Page 14

NOVEMBER

Ignoring Julian Hollister was like a competitive sport to her. Fortunately, he was a gold medalist in ignoring Jodi Dillon. They still shared anatomy class together, but other than that, they didn’t see each other. That didn’t mean out-of-sight-out-of-mind for her though.

She didn’t like that he knew a piece of her that only Zack was supposed to know. She didn’t like that he slithered into that cheery, charismatic guy at the exact right moment—only to disappear and never be seen again. She didn’t like that she knew something about his dad and he knew something about hers. She didn’t want him thinking about her like she was thinking about him.

He’s only hit me a few times though.

Jodi shook herself out of her trance and focused on the sway of the school bus, keeping an eye out for her stop.

On the right side of the aisle, four rows up, Hannah Mills sat rigid in her seat, staring forward.

Another thing Jodi was ignoring.

Rubbing her thumb over her tingling left hand, Jodi stared out the window, watching the trees blur.

When the bus stopped for her, she squeezed her way down the aisle, waiting for two other kids in her neighborhood to step out first.

Just as she was passing her, Hannah Mills stood up and Jodi almost jumped backward two rows.

Hannah’s eyes were deep blue with dark circles under them. She stared at Jodi with an expressionless face as she held out an envelope. “My mom wanted me to give you this.”

Jodi stared, heart pounding. She snapped her attention to the doors at the front of the bus. She felt every eye on them.

“Thank you.” Jodi slipped the envelope in her jeans back pocket and stumbled down the stairs. On the curb, she turned to look at the bus windows. Blue eyes followed her as the bus turned the corner.

Jodi’s legs felt like jelly as she finished the walk home. The mail was splayed out over the floor when she opened the door, and her eyes landed on a letter from the courthouse.

Her heart sank. This was it. She was being charged. Indicted or whatever. They’d taken so much longer to send the arraignment letter to her, and she didn’t know what that meant.

She dropped her bag and stared at the offending envelope, letting the Millses’ letter drift from her mind. Her dad was in Oregon. He’d be back later that night. But she couldn’t just stare at this mail marked IMPORTANT for the rest of the evening.

Jodi searched her contacts for Miranda’s number. She picked up on the second ring.

“I think I have my arraignment papers.”

Miranda sighed and told Jodi to come by. Jodi picked up her book bag, stuffed the envelope in the front flap, and headed to the bus stop again.

She’d been to Miranda’s office once before when she and her dad had the consultation and set up the retainer. She sat on the edge of the oversized armchair Miranda had for visitors, and tugged open the envelope. Passing it over the desk, she sat on her hands and waited.

Miranda’s brows knitted together as she read, and Jodi’s heart sank. Was there another charge being added? Was there another interview scheduled? Her mind spun through stupid scenarios, like if they found out that page of notes was missing from the school counselor’s box.

“So… Good news first, I guess,” Miranda said, and Jodi sat up straighter. “This doesn’t seem like you’re being charged.”

Jodi felt like she was underwater. “What? Have they dropped charges against the others, too? Zack and Paige—?”

“This only pertains to you.” She passed the letter over the table to her as she said, “You’re being subpoenaed as a witness to the prosecution of Zackary Thrasher, Lucy Reed, Paige Montgomery, and Julian Hollister.”

Jodi stared at her, not daring to look down at the letter, not daring it to exist.

“What does that mean?”

“It means they think your friends are guilty, and maybe they think you’ll be the one to break.”

She wasn’t just underwater. She was sinking.

Jodi, have you ever worried that you were going to be “Thrashed?” Detective Harding had been setting her up for this moment, picking at her, opening scabs and digging her fingers into the wound.

“Do I have to?” Jodi asked in a small voice.

Miranda nodded. “If they go to court, you may be called to testify. Even if they don’t go to court, you will be interviewed again. Possibly often.”

Jodi tried to imagine it—a courtroom of her classmates and friends, a lawyer asking her questions.

“Your friend Zack is the big fish, most likely. He’s eighteen, it’s his name on the group. It’s possible if they don’t have enough on the others, they can accept plea deals. I don’t know.”

Jodi clenched her hand into a fist. She wouldn’t let that happen. She could fight to prove her friends’ innocence.

