Everyone peered at the grainy security image. The familiar fifties lettering of the sign outside the Island Time Café was in the background. The guy in the photo was the same one from the PhotoCircle—and the same one Seneca remembered at the café. The ball cap was pulled low. His head was bent. He was medium height with broad shoulders and a skulking posture.
“Yes,” she said. Everyone else nodded, too. “Was he at the party?”
Grieg crossed his arms over his chest. “Corey Robinson left town with his parents yesterday—his grandfather unexpectedly passed away from a stroke, and they had to attend the funeral. And I don’t think this guy kidnapped anyone. He’s fifteen years old. Can’t even drive.”
Seneca blinked. “Wh-what?”
“Fifteen?” Madison said at the same time.
The cop sighed. “Kate Ruggio, the manager of the Island Time Café, wasn’t lying to you about this guy being a criminal—she was uncomfortable about you asking questions about Corey because she’d hired him to do a forty-hour-a-week job when, as a minor, it isn’t legal. She thought she was going to get in trouble. She says Corey was quiet, hardworking. Well-behaved. Just wanted to save up money so he could go to a survivalist camp next summer.”
“He’s not well-behaved,” Maddox blurted. “We were told he brought guns to his school. Had to go to juvie.”
Grieg glowered at them. “There’s no record of guns or juvenile detention—we checked. You guys need to do your homework a little better.”
Seneca ran her tongue over her lips. “But what about the picture of him and Chelsea together on the sidewalk outside the party? How do you explain that?”
“Mr. Robinson didn’t come clean about being there earlier because, again, the kid’s fifteen—he was scared about what his folks would say about trying to crash a party where there was alcohol.” Grieg stacked his notes neatly. “I’m not happy that he didn’t come forward sooner, but that’s beside the point. He remembers briefly saying hi to Chelsea Dawson, but she was distracted. Said she was texting someone. Barely paid him any attention. Corey left shortly after. Didn’t see anything weird. His father can vouch when he came home to the beach house, and a buddy of his at Wawa who sold him a Mountain Dew can place him there at eleven fifteen p.m. And as for tonight’s events, Mr. Robinson wasn’t even in town, so his involvement is out of the question.”
There was a cold, hollow feeling inside Seneca, as though her stomach had been scooped away with a large spoon. “Oh.” It was so obvious. Brett set this up. How, Seneca wasn’t sure. But he must have.
“We’re really sorry to have wasted your time,” Maddox croaked.
The cop snorted. Seneca hated the pitying, condescending way he was staring at them. “Look,” he said as he stood, “this is police business, okay? Take your little crew and go home, and leave the rest of this to us. We wasted forty-five minutes following up on a fifteen-year-old kid because of you guys.”
There was nothing to do but leave. The blood felt hot in Seneca’s veins as she stood. Someone put a hand on her shoulder, and as she turned, she realized it was Thomas. He looked pained. “As a former cop,” he said in a low voice, “I can honestly say the dude that just questioned us is a major asshat.”
Tears prickled Seneca’s eyes, and suddenly, she felt so weary. “As a former cop, feel free to join us,” she offered. “It looks like we need all the help we can get.”
“I’m in,” Thomas answered.
Then Seneca ducked into the bathroom at the front of the station. There was a cop in one of the stalls, and she shot Seneca a tight, knowing smile as she dried her hands. Maybe everyone knew, Seneca thought. Everyone in town thought she was an idiot. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, keeping her expression neutral until the woman left. Only then did she let her composure crumble. She stuck her whole head under the faucet, though it did little to cool down her blazing cheeks.
She doubted anything would.
A SQUAD CAR dropped everyone off at the gates of the B&B. Before the vehicle pulled away, Madison asked the officer if it would be dangerous if she ran to Wawa, which was only a block to the east. The officer, a youngish guy who seemed to perk up whenever Madison spoke to him, said that he’d escort her, and so she slid back into the front seat, taking Wawa orders. But Seneca couldn’t fathom eating anything. Her stomach felt like a numb, hollowed-out pit, too ravaged for food ever again.
