Chapter 24
“You are being framed for murder?” Grange repeats back to me.
“A few of them actually.” I fidget in my seat and nervously pick at my nails. He raises an eyebrow in question. “The eulogy
you found on Ryan . . . it wasn’t the only one. There’s a journal full of them. Someone is killing the boys in the journal
and leaving the pages.”
He doesn’t hesitate as he slides over a bag that was sitting on the end of the desk. I hadn’t even noticed it. Inside the
bag is my journal page left at the gallery. It was taped over the painting above him, splattered red. I skim over the parts
not covered in blood.
We are gathered here to remember Graham, which is coincidentally how much weed he smoked almost daily, who lived his life like his art: shitty and devoid of real human emotion.
Imagine someone studying every inch of you, from the curve of your smile to the color of your bare skin.
Now imagine them putting it all on a canvas and hanging it in a campus gallery like the Louvre but with nudes.
Seriously, how was that even allowed—I feel like I need to speak with someone at the university about this?
Anyways, never listen to a man who calls you his muse, or considers watching cartoons high all day part of the “creative process.” Graham, if you’re with us now, just know I burned your stupid painting and I hope you used the money we paid for it to buy yourself some real talent.
Though I know you spent it on drugs. You may be gone, but your memory, much like that painting, will haunt me literally forever.
I stop reading, holding back a fresh sob.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I wrote that.”
“I assume you have more of an explanation for me this time?”
“I do.”
Grange pulls out a pen, paper, and what looks like a recording device. “Let’s start at the beginning, then, shall we?”
I start with Jonah, and how he was the first journal entry death I ever wrote, but that he died in a car accident, and I never
heard about a journal page being found anywhere on him. Then Ryan, which Grange already knows about, emphasizing that I still
do not know how he got the page, but that I no longer think he accidentally fell off that balcony. I then tell him about Marco,
and his restaurant burning down the night I was there and how his journal entry was under the windshield wiper of his car.
I left out the part about the gas container being buried in the woods behind my parents’ house. The last thing I need is
for police to show up there.
“And what did you do with the journal page you found there?”
“I threw it away . . .”
“You threw away evidence?”
It’s technically buried in a hole with the gas container. “Yes . . .”
“Okay,” he sighs. “Continue.”
I tell him how the news called it a gas leak, but I was suspicious because of the note, and that the only person that even
knew about the journal was my ex-boyfriend and ex-professor Miles Holland. I swore I saw his car the morning that we left
North Winwick, and he’s a professor now at Ivy Gate, where Ryan died, so it makes sense. Then I get to Bryce and how I basically
stalked him trying to keep him safe. I thought I saw Miles’s Darth Vader costume on Halloween, and he had emailed me saying
he would be out by Pembroke that weekend. I tell Grange how Bryce died from being stabbed with a sword on Halloween, the page
stabbed through as well.
“I heard about that,” Grange says. “But I did not hear about any notes being found. Presumably because you took it?”
Technically Asher took it, but I won’t bring Asher into this. “Yes.”
I continue to tell him about how I went to Holland’s office hours to try to get a confession, and that’s where I found the
gallery opening for Graham on his desk and I just knew it had to be him. So I went to the opening and saw Miles there. I spoke
with him and he seemed to be confused about me calling him a murderer and stormed out.
“We left the gallery, went to get pizza, stopped at Graham’s place for my friends to change their clothes, got back to the
hotel, and that’s when I found it,” I say.
“Found what?” Grange asks.
I slide the duffel bag across the floor.
“The gun that killed him. It was in my hotel room, under the covers. The girl at the front desk said she let a woman up to our room while we were gone, a woman named Kate Holland.” Grange takes the duffel and carefully pulls back the zipper, revealing the hotel towel.
“We didn’t want to touch it, so we wrapped it in a hotel towel. ”
“Who is ‘we’?”
So much for keeping him out of it.
“Me and my friend Asher. We were on the bed . . . um, hanging out . . . when we found it. But I knew Graham was in trouble.
That’s why we went back to the gallery. And when we got there he was already shot, and the journal page was taped to the wall.
We’re the ones who called 911.”
Grange looks from me to his notes, tapping his pen on the pad. “Let’s start with Graham. What time did you leave the gallery
opening?”