“Now,” Miranda began slowly, “since you are no longer a person of interest, you could decide you no longer need a lawyer. That’s fine with me. I’ll need to talk to your guardian, but we could end our contract and refund your dad the rest of the retainer. If you do feel you’d still like some counsel, I can stay on.”

“I think… I think my dad will want the money back. I’m sorry, I really like you and everything,” Jodi finished weakly, like she was breaking up with Miranda.

“Of course.” Miranda raised her hands in friendly surrender. “I know finances are tight. I’ll alert your dad.” She made a note in her file. “If you ever need to talk something out, I can offer a ten-minute call, free of charge. If you do need a lawyer at the interviews, we would just start up again.”

When she left Miranda’s office (after an awkward hug Jodi had instigated), it wasn’t until she was on the bus, reviewing the letter, that she remembered the Millses’ card in her back pocket.

She ripped open the bent envelope with her name scrawled across the front in Maureen’s handwriting. A sunflower decorated the front of the card, and inside was filled with tidy lettering.

Dear Jodi,

My heart has been breaking for you as this portion of the case has dragged on. We were advised to reach out to no one. Now that we’re convinced the district attorney won’t press charges against you, I can finally offer you an invitation to come by whenever you’d like. I’d love to talk more about Emily with you, and formally apologize for any stress this investigation has caused you. You are guilty of nothing in our hearts.

Any time you’d like to stop by, please do.

Maureen, Robert, and Hannah

Jodi gripped the card between her sweating fingertips. The one thing she could do—that no one else could—was recover Emily’s cell phone. If it was where she’d claimed her “special hiding place” was, then Jodi could get there.

She got off at the next stop and transferred to the bus headed to 35th Street.

Jodi walked up to the small, two-story house that was shoved between other small, two-story houses. A Subaru took up the narrow driveway, and the welcome mat read Here Lives a Happy Family . The last time Jodi was here, there were ambulances parked on the lawn.

She swallowed and rang the bell. In the heartbeats that followed, Jodi imagined Emily greeting her with wide and eager blue eyes. When Mrs. Mills pulled open the door with a kind “Jodi, how good to see you,” she realized she had no plan.

“Hi, Mrs. Mills. Hannah gave me your card.”

Maureen smiled graciously, inviting her in with a wave. Jodi seated herself on the couch. The living room was an explosion of floral. Floral upholstery, framed flower needlepoint. Where there weren’t flowers, there were crosses and framed Christian platitudes.

“Is Mr. Mills home, too? I’d like to thank him,” she said.

“Robert is on his way home from Bible study.”

She didn’t know Robert Mills aside from passing greetings. She knew he worked for a software company.

“Please tell him I said hello then.” Jodi was doing her best impersonation of Zack. “How is Hannah liking New Helvetia? I don’t get to see her as much as I’d like.”

“Oh, you’re sweet. Hannah is always talking about you—how you go out of your way to be kind to her.”

Jodi’s arms felt weighted with lead. Hannah had told Ms. George, the wellness counselor, the same thing. She tried to smile. “She’s a nice girl,” she said, croaking. “Is she doing homework?” Jodi turned her eyes upstairs to where Hannah’s bedroom was.

“Oh, she’s still at school. A study group.” Maureen waved her hand dismissively.

Jodi sat frozen. Hannah had been on the bus home with her an hour and a half ago. She forced a smile.

“I hope it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, but… I was wondering if Emily’s bedroom is still as it was? I would love to have a moment to pay my respects to her in her own space.”

It was dumb. It was presumptuous. It wouldn’t work.

Jodi’s breath was caught in her throat as Maureen stared at her. Did she know what Jodi was up to?

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Jodi,” Maureen said. Her voice was soft, but her eyes still unreadable. “Yes, let me take you.”

Maureen Mills stood from the couch. Jodi followed her up the stairs, still unsure if this was going to work. At the landing, Jodi faced down the slightly ajar bathroom door—the room Emily had died in. The room where her cell phone was hidden. Maureen turned right, and Jodi followed.

