People Like Us(29)

Her eyes narrow. “Like hacking away at a soccer ball is such an achievement.”

I bite my lip. “I wasn’t laughing. It sounds really hard.”

“Monkeys can do what you do. They can’t do what I do. That’s all I’m saying.”

I nod. “Agreed. Can we look at the website, please?”

She flounces down on the bed and gazes up at the ceiling. “Have you thought this through, Kay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the website is going after your friends. First Tai, then Tricia. Do you really want to tempt fate?”

“I have to.”

She lifts her head and props herself up on her elbows, her hair falling over her shoulders like a dark curtain. “Why?”

Because Jessica knew what I did, and if I don’t follow her rules, so will everyone else. “Because I might be next on Jessica’s list.”

She leans toward me conspiratorially. “What did she have on you?”

I shrug. “Maybe nothing.”

“She had something on everyone on the list. Maybe one of them is the killer.”

“Or maybe the simplest explanation is the true one. She killed herself and wanted revenge on everyone who wronged her.”

“The police don’t think so.”

“The police don’t know about the revenge blog. And they can’t find out.”

“You told me you needed my help getting into the website because Jessica left a message for you there.”

“The website is the message. She wanted revenge.”

“Why ask you to do it? It’s a huge favor to ask someone you never met.”

“That’s the question.”

Nola’s eyes cut right through me. “Is there something you did to her? Maybe something you’ve forgotten? Something you didn’t even think twice about? Anything?”

I shake my head and tell what feels like my hundredth lie of the day. “None of us ever spoke to her before she turned up dead. She was a nobody.”

Nola shrugs. “Maybe that’s what you did. No one wants to be a nobody.” She opens her laptop and I sit next to her as she pulls up the website and the software to decode the password for the next recipe.

As she rests on her elbow, her hair falls over one shoulder and her dress slides down a little. I notice a blooming of black ink on her right shoulder blade.

I kneel on the side of her bed. “Do you have a tattoo?”

She glances at me over her shoulder. “No. I draw the same picture on my own back every morning, let it fade over the course of the day, scrub off the remnants in the shower, and painstakingly re-create it ad nauseam. I make a game of it.”

“Obviously.”

She pulls her dress slightly farther down her shoulder so I can get a better look. It’s an intricate drawing of an old clock face with no hands.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s art. If I explain it, the point is lost. You don’t ask a painter to explain . . . Never mind.” She pulls her dress back up hurriedly and her face looks flushed.

“I’m sorry. To hear Ms. Koeppler talk, art always means something.”

She smiles and brushes my hair out of my face almost the way Brie would when I say something that reveals my ignorance about something she considers herself an expert on. “It does. But the work of art itself is the artist’s statement. The rest is up to the viewer.” She drops her hand suddenly, as if remembering that I’m off limits or something. It takes me a moment to remember that I’m technically not. I still feel guilty, though, and check my phone to see if Brie has texted after her stormy exit from the dining hall. Nothing.

The password appears and Nola enters it and clicks on the link for the palate cleanser course.

New Orleans, LA Blood Orange Sorbet

Had an orange, squeezed it pale

Beat it bloody, left no trail

Led it in the woods for lost

Left it in the snow to frost

Thought no one would ever know?

I captured the orange snow.

There are several files attached of what looks like drops of bright-red blood on snow.

Nola’s face turns chalk white. “It’s me,” she whispers. “Jessica was after me, too.”

I read the words again. “I don’t see it.” Then the title hits me. New Orleans, LA. NOLA. “What did you do?”

“She couldn’t know. She couldn’t.” Nola is breathing so hard, she’s practically hyperventilating, so I hand her a pillow.

“Hug this. Deep, slow breaths.” I read the poem again. “I thought Jessica was only going after my friends.”

Nola clutches the pillow to her chest, breathing slower. “Apparently not.”

“But it’s a revenge blog. Tai and Tricia make sense. Even if they don’t remember her, all of my friends have said and done things to other students that we regret. And if we didn’t regret it then, we sure as hell do it now.” I avoid Nola’s eyes. “You don’t fit that pattern.”

“I might.” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “I may not have agreed to help you out of pure benevolence. After seeing the first recipe, that is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There is one thing that ties me to you, Tai, and Tricia. And Jessica.”