“It started at seven and I think we left around eight thirty, got to Slice around eight forty-five, stayed until ten eating
and having drinks, then we got an Uber to Graham’s, probably stayed there until ten thirty, but Asher and I didn’t get out
of the car, then went to the hotel around ten forty-five.”
“I looked through the gallery footage all night and Graham was shot around ten thirty, but we couldn’t see the shooter. I’ll
need the name of your driver that took you to his apartment and to the hotel so I can verify that you did not go back to the
gallery at that time.”
“Um, sure.” I take out my phone and turn it back on, ignoring the influx of texts from Asher asking where the hell I went
with the gun. I go to the app to find the driver. “His name was Brandon Jones—here is the ride info.” I slide my phone to
him.
Grange picks up the phone on his desk, putting it to his ear.
“Carmen, can you bring me an evidence bag? And tell Wilson we need a warrant for the security footage at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown, as well as Slice, the restaurant . . . Yes . . . and we need to contact Uber support to get in touch with a driver . . . Brandon Jones, license plate HTW334. Thanks.” He hangs up and opens a desk drawer, pulling out a pair of gloves.
“So . . . am I in trouble?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “But how much trouble is yet to be determined.” The woman from the front desk comes back in with an evidence
bag for Grange, and with gloved hands he picks up the gun and drops it in. “I’m going to get this sent out to the lab and
you’re going to move to another room for more questioning.”
“But I’ve told you everything I know.”
“I’d like to hear more about Miles Holland.”
An officer escorts me to a small room with a table and two chairs, the kind of room where criminals go in TV shows for interrogation.
Grange comes in thirty minutes later.
“Should I have a lawyer here?” I ask when he walks in. “This room makes it feel like I should have one.”
“You’re not under arrest,” he says. “But if you would like a lawyer, we can get you one.”
I know Asher would tell me to get one, he’d say I shouldn’t have even come in here without one. But doesn’t that just prove
my innocence even more? That I came in here voluntarily to confess all of that? And Grange did say I’m not under arrest; he
just wants to know about Miles. “What else do you want to know?”
I give Grange all the details on Miles and his wife, how our relationship started, how it ended, how he used to stalk me, threaten me, how I once found pictures of me in his closet, though I didn’t say how recent that was or how I had to break into his town house for them.
And last I tell him about the emails he’s been sending lately and our conversation at the gallery.
When it feels like an hour or two have passed, an officer comes in to steal Grange away for what feels like another hour.
“Well, your driver confirmed you both were in the car the entire time he took you and your friends from Slice to Graham’s
to the hotel, and confirmed the time, which lines up with the shooting. We should have the security footage from the hotel
and restaurant in a few hours.”
“A few hours? But I’ve already been here for like three?”
“These things take time,” he says. “But like I said before, you’re not under arrest—you could leave at any time. But if you
want to help us catch the person behind this, you’d better stay.”
I think of the two names left in the journal, Tristan and Wesley. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
We talk about the two of them, and Grange assures me they’ll be protected. We then go through the journal again from the beginning,
this time in more detail. I give them a DNA sample. By the time they get the hotel and restaurant footage that verifies I
was there when I say I was, and Grange finishes up his questions, it’s past 7 p.m.
Asher must be freaking out right now.
“Wait, did you get the fingerprints for the gun?” I ask when he stands up, concluding our session.
“Some things take more time,” he says. “Now, I have a lot of work to do, and you’re free to go. For now,” he adds.
“And you’re going to look into Miles and Kate? And make sure nothing happens to Tristan and Wes?”
“Yes, we are going to do everything we can.”
“Well, I can help you—”
“No, you need to stay far away from this. In fact, you should have little to no contact with the other two people in your
journal if possible.”
“That’s . . . not possible,” I say. “I work with Tristan and Wes is my . . . well, he’s one of my best friends.”
“Find a new job,” Grange says. “And if the other one is really your best friend, then you’ll listen to me when I say to stay
away.” He walks me to the front of the station and out the doors. “I’ll be in touch,” he says to me before I walk back to
my car.
I call Asher on my way back to campus. He picks up on the first ring.
“Where the fuck are you? I have been freaking the fuck out, Sloane. Where is the gun?”