One of Us Is Next(29)
She answers right away. Café Contigo.
Want some company?
Always.
There’s a bus sitting in traffic a few yards ahead of me, and I jog to make it to the stop as it pulls up. My phone is still in my hand as I board, and it buzzes when I sit next to an old woman with tight gray curls. She beams at me as I dig out my earphones and plug them into my phone, giving her a polite smile before I stuff the buds into my ears. Not today, Florence.
Imagine Dragons blasts while I read a text from Kiersten. Download this. New messaging app for family chats. I follow the link for something called ChatApp. The icon is a text bubble surrounded by a lock.
Never heard of it, I text back. What’s wrong with the ten apps I already have?
Kiersten sends a shrug emoji. Idk. Kelsey wants it. Syncs easier with her laptop or something. Our middle sister is a technology dinosaur who prefers messaging via computer instead of phone. Better privacy, too.
Oh good. Wouldn’t want Katie’s top-secret wedding details to leak.
Ha. Ha. Did Wing Zone fix the chicken yet?
Yes, it’s fully a chicken once more. With a leprechaun hat in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day. Kiersten replies with six laughing emojis and a couple of shamrocks.
I finish downloading the new app, and once I sign up I see four invitations waiting for me, from Kiersten, Katie, Kelsey, and Kara. I’m not ready for the sisterly deluge, though, and exit the app without accepting any of them. It’s practically my stop anyway, so I get up and make my way to the doors, hanging on to a pole for balance as we lurch toward the sidewalk.
Café Contigo is just a block away from the bus stop. When I get inside Maeve is at her usual corner table, a cup of coffee in front of her and her phone in one hand. I pull out my earbuds and take the seat across from her. “What’s up?”
She lays her phone down on the table. It vibrates twice. “Not much. How was work?”
I don’t want to get into the death threats just yet. I’d rather not think about them. I gesture to her phone, which vibrates again. “Do you need to get that?”
“No. It’s just Bronwyn, sending pictures from some play she’s watching. The set’s really great, apparently.”
“Is she into that kind of thing?”
“She thinks I am. Because I did a play once.” Maeve shakes her head in amused exasperation. “She and my mom are exactly alike. Any time I show the slightest interest in something, they hope it’s my new life’s passion.”
A waiter comes by, a tall, thin college student named Ahmed, and I order a Sprite. I wait until he walks away to ask, “How’s Bronwyn doing after that whole mess on Friday? Did she and Nate break up again?”
“I’m not sure you can break up when you never officially got back together,” Maeve says, resting her chin in her hand with a sigh. “Bronwyn’s not talking about it. Well, she talked about it at length on Saturday, but now that she’s back at Yale she’s totally clammed up about Nate. I swear to God, that place short-circuits all her emotions or something.” She takes a sip of coffee and makes a wry face. “She thinks Nate was into it. The kiss from Jules, I mean. Which wasn’t my read on the situation at all, but Bronwyn won’t listen.”
“Did you tell her it was part of a game?”
“I tried.” Maeve bites her lip. “I didn’t want to go into too much detail, because she’d freak if she knew there was even a slight connection to Simon. And she was already so upset about Nate. That stupid picture Monica took was all over social media this weekend. Which reminds me…I’ve been meaning to show you something.” Maeve swipes at her phone a few times, then holds it out to me. “I found this the other day. You remember that revenge forum Simon used to post on?” I nod. “Well, this is a new version, except now the posts disappear after a few hours.”
“What?” My eyebrows shoot up as I take her phone. “How do you know that?”
“I found it when I was searching Simon’s old user name last week. There was a post a while back that mentioned Bayview, and something about a game.” She drums her fingers restlessly on the table. “I can’t remember exactly what it said. I wish I’d taken a screenshot, but I didn’t know then that the posts disappear.”
I scan the handful of posts on the page. Somebody named Jellyfish is seriously pissed off at his teacher. “Okay, so…you think what, exactly? That this Jellyfish person is running the Truth or Dare game?”
“Not him specifically,” Maeve says. “That guy seems to have a one-track mind. But maybe that other poster is involved. It’s weird, don’t you think? That the texting game starts by referencing Simon, and then this revenge forum pops up and does the same thing?”
“I guess,” I say uncertainly. Seems kind of tenuous, but then again, Maeve knows a lot more about tracking vengeful gossips than I do.
“I should set up a monitoring service or something. Like PingMe,” she says thoughtfully. At my puzzled expression, she adds, “A tool that notifies you when a website updates. It’s faster than a Google Alert. Then I could keep track of these disappearing conversations.”
Her eyes get a faraway look. Even though I think she’s getting way too obsessed over a random Internet post, I can tell she won’t listen if I tell her so. Instead, I hand back her phone without comment. When she takes it, her sleeve pulls up on her arm, exposing an angry-looking purple bruise. “Ouch, how’d you get that?” I ask.