She closed the door of her room and stood on the rug. In some ways, she was grateful for the temporary solitude. After locking the windows and checking on the surveillance camera, she walked over to the minibar in the kitchen, slid in some cash, and wrenched it open. The mini bottle of Stoli burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes and unfortunately didn’t make her feel much better. She pulled out another bottle and drank it just as fast. Then she returned to her room, crawled to the bed, and stared dizzily at the ceiling.
Her heart beat strongly and loudly in her chest. Her limbs felt exhausted, and all she wanted to do was sleep, but whenever she closed her eyes, the only thing she saw was Jeff being covered with a sheet and loaded onto that stretcher. Why had Brett gone after him? What had Jeff found out? Would she ever know the answer?
The door creaked open. Seneca squinted, figuring it was Madison, when suddenly she felt her mattress shift. Had Madison climbed into the bed with her?
A large, rough hand pushed her down. “Don’t you dare move.”
Seneca’s veins turned to molten lava. She knew that voice. Brett.
His dark shape loomed above her. Seneca couldn’t make out any of his features, but she knew without a doubt it was him.
She pivoted on her side, desperate to switch on a light. Brett clamped down on her wrist. “You move, and you’re dead. You scream, and you’re dead. Got it?”
Seneca let out a shaky nod. She glanced toward the vague outline of the door to the hall. Please, someone hear. Maddox. Bertha. That damn ineffective dog. But the little B&B remained still. Quiet. Dark. Disinterested.
“So listen.” Brett’s breath was hot, and he had a familiar tangy smell about him. Bug spray, maybe. Lemon. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured me out yet. You thought I was a fifteen-year-old kid? Really?” He sucked his teeth. “It just goes to show who’s the real mastermind.”
Seneca shifted her weight, and Brett moved right with her, digging his nails into her wrist. “But the game’s taking too long, okay? So I’m going to speed it up. That bitch is still alive, but you have to find her by noon on Friday. After that, she’s dead. I’ll even help you—I’ll give you some clues. Your time starts now.”
His body lifted away. Seneca sprang up instantly, but Brett pushed her back to the bed. She let out a surprised squeal.
“Noon on Friday,” Brett hissed. “Thirty-six hours. See you on the other side. Or not.”
His footsteps creaked away. Seneca sprang up again, but the adrenaline was zooming frantically through her veins, and she felt light-headed. Her knees buckled, and she grabbed on to the bedpost to steady herself. By the time she was on her feet, it was too late. Brett had bolted into the night.
AERIN HAD JUST gotten into bed, but she jolted up at a loud sound. Someone was pounding on the door.
Details from the night pressed at her temples. Thomas in the mask, begging that she speak to him. Jeff lying lifeless in the weeds behind that Dumpster. That weird scene at the police station. Being wrong, so wrong, about Corey.
Brett still being out there. Killing again.
Someone jolted up from the floor, and Aerin realized it was Thomas, who’d crashed with them instead of heading back to his motel a few towns over. Across the room, Maddox leapt from the divan and threw on a T-shirt. He peered through the peephole, then relaxed and pulled the door open. Seneca burst in, mumbling hysterically. Madison followed her in tears. “I came back from Wawa and Seneca was lying in a ball and I didn’t know what else to do!” Madison cried.
Aerin scrambled over the bed to Seneca, who was looking at all of t
hem with wide, glazed eyes. “Seneca, what happened?”
Seneca’s lips twitched. And then, to Aerin’s horror, she uttered a single word: “Brett.”
Aerin felt her heart go still. “What?” Thomas whispered.
“H-he was here.” Seneca crawled to Aerin’s bed. Her hands were shaking. “In my room. He threatened me. He said we had thirty-six hours to find Chelsea, or she was dead.”
Aerin exchanged a spooked look with Maddox and Madison, then turned back to Seneca. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
“What did he look like?” Maddox asked at the same time.
Seneca shook her head. “I couldn’t tell. I didn’t see anything. But it was his voice.”
“I got the surveillance camera down from the window,” Madison said, opening her palm and showing off the tiny device. “But it seems…disabled, somehow. The green light isn’t flashing.”
Seneca sounded so dazed. “I was so out of it when I was in my room. If he knew where it was, he could have reached up and switched it off before climbing into my bed.”
