One of Us Is Next(62)

“Jesus, Emma.” I don’t know whether to be disgusted or worried, so I settle on both. “What the hell is going on with you?”

I grab some Kleenex from my dresser and bend down to mop up the spill, wincing when my knee connects with something sharp. It’s the edge of Emma’s phone charger, lying useless on the floor since she still hasn’t replaced her phone. She keeps borrowing mine any time she wants to look something up and doesn’t have the laptop handy, which is annoying because—

I pause, damp tissues dangling from one hand. Whenever Emma asks to borrow my phone, I hand it over without question. Half the time, I leave her alone in our room with it. What if she opened my Instagram and saw the messages from Derek? I never deleted them. Is that the kind of thing that might send her spiraling?

“Phoebe?” Emma’s sleepy voice startles me so much that I almost fall over. Her eyes flutter open and lock on me. “What’re you doing?”

“Cleaning up your mess,” I say, sitting back on my haunches. “There’s half a cup of gin on the floor. You’re not actually sick, are you? You’re drunk. Do you even remember that you were supposed to help Mom with Ashton and Eli’s rehearsal dinner?”

Emma blinks slowly at me. “I need to ask you something.”

My frustration rises. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

“Did you love him?” she asks hoarsely.

I swallow hard. Crap. She definitely saw the messages from Derek. “No. That was a huge mistake and it’s over. I wish it had never happened.”

She snorts out a humorless laugh. “I know it’s over. I’m not an idiot. It’s just that I never imagined…I didn’t think…” Her eyes droop, or maybe close. I can’t really tell from this angle.

“Didn’t think what?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, and I get to my feet again, her Bayview Wildcats tumbler in my hand. I’m about to leave when I hear a whisper from Emma’s bed, so faint I almost miss it. “I didn’t think he’d keep going.”

“Keep going with what?” I ask. But the snores start up again, so I guess that’s all I’m going to get out of her for now.

I bring the cup into the bathroom and rinse it thoroughly, adding a few drops of liquid soap until it smells like lemons instead of alcohol. My head is pounding like I’m the one who drank God only knows how much straight gin. When I’m finished, I dry the cup with a hand towel and place it on the back of the toilet. Then I lean against the sink, meeting my tired eyes in the mirror. I don’t know what’s going on with my sister, or what I should do about it. I don’t want to worry Mom when she’s been so much more cheerful lately. I could try talking to Emma’s friend Gillian, maybe, but Gillian pretty much hates me after the whole Derek reveal. When she sees me at school, she looks right through me. There’s nobody else I can turn to who knows Emma well enough to help.

It almost makes me consider messaging Derek back. Almost. But not quite.





CHAPTER TWENTY




Knox

Friday, March 20

Sandeep frowns at the envelope and holds it up to the light. “Yeah, I think it’s the same person who sent the last couple of threats. The label has the exact same font.”

Bethany is perched at the edge of the desk Sandeep and I are sharing. She squints and leans closer. “Font? That looks like handwriting.”

“That’s how it’s designed,” Sandeep says. He reaches into the desk drawer for a Ziploc and drops the envelope inside, squeezing out all the air in the bag and sealing it before he holds it up to Bethany. “But look at the kerning. It’s too even.”

“The what?” Bethany asks.

“Kerning. The spacing between the individual letter forms,” Sandeep explains. “It’s a typography term.”

Bethany rolls her eyes as she gets up and heads back to her desk. “You’re such a nerd.”

“It’s not nerdy to care about fonts!” Sandeep calls after her. “Typography is an art form.”

Bethany sticks her tongue out at him and grabs her bag. “If you say so. I’m out, boys. Don’t stay too late.”

I swivel in my desk chair beside Sandeep. “Aren’t you going to open it? Read what’s inside?”

“Later. When I’m wearing gloves,” he says. I frown, confused—why would he need gloves?—and he adds, “At this point, we’ve gotten enough threats from this particular individual that we need to hand it over to the police. I want to contaminate the envelope as little as possible before then.”

I can’t take my eyes off the envelope. The last note I read is still seared into my brain: I’ll enjoy watching you die. “What do you think this person’s so mad about?” I ask.

“The threats aren’t specific, but if I had to guess, it’s the D’Agostino case,” Sandeep says, so promptly that I can tell he’s thought about this a lot. He pushes the Ziploc bag into one corner of the desk. “People get very angry when police officers are accused of a crime, but that anger is often displaced toward the accuser or the victim. The conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience is well documented.”

“Right,” I say, although I only got about half of that. When Sandeep launches into professor mode, he’s a little hard to follow. Plus I’m distracted, checking my phone for updates. Maeve’s oncology appointment ended four hours ago, and she told me when we left the office that they wouldn’t have results for a while. “They’re rushing it, but it still might take a few days,” she’d said. “Lab hours are hard to predict.” Still, I keep hoping that “rushing it” means “this afternoon.” We’re in the twenty-first century, after all.