Like a Sister(76)

“Damn. Zarah opened it twice,” Erin said. “That’s the max before it disappears forever. Makes me think the video isn’t on Desiree’s phone, though, because any videos you upload from your camera roll don’t disappear. So it was something recorded elsewhere—probably from someone else’s phone or a laptop or something.”

It was like CSI: Instagram, except I clearly wasn’t going to figure this out in sixty minutes. I sat on my bed. Something else wasn’t adding up. “Did Desiree tell you about any large deposits to her bank account?”

She looked up. “No. How large?”

“Quarter of a million. She had an ATM receipt in her wallet.”

“I told you. We need to talk to Zarah.”

I thought of Zarah and Desiree, but not the perfectly made-up, Photoshopped, and filtered women the world knew. Instead, I remembered the first time I saw them together at Gram’s house. I’d come over to find Desiree and Zarah on the couch, staring at Desiree’s phone, giggling over some boy, finishing each other’s sentences. Unlike with Erin, I hadn’t felt jealous when I saw them. I’d felt like I was getting two sisters instead of one.

“Wouldn’t the money mean Zarah paid her?” I said, hopeful.

But Erin wouldn’t let up. “Weren’t you supposed to meet up with her?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“We didn’t talk much because her doctor gave her something strong. She’s been depressed since Desiree died.”

“Or avoiding you.”

Was she? Could Zarah have killed Desiree over a DUI? If Zarah’d paid Desiree’s blackmail, had that left no reason for anything more extreme to happen? And yet Desiree had sent the video after she’d gotten the deposit. Hours before she’d met someone here in the Bronx and died. None of it made sense, and as much as I hated to admit it, Erin was right. The only person who could explain it all was Zarah.

I sent Zarah a quick text. Meet tonight?

I waited for the telltale bubbles to pop up, knowing they represented more than someone composing a text. They would be proof Zarah wasn’t as involved in this as Erin was alleging.

While I’d been working my cell, Erin was doing the same. Desiree’s phone sat between us. “I DMed Zarah’s finsta,” Erin said. “She read it. No response.”

She showed me. The message was just a quick How you holding up? The word “Seen” appeared under it. I still had Zarah pulled up, so I tapped her name and hit AUDIO. I wasn’t expecting her to answer, just to let it ring before going to voice mail. But she didn’t even give me that courtesy. It barely rang once before the automated message kicked in. She’d hit IGNORE.

By the time I heard the beep, I was pissed. I hung up. While I was brooding, Erin was searching Desiree’s phone again. I snatched it from her. Protective. “What are you doing?”

“We need proof before we talk to her. Hopefully someone from the bar will remember something but maybe not. There has to be something here.”

“I checked,” I said but still opened Desiree’s camera roll. Last night the goal had been proving Erin wrong. Now I wanted to prove her right.

But there wasn’t anything. Not in the finsta messages. Not on the camera roll. Not in their iMessages. The last messages were the same. The makeup and link to the Omni website.

“Click on it,” Erin said.

“It’s just a link to where the party was.” iPhones show a preview. The address was right there.

She tapped it herself. I wanted to break her finger. Sure enough, the Omni webpage popped up. Staring Erin down, I X’d out. She looked away. Point proven, I was about to close Safari when I noticed the GoFundMe site. Safari keeps track of pages you visited, displaying each open in a new tab. Desiree had been looking at a post for help with funeral expenses for someone named Kevin House.

There was an old blurry photo. A Black guy with his arm around a little girl who looked just like him. They’d raised $25,845 of their $12,000 goal. Just below the DONATE NOW button was the creation date: June 15, 2017.

“That’s the month after Desiree’s DUI,” I said, pulling it up to full screen. There weren’t any details about how he’d died, just the donations. One hundred bucks from a Nadine Jenkinson. Twenty-five from a Dillon Rookers. A whopping fifteen thousand dollars from Anonymous.

“You recognize the name?” Erin said.

“No.” Desiree’d never mentioned a Kevin House. But it could have been an old teacher. A friend’s dad. Even just the wrong link.

So I searched online for “Kevin House” and “death.”

The Daily News popped up, the story ironically written by Stuart. HOMELESS MAN FOUND DEAD IN HIT-AND-RUN.

Things clicked into place.

Desiree’s car hadn’t just hit a pole that night.

If someone else really had been driving, here was a very good reason to keep her quiet.

*



My wrist throbbed the entire forty-five-minute subway ride to Zarah’s place in Tribeca. So much so, my body began to normalize the feeling. Go numb.

No one answered when we rang the buzzer. Zarah was hiding or not home. We camped out on the stoop of the closed art gallery next door, Erin calmly sipping coffee she’d picked up down the block. I hadn’t gone with her, rooted to my spot, not even able to blink.