Maddox winced. “Jesus,” Thomas whispered. Aerin was grateful for his strong fingers entwined with hers. They made her feel—well, not safe, exactly, but at least they kept her from fainting.
“We have to tell Officer Grieg, right?” Aerin said shakily. “Maybe Brett slipped up and left a fingerprint. Maybe someone saw him come in.”
“But the cops already think we’re crackpots,” Maddox grumbled. “If we call them now, they’ll think we’re crying wolf.”
Madison shut her eyes. “Can we at least leave this B and B?”
“We should definitely leave,” Seneca agreed. She ran her hands down the length of her face. “You guys, who is Brett? We were so close to him tonight. He isn’t Corey, but there are still other things we know. Like his eye color. And he’s connected with the B and B somehow. And Jeff figured out who he was—it’s why Brett pushed him off that terrace. So who does that leave?”
Aerin hugged her pillow tightly. “Do you think Jeff told anyone else what he suspected? Maybe we could text one of his friends?”
“But what if the friend we text is Brett?” Seneca countered. Then she looked at Aerin. “At the party tonight. Can you think of who was around when you saw Brett? That will at least rule out who he isn’t.”
Aerin tried to think, but her brain felt mushy and slow. “That girl named Gwen,” she said slowly. “And…and maybe Alistair? And some girls who liked my bag?” She looked at Thomas hopefully, but he just shrugged. “I don’t know anyone’s name,” he said. “All I remember is that there were a few Napoleons wandering around.”
“Great.” Maddox sounded frustrated. “Anyone who was Napoleon isn’t Brett.”
“I’m sorry,” Aerin protested. “I’m trying to think…but it all happened so fast, and…” She waved her hands helplessly, frustrated at all she couldn’t remember, irritated how everyone’s eyes were on her, waiting for the answer.
Shrugging, Maddox reached for an iPad from his bag and tapped an app. “Maybe we need to go back to the beginning. I bet by tomorrow we can set up a PhotoCircle from tonight’s party, but until then, we have the last party—the one Chelsea was at. Brett was there, too. Look through these faces, Aerin. Tell us who you saw at the same time you saw Brett and who you didn’t see.”
The PhotoCircle popped up. Aerin scrolled through the images, pointing out various girls and guys who she was pretty sure weren’t on the scene the moment Brett’s dark shape had appeared—but even so, her memory felt muddled and unreliable. Coupled with the crushing exhaustion and edgy, buzzing adrenaline, she wasn’t sure what was real anymore and what was a dream. Wearily, she swiped through pictures of Brianna Morton and her friends until she got to the blurry picture with Corey and Chelsea in the background. Aerin stared at it a moment, glassy-eyed and tired, and then swiped once more. Then her mind caught. She scrolled back and squinted, suddenly sure of something. “There’s something weird about this picture.”
Maddox leaned in. “What?”
She pointed to the smiling girls in the foreground, then Corey and Chelsea out the window. “Everyone is in focus. Most cameras can’t do that.”
Thomas leaned back. “Most…or all?”
“I think a trained photographer can make everything in focus, even at different depths. But a camera phone can’t handle it. And certainly not a person at a party handling a camera phone. It’s doubtful, anyway. I wonder if this was Photoshopped.”
Madison’s eyes were large. “How?”
Aerin leaned in. She’d hooked up with a kid from the local arts school last year, and it wasn’t like she’d wanted a lesson in photo retouching, but he’d gone straight back to his Mac post-kissing, and she’d been bored. “Someone could have taken a picture of Chelsea and Corey on the street and dropped it into Brianna’s photo, making it look accidental. Someone could have even taken a photo of Corey and Chelsea separately, then put them together in Photoshop, making it look like they were talking. I’m not even sure the photo of them was taken from this same window. The perspective seems a little weird.”
“So theoretically,” Maddox said slowly, a skeptical look on his face, “Brett could have taken a photo of Chelsea, or even of Chelsea and Corey, from somewhere else—wherever he was hiding. But then dropped it into this photo, which matches our timeline and incriminates Corey.”
“Exactly,” Aerin said.
“But it says the picture is from Brianna’s phone,” Madison argued. “How could Brett have gotten access to her pictures?”
