app. Clean, good-looking, easy to use. Within seconds, I learn there are several ways to find contacts, including by company, by location, and by entering your favorite bars and restaurants and seeing who else has listed them.
I choose a location search, which lets me see every user within a one-mile radius. Right now, four other users are currently at Lake Greene, each one marked with a red triangle on a satellite view of the area.
The first is Tom Royce.
No surprise there.
Eli and Boone Conrad also have profiles, which would be a surprise if I didn’t suspect both joined as a courtesy to their neighbor. Like me, neither has filled out his profile beyond the required information. Eli hasn’t listed any favorites or recently visited locations, and the only place on Boone’s profile is a juice bar two towns away.
The real surprise is the fourth person listed as currently being at Lake Greene.
Katherine Royce.
I stare at the triangle pinpointing her location.
Just on the other side of the lake.
Directly across from my own red triangle.
Seeing it sends my heart skittering. While I have no idea about the app’s accuracy, I assume it’s pretty good. Since I wasn’t able to change my location despite multiple attempts, it’s likely Katherine can’t, either.
If that’s the case, it means she either left Lake Greene without taking her phone—or that she never left at all.
I stand, shove my phone in my pocket, and go inside, heading straight for the kitchen. There, I dig the binoculars out of the trash, blow stray crumbs from my lunch off the lenses, and carry them out to the porch. Standing at the railing, I peer at the Royces’ glass house, wondering if Katherine is there after all. It’s impossible to tell. Although the sun is close to slipping behind the mountains on that side of the lake, the shimmering reflection of the water masks whatever might be going on inside.
Still, I scan the areas where I know each room to be located, hoping a light on inside will improve my view. There’s nothing. Everything beyond the dim windows is invisible.
Next, I examine the house’s surroundings, starting with the side facing Eli’s place before leading my gaze across the back patio, down to the dock, and then to the side facing the Fitzgeralds’ house. Nothing to see there, either. Not even Tom’s sleek Bentley.
Once again, I realize I’m currently watching the Royce house with a pair of binoculars powerful enough to view craters on the moon. It’s extreme.
And obsessive.
And just plain weird.
I lower the binoculars, flushed with shame that maybe I’m being ridiculous about all of this. Marnie would tell me there’s no maybe about it. I’d feel the same way if it weren’t for the one thing that put me on edge in the first place.
The scream.