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THIRTY-SEVEN

When I return home, two bottles of wine in hand, the house is empty.

I’d thought that emptiness might reignite my despair, that the silence might trigger alarm bells inside me. Instead, it has the opposite effect. I feel peaceful. Whole. This was my space before it was ours, and it feels like I’m reclaiming my territory, refusing to let Connor and his choices infringe on my happiness.

And then I think back to the tape.

And I think about all the time I’ve spent with Joanna in recent months.

And I think of all the ways Connor and Joanna must have deceived me to keep their affair going.

I take pride in being in control of my life. Their affair was taking place right under my nose, and I never saw it. It makes me question my judgement.

You don’t know her.

Like with everything this week, my thoughts go back to Evie.

If my fiancé and my assistant were able to slide this by me, what other signs about the people in my life might I have missed? Maybe Evie was more damaged than I thought. Maybe she did have the ability and the desire to run away. Or worse, maybe her reckless actions landed her in a dangerous situation, and I was too caught up in my own life, caught up in the version of Evie I thought I knew, to see.

My phone rings. The idea of Connor plaguing me with phone calls and apology texts makes me sick.

I’m relieved when I see it’s Nadia calling, but not enough to answer. I silence the call, finishing off the last of my bottle of wine.

By the time I’ve popped the cork on the second bottle, she’s called again.

“Are you sitting down?” she says when I answer.

“Yes.” My tone is short, disinterested. I’m glad that there’s been enough separation between us that she won’t be able to sense how upset I am.

“I was able to track who Evie was talking to.”

I sit up, happy to think about something that doesn’t involve Connor or Joanna. Happy to think about something that could help us find Evie.

“Who is it?”

“It isn’t good,” she says. “I sent everything I found to your email, so you could take a better look.”

I stand and wobble into the kitchen. I sift through my work bag, looking for my laptop.

“How were you able to find him?”

“I started by doing a reverse image search. Turns out this guy uses the same photo across all his profiles.” She pauses. “If I’ve found the right guy, Evie could have been in more danger than we realized. All the girls on the team could be.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, opening my email.

“Cass, you know him.”

My entire body locks up. “Know him?”

“He works at the school.”

When I click on Nadia’s email, the first image that pops up is the same one I saw on Beatrice’s phone. A picture of a shaggy-haired boy, his face obscured.

Below that, is the picture of the actual person using the profile.

Kyle.

“This can’t be right,” I say, staring at the image.

“When it showed he was an employee at the school, I double-checked everything,” she says. “It’s him, Cass. He’s the one who was messaging with Evie.”

Kyle has been at the school longer than I have. He’s one of the only colleagues I’d consider a friend. To imagine his face behind the picture of the teenage boy on the screen, to imagine his voice sending those messages to Evie…

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, the wine revolting against me. “I have to go.”

“Wait, don’t you want to talk about this?” she asks. “We should decide what we’re going to do.”

“I have a massive headache. All I want to do is go to sleep,” I say, hanging up the phone before she can say anything else.

I’d been searching for the culprit behind Evie’s disappearance in all the wrong places, questioning her family and Nadia; they seemed like they were the ones with the most to hide. I never imagined Evie was in danger every day at school, at the prestigious Manning Academy. I never imagined my own friend would be targeting thirteen-year-old girls.

Could Evie have found out Kyle was the person she’d been messaging all this time? Did he make good on his promise to meet up with her outside the school? He could have lured her out of the building, and Evie, isolated and alone, fell right into his trap.

I slam my laptop shut, unable to look at Kyle’s face any longer. My first instinct is to rush to his house right now and confront him. In the next second, I’m opening the computer again, forwarding everything Nadia found to Detective Fields.