Emily’s bedroom was at the front of the house. An oak tree extended toward her window, with a branch the perfect height for someone to sneak out on. The only reason Jodi knew it was because Zack had invited Emily to get drunk and high with them in the park one night, and Emily had to sneak out after midnight. Jodi, Julian, Lucy, and Paige had watched begrudgingly as Emily Mills slipped out of her window with Zack’s careful guidance. She wasn’t a very athletic girl, but if Zack Thrasher asked her to do anything, she was suddenly an Olympian.

A sign on the door with EMILY in puffy lettering greeted them. Maureen pushed the door open, and Jodi found Emily’s bedroom exactly as it had been when she’d first seen it. She’d been suckered into two or three study sessions at the Millses’ house that had quickly devolved into Emily asking about Zack.

Maureen hovered at the doorframe, and Jodi’s mind had just started running through the ways she could ask to be alone when Maureen said, “I’ll let you have some time.”

Relief swam in her. “Thank you, Mrs. Mills. I won’t move anything, I swear.”

She waved her hand and sniffed. “That’s fine. I’m making a pork roast for dinner, if you’d like to stay. We’d love to have you.”

Jodi would rather throw herself out the window. “That’s very kind. I’ll check with my dad.”

Smiling, Maureen turned, slipped down the hallway, and down the stairs. Jodi stood in Emily’s room, waiting an appropriate amount of time. She’d pretend to lose control of her emotions and say she needed to visit the bathroom to get ahold of herself.

As she waited, she wondered if there was anything in this room worth looking at. The police would have done a full search, taking any electronics, any notebooks. Jodi’s eyes passed over the desk. Just behind the small table lamp, a picture was taped to the wall. She moved closer.

It was the same fabricated picture that had flashed on the screens at the vigil—the picture of Jodi from Tahoe edited together with a smiling Emily. Maybe Emily had been the one to Photoshop it.

Pressing her thumbs under her eyes to make them red, Jodi snuck out of Emily’s room and toward the bathroom. When no one stopped her, she slipped inside and closed the door, turning the lock.

A strange sensation swept over her skin, sinking down, down into her blood. Jodi stared at the bathtub against the far wall. It had a showerhead attached to the tiles on the right, a small window above the tub facing the street.

She jumped into action, desperate to locate the phone and stop imagining a body in the tub, pink prom dress pouring over the sides. Opening the cabinets under the sink, she pressed against the boards, hoping one would pop and reveal a separate space. No luck. She closed the toilet seat and balanced on top, stretching to look into a vent at the ceiling. Her fingernails couldn’t quite get the screws to turn, but the flashlight on her phone didn’t show anything hiding inside.

Standing on the toilet seat, she stopped to survey the bathroom. She placed her hands on her hips and wondered, where would I hide something?

There were no other cabinets, no other vents, no floorboards to pry up. Tilting her head down and rubbing her temples, she felt time running down.

Then she saw it. Behind the toilet—one of the tiles was missing grout.

Jodi stepped down and knelt. It was behind the tank, completely hidden from sight, but if she pressed just slightly on the corner—

The tile popped out.

She grabbed it before it tumbled down and shattered. Laying the loose tile on the floor with shaking fingers, Jodi turned her attention to the small hole in the wall. She reached inside, and her fingers closed on something shaped like a cell phone. When she pulled it out, Emily’s bright pink phone case greeted her. She let out a tight breath.

Emily hid her phone here before she died. She’d told Jodi that no one knew about this space. For some reason, she didn’t want anyone to be able to find her phone.

Jodi tried the power button, waiting for a burst of light from the screen, and gasped when it happened. She looked to the bathroom door, hoping she still had time. Waiting for Emily’s screen to open was torture.

Should she take it with her? Jodi wavered. She had already stolen a file from the counselor’s box. If she was ever found with Emily’s cell phone on her…

No, what she wanted was to figure out what Julian had texted Emily that day, maybe glance through a few things, and turn it off again. If there was something to help Zack, she could possibly “remember” that Emily hid things in the bathroom, and tell the police. But that would open up a huge can of worms for all the other things she couldn’t verify in the next five minutes.

Glancing at the dark opening in the wall, Jodi’s eyes caught on something else. A book maybe. Leaving the phone to boot up, she dropped to her knees again and reached for it.

