by Melissa Marr
Detective Grant must realize it because she interjects, “Let’s all sit down.”
Mom leads the way, and then she immediately slips into her hostess mode. She fusses over me first, and once she’s sure I’m comfortable, she turns to the others and offers to fix refreshments.
“Lizzy,” my father murmurs.
When she looks at him, he suggests, “Why don’t you bring everyone some of that lemonade you fixed earlier.”
She nods and flees to the kitchen, and my father relaxes a little. He catches my eye and says, “She’s not sure what to do.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” Mrs. Yeung pronounces, and I’m struck by the differences. The General looks likely to attack someone. My father is trying to manage everything, and my mother wants to look after all of us.
“Eva, we have reason to believe that the accident was an attempt on your life,” Detective Grant says baldly. “I’ve discussed the particulars with your parents, but what you need to know is that we will do everything in our power to find the perpetrator and keep you safe.”
“Is this because of Micki?”
“We believe her death was also connected,” the detective answers. Her words confirm my theory, but they don’t actually answer the question I just asked.
When we say nothing, Detective Grants says, “Let’s talk about flowers.”
“Flowers?”
She nods once. “What about in the hospital? What flowers did you get? I remember seeing a bouquet. Who sent it?”
“My parents. They sent orchids.”
She watches me with a concentration that seemed less daunting in our first conversation. “Anyone else?”
“The newspaper, some teachers, a few people from church, people from the winery . . . I didn’t really keep a list of names. After the first few, I just asked the nurses to give them to other people.”
“Did you keep the cards?”
“No. I wasn’t thinking.” I feel guilty, but I just didn’t want the flowers. Quietly, I tell my mother, “I’m sorry. I should’ve kept names, so we could send thank you cards. I was just sick of all the reminders that I was hurt and there were other people that might enjoy them, so I asked the nurses to give them away.”
My mother nods, and the detective continues, “I’ll need you to write down every name you remember.”
“Okay.”
Detective Grant’s gaze settles on all of us in turn as she asks, “What can you tell me about Amy Crowne?”
No one speaks, but both Grace and Nate look at me.
“She didn’t send flowers,” I say warily.
“Did you get along with her?”
I realize from her carefully blank expression and follow-up question that Detective Grant didn’t think Amy sent flowers, which could mean then that the detective thought Amy was somehow involved. I might not like her, but I can’t believe that she could do this.
“She’s not a killer,” I say. “There’s no way she could’ve killed Micki. She didn’t like me, but I don’t think she’d have run over me either.”
I think about the death visions of Grace and Nate. My impression was that the killer was a man. I’m not sure of height or race or anything. The more I think about it, the less sure I am about gender.
My mother walks back into the room with a tray of drinks. She looks calmer now, and I wonder whether it was having a moment to compose herself or having a focus. Either way, I am glad she’s less tense. My father stands and gives her his seat next to the detective. He stays behind her chair, much as Mrs. Yeung does with Grace. Grace and I sit facing the detective. Nate stands with a hand on the back of my chair, so he can look at the detective too.
“Miss Crowne is not a suspect,” Detective Grant tells us. “What is your relationship with her? All of you.” Her attention shifts from me to Grace and Nate now.
Grace says, “We aren’t friends. She spread some . . . stories about Eva earlier this year, and I told her to stop.”
“I think she’s in my fourth-period class,” Nate offers. “I’ve talked to her at parties, but not alone.” He looks at me somewhat awkwardly, and I feel bad that my parents are in the room, especially as he adds, “I’ve never been alone with her.”
“She was promiscuous,” Grace clarifies the unspoken things for the adults. “A lot of guys were alone with her.”
The detective nods. “Eva? What about your relationship with Miss Crowne?”
“She slept with my boyfriend . . . ex-boyfriend. He was with her the night of my accident, so she couldn’t have been involved.” I feel myself blushing. “Robert just told me. His parents don’t know because she’s not, umm, the sort of girl he’d be allowed to date.”
“Do other people know about Robert’s relationship with her?”
I think about it, and I have no real answer. “Maybe Reid and Jamie. Probably Grayson. They’re his closest friends, and they probably would’ve hidden it from me. Amy would have a better idea who knew. Robert said she was angry that he wasn’t going to date her openly.” I look at my mother. “Don’t say anything to the Baucoms. Please?” Then I look back at the detective. “They were fighting about it the night he didn’t show up to get me. That’s where he was when I got hit.”
“I’m with Eva on this. Amy’s a gossip, but she wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Grace shakes her head. “What did Amy say?”
The detective shakes her head. “Nothing. We think she was the latest victim.”
“Is she . . . where is she?” I ask. The waver in my voice says the part I don’t want to say aloud: something about the detective’s tone makes me suddenly sure that Amy isn’t okay.
The detective ignores my question and opens up the case on her iPad. “I need you to look at some things, Eva.” She turns the tablet so I can see a strange flower. “Can you tell me what this is?”
I shake my head. She moves to a picture of another flower. This one looks sort of like a lily, but not quite. “No,” I whisper.
“Asphodel and amaryllis. Do they mean anything to you personally? Are there any secret clubs at school or anything at all that would tie to these that you know?”
