Page 58 of Every Step She Takes

Isabella:Both.

Sender:LOL So I was right, wasn’t I? She didn’t throw herself into your arms for a good cry, all your differences washed away in a sea of tears and shared suffering.

Isabella:She told me the full story.

Sender:Was it anywhere close to what I guessed?

Isabella:You’re enjoying this way too much. Jerk.

Sender:Jerk? Oh, come on, Izzy, you can do better than that. Aren’t you a writer or something?

The thread ends there, and the call log shows she called him and they spoke for an hour.

I search the phone for some clue to the mystery lover’s identity. Isabella is careful, though. There is a phone number and nothing more. I make a note of the number, as I do with all the pertinent information I find in case I need to ditch the phone for good.

The texts suggest he’d guessed what happened between Colt and me. That could be useful.

And if pulling him into this exposes their affair?

I will avoid that if I can, but if the choice is one between “expose Isabella’s affair” and “go to prison for life,” there’s no question of which I’ll choose.

I brace myself to move on to the thread I’ve been avoiding.

Colt.

Deep breath and… I pause, finger over the phone.

Where’s Colt’s thread?

I’d seen it this morning when I’d skimmed the text threads before dumping the SIM. I can still feel the visceral blow of seeing his name. Now, though, I realize I haven’t seen it since I opened the message app. There was a thread earlier… and now there is not.

Someone deleted Colt’s thread before I removed the SIM card.

No, not someone. The person who has Isabella’s tablet or another connected device. The killer who is framing me for murder.

All of these threads could have been deleted, yet only one was.

The one belonging to the killer?

Part of me would love to think so, but again, I’m not convinced it’s that simple. Did Colt’s thread contain a clue? Or was the killer in the process of deleting them all when I removed the SIM card?

I don’t know the answer here. I only know that I wish to hell I’d read that thread while I still could.

I set the phone aside and stare at the dingy wall of my hotel room, as if a sign will appear to point me toward Isabella’s killer. All I got from the cell phone was an uncomfortably intrusive look into her personal life.

As hard as I try to corral my thoughts, they keep running down unproductive lanes. Pain over the seething hatred in Tiana’s texts. Sympathy for Isabella’s lover and the secret grief he’s feeling right now. Suspicion over Colt’s missing thread. But when I push past the emotions, memory steals in, memories of that night and the aftermath.

The best way to stop thinking about the past? Focus on the present, which is, at the moment, far worse. I need to see what’s out there on the Internet now that a half-day has passed.

I connect to the hotel Wi-Fi and open my laptop’s browser. I’m typing in my name when I stop.

Is this safe?

I laugh at the thought. Am I honestly worried that someone will track me down for a search history that includes Isabella Morales’s murder? At least one other person in this building will look up this story tonight. They’ll have seen a headline flip past their newsfeed, and they’ll idly search for details.

Still, I hesitate. I might know enough to throw out my SIM card, but am I completely certain that’s the only way of tying a phone to me? It should be. And yet…

I head out in search of free Wi-Fi. I’d seen a Starbucks about a mile away. Guaranteed Internet service there.