She pulled out a worn leather notebook. Jodi opened to the first page and found Emily’s handwriting:

AUG. 17, 2023

NEW JOURNAL FOR A NEW HIGH SCHOOL. I’M GLAD TO BE LEAVING SAC HIGH, BUT I HATE STARTING OVER.

Jodi gasped. She flipped forward, finding entries all throughout the school year.

AUG. 21, 2023

I DON’T THINK THERE EVER WAS A BOY AS PERFECT AS ZACK THRASHER. I WANT TO WRITE POETRY ABOUT HIM. REALLY BAD POETRY THAT I’LL NEVER SHOW ANYONE (ESPECIALLY HIM) BUT I WANT TO WRITE IT AnYWAYS. I WANT TO USE METAPHORS TO PERFECTLY CAPTURE THE SHADE OF BLUE IN HIS EYES, AND THE TEXTURE OF HIS HAIR. I DON’T EVEN THINK HE STYLES IT. IT’S JUST… PERFECT.

Another journal?

Jodi turned to the doorway, listening. Could she take this? What would she do with it?

Making a split-second decision, Jodi pulled out her own cell phone and opened the camera. She took pictures with one hand, flipping pages with the other, only stopping when she saw her name.

OCT. 9, 2023

I GOT TO SPEAK TO JODI TODAY! I JUST SAT DOWN NEXT TO HER IN THE LIbrARY AND SHE TALKED TO ME!

Jodi picked up her pace, switching to video and hoping that the image quality was clear. She got through December when Emily’s phone on the bathroom counter buzzed awake. She kept going, turning pages.

Jodi flipped to the end of the journal, looking for the last month of Emily’s life, hoping she could find something to help her friends.

But it cut off in April. Jodi’s brows knitted together. She flipped through every page, and couldn’t find a single date in May. Why?

Jodi slid through the April pages, trying to find something about Emily wanting to kill herself in that month. A knock on the bathroom door jarred her. She dropped her phone.

“Jodi?” Maureen said. “Are you alright?”

She grabbed her phone, turned off the video, and said tightly, “Yeah, I’m just… I got overwhelmed.”

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

Glancing at Emily’s cell phone, Jodi made a choice. She came to find out what was on the cell phone. She shoved the journal back into the hole in the wall and jerked to her feet. “Give me just one second to finish up.”

She opened Emily’s phone—Mr. Mills wouldn’t let them have passcodes—and went to her texts. The phone buzzed again with new notifications, and Jodi hurried to turn off the sound. Six voicemails. All from Hannah in the past few months. Jodi ignored them and scrolled through the texts.

She found her thread with Zack, checking just the last few messages. All from Emily. Sending him memes or “this made me think of you.”

Jodi’s fingers were shaking as she searched for Julian. Nothing.

She typed Julian’s name into the search—

Maureen knocked again.

“Sorry. Just washing my hands.”

Nothing turned up for Julian. Jodi knew the first three digits of his number, and typed that in.

Nothing.

She switched on the taps, closed the messages on Emily’s phone, and powered it down. She didn’t wait for it to turn off before shoving it into the wall and replacing the tile.

She pushed her fingers under the water, dragged them down her cheeks, and opened the door.

“Sorry,” she said weakly, and then her words choked off.

Robert Mills was standing at the door, staring at her over the rims of his glasses. His eyes flicked behind her into the bathroom. “My wife went to make you tea.”

“Yeah,” Jodi squeaked. “I just got emotional, thinking about Emily…” Jodi let her staggered breathing and shaking limbs tell the lie for her.

He didn’t respond—didn’t move. He examined her like she was a problem to solve. Jodi’s heart pounded as he stepped to the side and let her out of the bathroom.

“Are you staying for dinner?” he asked. There was no kindness in the offer. Almost like he didn’t want her to accept.

“Thank you, no. I have to get home.” She stumbled toward the stairs. Maureen was calling for her from the kitchen.

She extricated herself and thanked them, glancing up to Robert Mills, still at the top of the stairs. Maureen hugged her goodbye, and Jodi left as fast as she could without running.

Darting to the bus stop, she couldn’t stop thinking about Robert Mills’s expression when she opened the door. Like he didn’t want her there at all. It wasn’t until she was on the bus that she let herself think about what she’d found.

If Emily’s journal was hidden in the bathroom wall… then what did the police have?