Chapter 54
Chapter Fifty-Four
J
Dr. Kenji is tied up with an emergency surgery, but he still sends me to re-do my tests. Martina sticks to me like glue as I move from one side of the hospital to the other.
After the MRI and two echo scans, a new nurse—not Bailey—draws enough of my blood to raise a zombie army.
“Use a wheelchair,” one of the doctors advises when I limp into his office after the blood tests.
“I can walk.”
“Don’t be stubborn, J.” He folds his hands together. “Dr. Kenji is really concerned about you. If he hears that you collapsed on my watch—”
“I won’t tell him if you don’t.” I smile and wink.
Once I leave the doctor’s office, my facade falls apart, and I bend over. The sharp chest pain that I’ve been experiencing lately is back, and it’s not going away as fast as it usually does. I could tell Dr. Kenji about it, but then I’ll also have to tell him when the pain started.
And that will mean I’ll have to tell him about the pills.
Martina offers her elbow for me to hold. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m normally like this after a test,” I murmur, rubbing my chest.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
I give her a questioning look.
“Perhaps you’re upset that Finn left without telling you?”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“He’s been calling all day to check on your progress. You’re on his mind, even when he’s far away.”
This has nothing to do with Finn.
I lick my lips, debating whether or not I should share what I’ve found. “Martina, can you look at these two pictures and tell me what you think?”
Stopping at one of the benches in the crowded hospital, I show her my cell phone.
“Do these ladies look like the same person?” I swipe between two images of Kelly that I found online.
“I-I think so.” Martina pushes her face close to the screen. “One looks a bit more thin, and the nose is a bit different. But the hair and eyes are the same color. I would believe they are the same person.”
“So would I,” I murmur.
Martina takes me back to my room, and I sit at the computer, staring blankly at the wall.
The first picture I showed Martina was Kelly in high school ten years ago. She had the same brown hair as the Kelly from today, and she also had the same eyes. The Kelly from today even has the same birthmark along her left nostril, tucked almost imperceptibly out of sight.
Everything on the surface checks out.
But in between my MRI and echo scan, I noodled around Kelly’s virtual history, and that made things very confusing.
High school Kelly was insanely predictable. All her passwords were a variation of the word “strawberry”—strawberry235, strawberry443, strawberry45.
Then five years ago, Kelly’s password habit changed. She used a new password every time she created an account, and even more strangely, none of those passwords were variations of the word “strawberry.”
Normal people never change their passwords or their password habits (especially the “smart” people who think changing all their e’s to 3’s is enough). And hackers love that. It makes it super easy to break into different accounts with the same stolen code.
Martina hustles into the room, her eyes wide. “Should you be working right now, J? Shouldn’t you rest?”
“I’ll just do a few more things, and then I’ll turn in,” I lie.
Martina nods. “Make sure to do that. I’ll be going home now, but you can call me at any time. Here’s my number.”
“Thanks.” I wave goodbye.
Although everything in me wants to crawl into bed, I take out a new packet of pills since I can’t find the old packet I was using before I slept over at Finn’s. Then I sit behind my computer and do a deep dive into Kelly’s emails, chat accounts, playlists, and cloud drives.
The content itself isn’t suspicious at all. Kelly is as sweet and considerate in her private chats as she is in real life.
I exit Kelly’s social media accounts and check the accounts of her high school classmates. To my surprise, Kelly isn’t following anyone from her high school or her college alma matter.
“She’s so friendly. Why wouldn’t she have any high school friends on social media?”
I tap out of Kelly’s profile and find one of her classmates online. I check their friend lists and go down the rabbit hole to find more students who graduated with Kelly. Finally, I get to a friend who follows Kelly back.
But when I click on the social media profile, it links to an old account that’s gone inactive. I click on the profile image and enlarge it.
My heart drops to my toes.
There’s that image of Kelly from five years ago.
Why is her high school friend following her old account and not her new one?
The hospital room gets colder. I shrug into a sweater and keep investigating.
Without fail, every account that today’s Kelly Porter uses is completely different from the ones she had five years ago.
Getting locked out of one or two accounts is understandable, but Kelly had to recreate all of her social media accounts. Everything. She basically created an entirely new digital history.
Something is very weird about all this.
I send the high school friend a message, asking if I can talk with her about Kelly. She doesn’t immediately respond, and I check the time.
Crap. It’s after midnight. Pulling off my finger sleeves, I chew on my bottom lip.
A memory from the day I visited Kelly’s aunt returns to me.
“Kelly’s dead.”
Was the deranged aunt I met right? Even if she is, maybe Kelly has a good reason for assuming a dead girl’s identity? Maybe she’s running from gangsters or has really bad debt?
Or maybe she’s a murderer.
My phone rings and I yelp in surprise.
Beep.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumble at the watch and pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Finn growls.
I blink in surprise and glance around. “Are you spying on me?”
“You answered the phone, Ghost. You’re obviously awake.”
My eyebrows scrunch at the nickname, but I concede the argument.
“I can’t sleep,” I mutter. My only friend lied about her identity, and I have no idea what other things she may have lied about.
“It was only one night, J,” Finn says, a strange undertone to his voice.
“What?”
“Can’t sleep if I’m not beside you?”
Whoa. Is Finn Cross… teasing me?
I snort as a sarcastic comment rises to my lips, but I suddenly remember the sensation of his fingers diving through my scalp. The feeling is so real that I whip around to check that no one else is in my hospital room.
I’m alone.
Why is that vivid dream of us kissing sending hot electricity through my body? Why do I still remember the sensation of Finn’s touch?
“Finn…” I struggle to find the words.
Beep.
My heart is pounding.
The memory of his hands rolling me over in bed and his lips covering mine presses into me like a physical presence.
It felt so real.
But it obviously wasn’t.
There’s no way.
“Nothing.” I let out a deep sigh and push those feelings aside. “Did investigating your mom’s company reveal anything?”
“I’m not sure,” he says vaguely.
I check the terminal that’s synced to the last open portal. “I’m receiving even more errors on my end. They’re tightening security over there. I think your mom went even deeper underground. Whoever she’s hiding from must be really powerful.”
“Don’t think it’s a ‘who,’” Finn murmurs.
“Huh?”
He doesn’t repeat himself. “Go to sleep, J.”
“Wait. Finn,” I blurt before he hangs up.
Silence fills the other end of the line, but I can sense that he’s listening.
“I need some advice. What if…” I run my teeth along my bottom lip. “What if you find out that someone was lying about who they are? It’s someone you really, really want to trust, but all the evidence says that they might be a bad person. Would you dig deeper or let it go?”
Finn is quiet for a long time.
When he finally speaks, his voice is chillingly resolved. “If someone fooled me like that, I’d tear down every lie they told and expose it.”
“Oh—”
“And then I’d punish them myself.”
I shudder.
“Goodnight, J,” Finn says, his voice as quiet as a haunting.
“Goodnight, Finn.”
My watch beeps a warning as the dial tone flatlines in my ear.