I want to laugh at the idea of secret clubs, but I can’t, not with the growing fear that something awful happened to yet another of my classmates. I look away from the iPad and meet Detective Grant’s gaze. “They’re pretty, but that’s all. They don’t mean anything to me, and there are no secret societies at Jessup.”
“Are you familiar with the idea of flowers being a language?”
Grace says, “Like in Hamlet.”
“English class last year,” Nate adds helpfully.
At this, the detective perks up a little. “Did the whole grade level read it or just your section?”
“All of us, and they’re doing it this year, and they did it the year before us. Maybe before that too.”
“So whoever did this goes to Jessup High?” Grace interjects, and I shiver at the realization that my attacker—the killer—is at my school. I can’t imagine anyone I know being this sick.
“It’s possible, or they know someone who does.”
“Which is pretty much all of Jessup,” Nate says.
I am a little relieved by his point. The thought that someone I know is responsible makes me feel even worse. I’m extra comforted that it’s summer. I don’t know how I could sit in class thinking that someone in the room tried to kill me and Amy and had killed Micki.
Detective Grant draws my attention back to her by asking, “Do these words or anything about them mean something more to you?”
She opens up her tablet and turns it so I can see a close-up of three words in an odd red font on a kind of beige paper: FOR EVA. JUDGE.
I stare at them as the reality of what I’m looking at comes clear.
It’s not a font. It’s not paper.
“That’s skin,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“Amy’s skin?”
She nods.
Grace makes a
choking noise, and Nate reaches out to take my hand. I’m not sure when he moved closer to me, but I’m immeasurably grateful that he did. He feels like an anchor holding me steady, keeping me from sinking into the sickness that threatens to engulf me.
“Someone wrote that on Amy’s body?” I can’t force myself to say the correct words. They cut it into her body.
“Yes.”
I reach out and flip the tablet cover closed. I can’t look at it. No one should look at it. Ever.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I swallow before I can continue. “Whoever killed Micki and Amy did it because of me? They’re trying to say they did this for me? How does that even make sense? Someone tried to kill me, and now he’s killing my classmates, and saying it’s for me?” My voice grows shriller as I speak. “What am I to even do? How do I even—”
“Nothing,” she says. “You do nothing. You’re to stay safe and tell me when you think of anything, anything at all, that you think of about your relationship with or related to Amy Crowne or Micki Adams.”
I nod because I don’t know how to speak around the sudden tightness in my throat. It hurts to think that someone did this because of me. It hurts to imagine Amy or Micki suffering.
“Does the ‘Judge’ part mean anything to you?” Detective Grant asks.
“If I wanted to judge her, it would be because she slept with my boyfriend.” I force the words out carefully. I don’t want to say them, but I don’t want to lie to the detective either. I swallow to try to keep my throat from feeling like it’s closing.
I don’t look at anyone other than the detective. “Plus, she told people I slept with him . . . with Robert earlier this year. They were already sleeping together then. I had no idea, but that’s all we have in common: Robert. I didn’t know about her, but he said she was angry about him not breaking up with me.”
“Could Robert do this?”
“Kill two girls in our class, and try to kill me?” My voice is getting shrill again. “No! No, he couldn’t. He’s not like that.”
“Not even to make amends with you?”
“How would killing them make amends with Eva?” Grace sputters. Her hand flings into the air in a gesture of frustration, almost as if she can’t stop the motion. It stays there, upraised with her fingers splayed open, as she half yells, “Are you crazy?”
Mrs. Yeung catches Grace’s hand and holds it. “Are you done with us, Detective?”
At Detective Grant’s nod, Mrs. Yeung tells my parents, “Someone will escort Grace to your house so the girls are able to see each other.” She looks at Nate. “You can bring her over if my husband or I can’t, but I trust all of you”—she gives the three of us a stern look—“to stay together. No slipping off to the parties you don’t think we know about.”
Grace startles, but Nate says, “I won’t let them out of my sight when I’m here.”
My father shoots Nate a look of approval before offering, “Why don’t Nate and I walk you out to your car?”
Mrs. Yeung nods. “Let me text David, so he knows I’m on the way.”
After they walk out, the detective sits quietly for a moment. Then she says, “Did Michelle also have a relationship with Robert?”
“Micki?” I want to laugh at the absurdity of that. “She wore a purity ring, and she meant it. The only way she’d have been with Robert would’ve been after a church-made vow of forever. I’m pretty sure she never even dated. No one at Jessup was up to both her standards and her parents’ standards.”
“The Adamses have a history of marrying within their station,” my mother offers mildly. “Prenups and fidelity clauses are required, and Micki wouldn’t have risked dating anyone her father didn’t approve of. I expect she planned on finding a husband at Duke in a couple years.”
The detective looks at my mother for a moment, and then merely nods before telling me, “You need to be careful, Eva. No going out alone.” She turns to my mother. “How sure are you of Mr. Bouchet’s honesty?”
“We’ve known him since he was in elementary school. His family was here all the time when the children were younger.” Mom clasps her hands tightly together, and I can see by her expression that she’s thinking carefully. “He’s a good boy.”
