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But no . . . she’ll know. Hopefully.
I hurry to the train and take it back toward home.
I would certainly know it was her if I got that text signed with anI.
I’m one glass of pinot grigio in when the phone rings—a strange, shrill jangle that confuses me until my gaze falls on the prepaid. That area code I’d recognize anywhere. I grab the phone, press it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Elizabeth—”
“Wait.” Words threaten to spill from my mouth, but first I have to be sure. “This is a safe line?”
“I borrowed my mother-in-law’s phone. She’s practically a saint.”
My blood pressure comes down a notch, but still, I reach across the table for my wine, take a swig.
“What happened? Why . . .” A pause. “Why?” she says. “We made a pact.”
I knock back another swallow of wine. Good thing I opened a fresh bottle. I steel my nerves and just say it. “Someone knows. Someone besides us.”
“Someone—” Her voice cuts off.
The silence between us feels heavy.
“That’s not possible,” she says. “You know it’s not. It was only me, you, and—well, he certainly can’t tell anyone.” In the background, a child yells—a reminder that she has a life. A life she wants to protect. Surely she wouldn’t have told anyone, right?
“I would have said the same thing untila couple weeks ago.” I give her the abbreviated version—that I’m teaching a class, that first chapters came in, that a Hannah Greer justhappenedto write the story of what happened all those years ago and all of the details are the same as what Jocelyn described, down to the yellow finch. “It’s exactly the same.Exactly.And I looked up her IP address. You can see where someone’s sending an email from, like their city. It’s . . . it’s close. To where we lived.”
More silence.
My wine is gone, and my eyes stray to the refrigerator, where the rest of the bottle awaits.
“I think . . .” Ivy stops, clears her throat. “I think your imagination is running wild. The details probably aren’tallthe same. How can you even remember the specifics when it’s been more than twenty years?”
“Haveyouforgotten any of them, Ivy?”
“No. But—”
“I’m not imagining anything. Even the names of the characters are the same—Ivy, Mr. Sawyer, Jocelyn, all of it.Someone knows.”
“But that’s impossible.” She sighs. “Wait. Hold on a second.” Again, a child’s voice whines in the background, this time closer. There’s the sound of a door shutting, other noises fading into the background. “If the #MeToo movement showed us anything, it’s that basicallyallwomen have been harassed or assaulted or—”
“These chapters have more than that. They have details.A lotof details.”
“But . . . who would do something like this after twenty years? And why? And how would they have found out? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they enroll in your class and send it as a story? Why not just call the police?”
My mouth goes dry. Her questions are valid, and Idoprobably sound paranoid. Who would go to all that trouble?
Someone who wantsrevenge.
The words streak through my mind so fast, I gasp.
“What? What happened?”
“Nothing.” I get to my feet, cross to the kitchen, retrieve the wine bottle from the fridge. It makes a glugging sound as I fill my glass and stare out the window, lost in thought. I’m sure something more is happening here, and I feel the need to convince her.
“It’s not a coincidence,” I say. I’m still staring out the window. But in my mind, I’m picturing something else. Something small that would fit in the palm of my hand, something that my friend wore every day during senior year. “It was the same story, Ivy—not just a student-teacher fantasy that plenty of people probably have. I’m telling you, there were details. Even the . . .” I inhale. “Even the silver pendant he gave Jocelyn.”
It’s her turn to gasp. “Saint Agnes?”