An Anonymous Girl(83)

But I can’t leave yet. Not until I finish photographing the pages. I flip them as fast as possible, alert for any noise that could indicate someone is approaching the town house. After I’ve turned the last page, with several underlines beneath my words He’s a hundred percent devoted to you, I straighten them all, tapping the edges against the desk to make sure they are aligned. I slip them back into the manila folder.

Then I pick up April’s file.

It seems a little thinner than mine.

I dread opening it; it feels like lifting aside a rock, knowing a tarantula might lurk beneath it. But I’m not photographing it just because Thomas wants the information. I need to know what it contains, too.

The very first page looks identical to the one in my folder. April’s grainy photograph stares out at me from her driver’s license, her too-big eyes making her appear startled. Beneath the photocopy are her biographical details: full name, date of birth, and address.

I snap a picture, then turn to the next piece of paper.

There, in Dr. Shields’s flowing blue script, is the answer I desperately need. April entered Dr. Shields’s study and became Subject 5 on May 19.

Fifteen days before that, on May 4, April posted the photograph of Thomas in her bed on Instagram.

Even if she’d taken the picture of Thomas days or weeks before and waited to post it, her encounter with him came before she entered Dr. Shields’s study.

Thomas is the one who drew in April.

I suck in a sharp breath. My gut was wrong; he is the more dangerous of the two.

I stare at the date again to make sure I’m getting the facts correct. The one thing that’s now clear is that my story no longer mirrors April’s. Dr. Shields couldn’t have used April to test Thomas, like she did me.

It’s also apparent that April didn’t remain one of Dr. Shields’s subjects for long. She’d only answered a few survey questions and didn’t even go back for the second session. Why did she stop?

Thomas is the only person who knows I’m in the town house. And if he’s the one who orchestrated the events that led to April’s death, then I’m not safe.

I need to get out of here. I finish going through the file, snapping photos of the notes as quickly as I can. The second-to-last page is titled Conversation with Jodi Voss, October 2. And then there is only one piece of paper left.

It’s a certified letter dated only a week after Dr. Shields met with Mrs. Voss on April’s birthday. It’s addressed to Dr. Shields.

A few lines sear themselves into my vision as I wait for my phone camera to focus: Investigating the death . . . Katherine April Voss . . . family requests voluntary release of notes . . . Possible subpoena . . .

This is what Mrs. Voss must have been alluding to when she told me she’d never stop looking for answers. She’d hired a private investigator to help her find them.

I close the file and center it directly beneath mine, just the way Dr. Shields left it. I have everything I need. Though I still want to look around for more clues since I know I’ll never have this opportunity again, I have to leave now.

I retrace my steps back to the staircase, moving much faster than I did on the way up. In the entranceway I slip on my shoes, reset the alarm, and ease open the door. I tuck the key beneath the mat and stand up. No neighbors are within sight. Even if they glimpsed me, all they’d see is someone in a dark coat and hat casually walking down the front steps.

I don’t breathe easily until I’ve rounded the corner.

Then I collapse against the cold metal of a street lamp, my hand still clutching my phone in my pocket. I can’t believe I got away with it. I didn’t leave any evidence behind—no lights switched on, no dirt tracked on the pristine carpets, not even a single traceable fingerprint. There’s no way Dr. Shields can ever know I broke into her house.

But I find myself examining my movements in my mind again and again, just to make sure.


After I am safely home, with my own door locked behind me and the nightstand wedged against it, I start thinking about Mrs. Voss. She believes the file on April holds the truth about why her daughter killed herself. She’s so desperate to get it that she hired a private investigator.

But Thomas, who claims he only slept with April once, seems just as eager to see the file.

A part of me wonders if I should anonymously send the photos to the investigator, and let the chips fall. But that might not solve anything, and Thomas would know who gave up the file.

When it comes down to it, I’ve only got myself to rely on.

I wrote that line in Dr. Shields’s survey on my first session. It has never seemed more true than right now.

So before I e-mail Thomas the photographs of April’s file, I’m going to study them.

I have to figure out why hiding his connection to Subject 5 is so important to him.





CHAPTER


FIFTY-SEVEN


Saturday, December 22

How are you spending this evening, Jessica? Are you with the handsome man in the navy coat with red zippers that you embraced in front of the restaurant last night?

Perhaps he will be the one who will finally enable you to experience true love. Not the storybook version. The real kind, which sustains through phases of dark, until the return to light.

You may already know what it feels like to sit beside him at a booth, across from another couple, and bask in utter contentment. Perhaps he is highly attentive to your well-being, as Thomas is to mine. He might signal the waiter for a refill of your beverage the moment before your glass is emptied. His hand may find reasons to touch you.