“I trust him,” I interject. “I was with him when we saw the news about Micki. He was shocked and upset.”
The detective nods. “If anything he says or does alarms you or if anyone’s actions alarm you, you contact me immediately.”
“We will,” my mother promises. “We want you to catch this person. This . . . killer.”
“We all want that, Mrs. Tilling.” The detective stands, and my mother shows her to the door.
Then I am left alone in my house thinking about the words carved into Amy’s skin. I thought that Micki’s death tore me up, but I am horrified by Amy’s. It’s disgusting, what he did to her.
I hope she was already dead when the killer cut her.
I start to think of my classmates. I can’t think of anyone who could do this. Maybe they’re wrong to think it’s a teenager. Teachers? I picture Mr. Sweeney and Miss Ferguson. They’re not killers. I’m pretty sure Mr. Sweeney couldn’t kill a bug much less a girl. I start to picture my friends and classmates. I picture Robert. No. There’s no one I can think of who would do this.
None of it makes sense to me. Micki did nothing to me, and although Amy slept with Robert, that’s not reason enough to wish this on her. Neither of those things explain why the killer attacked me. I sit on the sofa trying not to think that someone wants me dead—someone who has now killed two girls I know.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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DAY 14: “THE FLOWERS”
Eva
I SLEPT HORRIBLY AFTER Detective Grant left. I don’t remember most of my nightmares, just vague images from the death visions I had of Nate’s and Grace’s possible ends. I think that Amy and Micki’s killer is the same person who pushes Grace into her car trunk and makes Nate choke on liquor. I have no actual proof—just a feeling. The odds of two killers in my small town seem impossible. Truthfully, even one seems impossible, but I know there is one. We all know that now. What I don’t know—and need to figure out—is what it has to do with me.
As I lie in my bed, thinking over what I know about the visions and murders, I realize that there is one more thing I know: I can’t see faces in my visions. I’m not sure why that is. I can see them in my own life, but when I fall into someone’s death, the sense that’s least reliable is vision—or maybe cognition. I grab my laptop and I try several search terms, but it’s not until I enter “face blind” that I get useful results: prosopagnosia. Basically, as I read I learn that some people can’t recognize faces, even people they see regularly and know. Prosopagnosia is either inherent, or it’s acquired from a brain injury. Although my brain injury didn’t cause me to have trouble recognizing faces in the waking world, it has in my death visions. I try a few more searches, but not surprisingly, there aren’t any articles that explain altered perceptions in death visions. The most useful information I have is that people with face blindness—prosopagnosics—have to use other characteristics to identify people. The bit that I learn isn’t much, but I’m not sure where to learn more. I can’t expect any insight from my doctor, especially as I’m not interested in sharing my new ability.
I spend a few minutes thinking about it, and then I close my laptop and start slowly working my way downstairs. Some coffee and food will help me think. At the very least, it’ll distract me from this nightmare for a few minutes. I thump into the kitchen, where I find my mother. It’s odd seeing her so determinedly domestic, but it’s also comforting. If there was ever a time when I was willing to admit to needing some extra TLC, this is it.
She puts her hands on her hips when she sees me and tsks. “Why didn’t you call for help? Your independent streak has to be some l
atent Tilling gene.”
“Says the black sheep of the Cooper clan,” I tease without thinking.
She stops moving, her hand midway to the pitcher of orange juice, and I wonder if it was wrong to try to tease her. I thought we were trying to be closer. I thought it would be okay. Hurriedly, I start, “I’m s—”
My apology is lost under a snort of laughter. She’s laughing in that unrestrained way that I’ve so rarely seen, and I can’t look away. My mother is beautiful when she’s real like this. In the midst of everything that’s so very wrong, I’m exceptionally grateful for this moment.
“Oh my goodness, Eva,” she says a few snorts later. “No one—and I do mean no one—has the sheer nerve to mention that other than Daddy. I swear they all think the whole of Jessup is going to go all cattywampus if they bring up my checkered past.”
She grabs the handle of the pitcher of orange juice and sits down; her poise is already returning, and if I hadn’t just heard those very unrefined noises, I would’ve never guessed that she had laughed. The pitcher and two glasses are in front of her, and she watches me attentively.
I pull out my two chairs. I sit on the first, and I raise my leg to prop it up on the second chair. “You don’t seem much like a troublemaker, but I figure my ‘difficult streak’ has to come from somewhere.”
My mother smiles. “I was determined to be my own person, and after years of Daddy having so many of the church ladies lecturing me on my manners and my dress and everything under the sun, I had a fierce urge to prove I wasn’t a good girl.” She shakes her head. “I don’t imagine it makes a lot of sense considering who I ended up with, but I just wanted to be someone other than Lizzy Cooper, daughter of the great Davis Cooper IV.”
“I get that.” I stare at her, wondering how I didn’t know this before. “I feel like that sometimes. I’m his granddaughter, your daughter, and granddaughter to the Reverend Tilling.”
She sighs. “I’m sorry. You seem so confident all the time that it didn’t occur to me that you felt that way.”