“It can be done,” Thomas piped up. “I’ve seen savvy hackers do all kinds of things.”
“Maybe he was watching photos pop up on our stream.” Seneca shifted on the bed, making the springs creak. “When he saw this shot, he grabbed it, dropped in Corey and Chelsea, and figured out a way to post as her.”
Maddox made a face. “That seems too coincidental. Brett would have had to freeze time, practically, to find just the right photo, do Photoshop magic on it, and hack into our stream to make it look like this was coming from Brianna’s account.”
“But the more I look at it, the more I’m sure it was Photoshopped,” Aerin said, staring at the images until her vision blurred. “So how is that possible?”
Madison looked up. “Wait. When we called J.T., he mentioned another PhotoCircle, didn’t he?”
Seneca narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
“You’re right.” Aerin filled Seneca in on the call with J.T., which she’d missed because she’d been outside with Jeff. “J.T. sounded annoyed, like this was wasting everyone’s time. Maybe the cops—or another friend—asked for a PhotoCircle before we did. And everyone joined that PhotoCircle, uploaded their pictures. Is it possible?”
“No one else mentioned another PhotoCircle, but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” Seneca said. “We should take a look. I bet Brianna’s picture is in that one, too. And maybe Brett saw that photo and realized he could use it to set Corey up. I don’t know how he broke into her account again and slipped the doctored photo in her camera roll, but he might have had days to do that, not minutes. That seems more likely, right?”
Maddox laced his fingers across the back of his head. “So you’re saying Brett planned to set up Corey from the start, then?”
Seneca nodded. “I think so. For other reasons, too. When I pointed Corey out to Jeff, Jeff had a rumor ready about him—about the guns. But the cops said it wasn’t true.”
Aerin felt her heart start to pound. “That rumor threw suspicion on Corey—for us and everyone else. Could Brett have started it to set up Corey?”
Maddox squinted. “We need to figure out who started the rumor, then. Because if we do…”
“It’ll lead us to Brett,” Seneca finished.
Aerin grabbed her phone, suddenly feeling energized. “Who can we ask? Alistair? Kona? Gabriel?”
“What about Jeff’s brother?” Seneca asked. “Jeff knew the rumor—Marcus probably does, too. I
have his number.”
“I don’t know?” Aerin asked uneasily. “His brother just died.”
“This could lead to his brother’s killer,” Seneca urged. “Though, good point. Maybe just send a text? And if he doesn’t reply, we can try someone else?”
Seneca scrolled through her phone and found Marcus’s name. Aerin listened to the double ping of the message zinging into the ether, then stood and pulled up the shades. The sun was just rising, streaking the sky with whitish-pink clouds. A few seagulls stood in the front yard, pecking at something on the grass. Two joggers passed, shoes cheerfully slapping against the pavement.
“Wait a minute,” Seneca said suddenly.
Aerin turned. Seneca’s brow was knit in concentration. Her hands lay calmly in her lap. “When Brett attacked me tonight, he mentioned that we thought he was a fifteen-year-old boy. But we never said Corey’s name out loud at the party. I can’t see how he’d know what we said to the cops in that interrogation room unless he bugged the police station. The only other place we talked about him freely was at Island Time—but I didn’t see anyone around there watching. It was so early. But we did talk about Corey a lot when we were first looking through the PhotoCircles. Where were we?”
Madison frowned. “At those condos. On Gabriel Wilton’s back deck.”
Seneca nodded, like she already knew. “And did you notice any cameras there? Microphones?”
Madison laughed nervously. “Why? Do you think the place was bugged?”
“Why would Brett bug a random kid’s condo?” Maddox asked.
Aerin suddenly understood where Seneca was going. Was it possible? She shuddered, then glanced over her shoulder, fearful Brett was standing there, watching. It wasn’t so unimaginable, maybe. After all, he’d been in front of them all along.
Seneca’s phone buzzed. She scrambled to wake up the screen. “Marcus,” she whispered, and then looked at the text. Her eyes widened. Wordlessly, she turned the phone around for the others to see. But Aerin didn’t have to read it. She already knew.
I remember exactly who told me those rumors. Gabriel Wilton.