Chapter 37
HENLEY HOUSE
It was a squirrel.
Deputy Mays was the one who opened it. He said it’d been shot.
I wasn’t there when he opened it, of course.
That was after Noelle called our mom, and after Mom sped home from the realty office, and after Mom called the sheriff.
Detective Mays showed up not long after.
He was going to open it right there on the kitchen island, but when Mom realized that was his intention she screamed so loud everyone in the neighborhood heard.
By the time he took the box out to the curb, there was an audience.
“No! No return address,” Mom is saying into the phone now.
She’s been on the phone all evening long, calling every neighbor, every friend, every acquaintance.
Normally I’d be annoyed that she’s taken something so awful and made it about herself, but she actually looks shaken.
She’s so pale her makeup looks lurid, and she keeps touching her lips in a gesture I recognize as a tic from a long-kicked smoking habit. “Someone is terrorizing our family.”
I’m sitting on the sofa next to Noelle, supposedly watching a movie on Netflix but mostly just staring out in space.
Somehow the news has made Sekrit, of course; I’m guessing the news has made the whole town, since Mays unpacked a crime scene on our front porch.
I keep glancing at my phone, seeing the comments trickle in.
coffeecutie: calling it now she mailed it to herself
sriracha6969: she talked about death all the time when we were in girl scouts together—always a spooky girl
gemstone_3: Everyone’s joking about this but I honestly don’t feel safe with her in school now. How long is it going to take until she gets kicked out for this shit/
I know I should feel something. Outraged, scared, shocked. I should at least be mad that “sriracha6969” is spreading bullshit, because I was never even in the Girl Scouts. But everything around me is muffled and muted. I don’t feel much of anything.
Suddenly my phone vibrates. It’s Jonah. Real Jonah.
Hey, are you around?
Give me one second, I write.
“Gotta go upstairs for a second,” I say. I look at Noelle. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She waves me off. “Go talk to whatever weirdo still wants to talk to you.”
I flip her off as I head to the staircase.
Upstairs I shut my bedroom door and pace back and forth. I try to pull myself together. If Jonah’s trying to get in touch, it’s because he’s got news. It’s because he’s learned something.
It doesn’t take him long to pick up.
“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, it’s been kind of—”
His expression makes me come up short. His jaw is tight. There’s an awful flatness to his expression that I’ve never seen there before.
“I found out what IP address the Sekrit post was made from,” he says before I can say anything else.
I sit up straight in my chair. “Where?”
Our eyes lock through the screen. Suddenly I find myself wanting desperately to look away.
“Your house, Iris. Your IP address.”
My jaw drops, and I shake my head, mute, uncomprehending.
“My sister checked it a few different ways,” he says. “You’re at 6237 Halifax, right?”
“Yeah, but … but I don’t…”
“There you go. That means it came from your house.” He speaks with a deliberate calm, but I can sense the tension behind it.
“Jonah, I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any—”
“It’s fine,” he says brusquely, but it obviously isn’t. “Look, this is all just weird. I don’t really understand—”
“But I didn’t do this,” I say. I’m begging.
It’s pathetic, but I’m begging to be believed.
“Someone must have been using my Wi-Fi, and…” Even as I say it I hear how desperate it all sounds.
Of course he thinks it’s me. Of course he thinks I’m some kind of unhinged narcissist, some kind of scammer that gets off on creating drama.
As insane as that would be, it’s the least insane option.
His brow furrows, and there’s something almost regretful in his voice when he talks again.
“Okay,” he finally says. “Listen, I, uh, I’ve got to go. I hope … I hope you get some help, okay? I hope you can figure out how to end this all.”
It’s the kindest brush-off I could expect. I stare at my screen, where he’s hung up the phone. Just like that, the whole thing is over: the relationship I’d thought we had, and the real one—tenuous and platonic as it’d been—as well. Jonah, my lifeline, is gone.
My mind churns.
Our Wi-Fi is password protected. But how many people know the password? My friends, maybe, and Noelle’s friends.
And, of course, Noelle.
Noelle. My strange, funny, prickly little sister. Who has been friendlier than usual lately, sure, but who has always been jealous to her very bones.
Jealous enough to destroy me?
Back in the living room, she is still on the sofa. She’s paused the movie. When she looks up, her brow is furrowed in concern. Or at least a semblance of concern.
“What?” she asks, when she sees my face.
For a half second I think about asking her point-blank. Did you do this?
Was it you?
But I realize, looking at her expression, that it wouldn’t matter if I did ask her directly. It’d be easy for her to deny. It’d be easy for her to affect outrage: We’ve been getting along so well. Why are you accusing me of something like this?
The catfish has shown, more than anything else, that they’re good at winning my trust. I can’t afford to let them get away with it again.
I can’t risk letting someone fool me again.
So I don’t answer. I turn away from her walk upstairs to my room, my phone never leaving my hand. I pull up Max’s contact information.
I’ve got to get out of here, I type.
I’ve barely sent the message when I get his reply.
Come on over, he says.