There were options I hadn’t exhausted yet, avenues I hadn’t explored. Like Nana—I’d try harder, see what she’d offer up about her granddaughter’s mental-health history. Or I could call Second Chance Antiques and beg Greta for more stories.
But when I snatched my phone off the sofa, Kristen’s text still stared back at me: “Hey, remember what I said in my birthday card. Read it, remember it, believe it. We’re in this together.”
Something had been bugging me about the card—it read a bit stiffly, especially toward the end. Less like how Kristen normally talked, and more like one of her…
What had I done with it? I dug around in the pile of mail on my kitchen table, then found it in a tote bag in my bedroom:
Dear Emily,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It’s hard to believe we’ve been friends for 10+ years. I can’t imagine my life without you—in a way, I guess I owe those douchebags in our Stats 101 class a thank-you. I’m so proud of the smart, strong, independent woman you’ve become. And I count myself so lucky that, after 2 years apart, we’ll finally live in the same city again!
I’ve been thinking back to those late nights when we’d sneak out at 4 or 5 am and splash in the water and then watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan together. Remember that? When we’d feel like we were the only ones awake in the whole world. When we’d feel like not just Evanston but the entire world was ours. When we would dry right off—perfectly, boldly ourselves.
XOXO,
Kristen
PS If you ever forget how amazing you are, you know who to call. Because I never, ever forget, and I’d be honored to count the ways.
PPS Last line of the day, promise!
“Last line of the day”—why not “last clue” or “last surprise” or similar? Because she was referring to the last line of the card, the one that sounded a bit wonky. I ran it through her usual codes and had it in seconds. “Dry right off—perfectly, boldly ourselves. X” D-R-O-P-B-O-X.
My pulse surged, pushing out against my fingers and throat. Dropbox—we occasionally used the hosting site to share files, mostly trip photos siphoned from our digital cameras. The URL of her Dropbox account filled in automatically.
My heart had reached my ears now, whooshing like the surf, like a deafening snare drum. I scanned through the folders there: work stuff, camera uploads, dated subfolders bursting with pictures from some of our earlier travels. And then my breath caught: There was a new folder, created on my birthday, labeled Chile.
Relax, Emily—it’s probably just, duh, photos from Chile.
But we hadn’t shared our photos from that trip, hadn’t created a shared album and compared shots. I steeled myself, then clicked.
There was another folder inside, this one labeled Phnom Penh. A squall of hysteria rose through me and I crouched over, prepared to vomit. What. The hell. Was this.
I clicked again, and a pop-up appeared: File is password-protected. Beneath it, a field with a blinking cursor. I tried Emily, Quiteria, Paolo, Sebastian. I thought about texting Kristen, but fear held me back. Could she tell I was trying to access the file now? That I’d realized I hadn’t completed her little treasure hunt?
I grabbed the card, pressed it open at the spine.
PS If you ever forget how amazing you are, you know who to call. Because I never, ever forget, and I’d be honored to count the ways.
Counting—that was the clue. And come to think of it, we hadn’t met in Stats 101; it was Statistical Methods in Economics. The card was riddled with numerals, and I underlined them hastily:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It’s hard to believe we’ve been friends for 10+ years. I can’t imagine my life without you—in a way, I guess I owe those douchebags in our Stats 101 class a thank-you. I’m so proud of the smart, strong, independent woman you’ve become. And I count myself so lucky that, after 2 years apart, we’ll finally live in the same city again!
I’ve been thinking back to those late nights when we’d sneak out at 4 or 5 am and splash in the water and then watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan together. Remember that? When we’d feel like we were the only ones awake in the whole world. When we’d feel like not just Evanston but the entire world was ours. When we would dry right off—perfectly, boldly ourselves.
I input the numbers, breathing hard, and hit Enter.
My shoulders slumped. Incorrect password; please try again.
I returned to the card one more time. Screw you, Kristen, for taking what I thought was a sweet sentiment and turning it into a riddle. Like this is all a game.
Aha—relief like a key slipping into a lock. When we’d feel like we were the only ones awake in the whole world.
I tried the combination again, this time with a 1 at the end. I smiled, almost clapped, when the file began to download.
I watched the progress bar slide to the right, then opened it eagerly.
It filled the screen. It took me a moment to make sense of it, the dizzying colors, overexposed whites and blacks and colorful blobs at funny angles.
And then it took form. The blobs were lanterns, strung across a busy street. There were people everywhere, bustling to and fro, but in the center were two shapes, clear and crisp in the swirling night scene.
One of them was Sebastian, handsome and alive and smiling as he touched my waist. The other, of course, was me.
CHAPTER 29
My fist flew to my mouth as my feet scrambled beneath me, pounding down the hallway and making it to the bathroom just in time. It all came up, dinner and more, deeper down into me, the bitter bile of my true insides. Sweat and tears and snot streamed out, too, and then I leaned against the tub, eyes closed, chest heaving.
That night. That night. I’d pictured that moment so many times in my mind’s eye, a split second after Sebastian and I had agreed to go back to the hotel, when a sudden flash had blinded me. I’d always thought it was an accidental photobomb, that we were in the background of some stranger’s vacation photo, and if the right person noticed and connected the dots, I’d be screwed. There it was, in vivid color: proof that I’d been with Sebastian right before he went missing.
But…Kristen. Kristen had taken it. Kristen had had it all along.
It was a threat, then. A reminder that she had dirt on me. I glanced around for my phone, then remembered it was all the way in my bedroom. But she’d been coy in our text conversation tonight, walking the knife’s edge between sweet and suspect. Something like, Remember what I wrote in the card, believe it—we’re in this together. If I go down, you do too.
I gathered my energy like it was something I could mop up off the floor. On shaking legs, I staggered to my room. The photo was still staring out from my screen and I X’ed out of it. Christ, she’d had it for over a year. She hadn’t deleted it back when we promised not to leave a trace. Instead she’d been waiting to deploy it. As what—collateral? Blackmail?
Another violent shudder rushed through me. Shit. She’d set this mousetrap on my birthday, an entire week ago. Right before I began to wonder if I should sever ties from her for good.
As if she’d known. Claws out. She whipped out the trump card, the proof that I’d never, ever be out from under her thumb.
There was something else thrumming beneath the horror, something brighter, and it suddenly boomed into the forefront: I was oddly satisfied, almost thrilled, to have my answer. I wasn’t paranoid, and my anxiety hadn’t been unfounded. Was Kristen deranged? Disturbed and manipulative, at minimum. She’d killed Sebastian; she’d killed Paolo. Why was I twisting myself into a knot debating if that made her a killer?