Chapter 26
March
“Guess who’s back!” Tristan Brent says as he walks through the doors of Cantine on a rainy evening in March, gift bags in
hand.
Oh no.
“Hey!” I say. “How was your trip?” He was in Europe for a month longer than I thought he’d be. Which meant an extra month
of peace for me.
“Oh, it was amazing. I wish I didn’t have to come back,” he says, plopping the bags on the bar counter.
Same, I think to myself.
“Well,” I say. “Tell me all about it.”
So Tristan tells me all about the Christmas markets in Germany, the way the Eiffel Tower sparkles at night in Paris, and the
ruins of Rome. When we’re not busy with customers we go through the millions of pictures on his phone. By the time he’s gotten
through all of it our shift is ending. I lock the door while we start cleaning up.
“What’s been going on here while I’ve been gone?” he asks. “Did you ever figure out that weird note situation you were telling me about?”
“Funny you should ask, actually. I need to talk to you about something.” I follow Tristan back to the freezer as he goes through
the closing checklist. He checks the dates on the steak and chicken, writing new dates on what arrived today. I step in with
him, letting the door close behind me. “So, um, let’s see, how do I explain this . . .”
Tristan looks up at me, waiting.
“I have this journal, and every time someone breaks my heart, I write them a fake eulogy, like they died. And someone took
my journal, and is murdering everyone in it, and leaving my journal page at the crime scene trying to frame me for it. And
uh . . . you’re in the journal. You’re actually the next name so . . .”
He looks at me for a long moment in the white freezer light before laughing, his breath coming out like smoke in the chilly
air. “Is this a joke? Are you trying to prank me right now or something? It’s creative, I’ll give you that.”
“I wish,” I say.
He blinks at me when I don’t laugh with him. “Sloane, tell me this is a joke. Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I would love to do that, I really would, but . . .” Tristan walks past me to the freezer door and I go to follow him out,
but he doesn’t open it. “It’s serious, Tristan—” He pushes against the door again, but it stays shut. “You have to push hard
on that, sometimes it’s stuck.”
“I know,” he says. “I am.”
“Here, let me try.” He moves and I give it a hard push like I usually do to get it open, but it still doesn’t budge. “Okay, let’s both try,” I suggest. Tristan stands beside me and we both push as hard as we can on the freezer door.
“What the hell,” he says.
“Call Jess and tell her to come back and open it,” I say.
“My phone is behind the bar,” he says. “You call.”
“My phone is also behind the bar . . .”
“Fuck.”
“Maybe try running at it?” I suggest. “Or maybe you could, like, kick it down?”
He looks at me in disbelief. “What do I look like, an Avenger?”
I shake my head. “A what?”
“Never mind, I’ll try it,” he says, backing up and taking a breath before running at the door and slamming into it with his
shoulder. “Fuck!” He slides down the door holding his shoulder.
“Okay, um, maybe someone in the yogurt shop is still closing up and would hear us if we yell.” I start pounding on the door,
yelling for help. Tristan gets up from the floor and joins me. We yell for a few minutes and then wait to see if we can hear
anyone.
I start to shiver.
Twenty or so minutes go by without anyone coming to our rescue. I pace around the freezer. “Worst-case scenario, we’re just
stuck in here until the morning crew comes in at what? Like seven in the morning?”
“That’s eight hours from now,” Tristan says with his back to the door.
“Okay, we’ll just be a little cold.”
“A little cold? This is a freezer!”
“People live in colder temperatures! I mean, there’s, like, Eskimos and other people that live in the arctic—this can’t be much worse. We’ll be fine for eight hours.”
“Sloane, this is a freezer.”
“I heard you.”
“There is not enough oxygen in here for both of us for eight hours.”
“Oh.”
We both sit with our backs to the freezer door, taking slow, shallow breaths. Eventually the motion sensor light goes out,
leaving us in the dark. We don’t move to turn it back on.
“Are we going to die in here?” I ask him in the frigid blackness.
“I don’t know if we’ll die, but we’ll definitely get hypothermia and probably pass out.”
“Lovely,” I say, shivering. Tristan scoots closer to me so we’re huddled together in the cold.
“I did make that bet,” he admits.
I purse my lips and nod. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I say again. “I forgive you.”
“I didn’t even know you or Alaina when I said it. I was just being a jerk. And when we started actually hanging out I realized
I liked you. I wish I could take it back.”
“I liked you too,” I say.
“Is that why you wrote about me in your journal?”
“Yep.”
“You have to admit we had fun, though. The concerts, the parties . . . the time you accidentally met my parents with no pants
on.”
I shake my head but my lips tug upward in the dark. “Or when I had bronchitis for a whole month but we continued to see each other anyway. Your parents probably hated me.”
“Nah, they were cool,” he says. “Until I got bronchitis, and then so did they.”
“Well, that’s what you get.”
He lets out a dry laugh. “If that was my karma then why am I trapped in a freezer right now?” Because this is my karma is what I want to tell him. When I don’t say anything he talks again. “So what’s going on exactly with these murders?
Explain it to me again.” But the thought of explaining this situation again makes my brain hurt. Or maybe that’s from the
lack of air. Or the below-thirty-degrees temperature.
“Aren’t we supposed to be conserving air?”
A noise outside the freezer thirty minutes later has me snapping up my head from Tristan’s shoulder.
“Did you hear that?” I ask him.
“Hm?”
“Someone is in the restaurant.” I turn and bang on the freezer again, but my arms move slower this time. It takes more effort.
Tristan tries it too. There’s more noise now directly in front of the freezer door until it swings open, revealing a police
officer and our manager, Jess.
“Oh thank god,” I say.
The officer helps us up, putting his coat around me. Jess gives hers to Tristan.
“What the hell happened?” Jess says, picking up the crowbar on the ground that must have been lodged in the handle.
“Miss, don’t touch anything, please,” the officer says, while on the phone with someone.
“Yes . . . She was in there with him . . . Yes, it’s taped onto the front of the freezer door .
. . Yeah, I’ll tell her.” Tristan and I both look at the door, where Tristan’s eulogy is.
“Grange says not to touch that,” the officer says to me.
Tristan starts to read it and I back away slowly.
“‘We’re here to mourn Tristan Brent,’” Tristan begins to read. “Died from poison? What the hell, Sloane.”
“Sorry . . .”
“Detective Grange is on his way,” the officer says.
Grange finishes questioning Jess and walks over to me. He has the eulogy page and the crowbar in evidence bags. Likely to
try to get prints from.
“Do you believe I’m not a suspect now?” I say.
He sighs. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone come into the restaurant while you were closing up?”
“I’m sure,” I say.
“All right,” Grange says. “I’ll follow you back to your apartment to make sure you get back okay and we’ll put a police detail
on you too.”
“Like you didn’t have one on me already.” It’s hard not to notice the black SUV that’s parked outside the English building
on campus whenever I have class, the same one that sometimes sits in front of my apartment.
“Observant.”
Back in my bed I lie awake in the dark. I pick up my phone and stare at Asher’s number, desperate to tell him what just happened.
He answers on the third ring.
“What’s wrong?” He sounds groggy but concerned. I suddenly feel bad for calling him so late.
“Nothing’s wrong . . . well, not anymore but—”
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m in bed.”
“Oh.”
I hear another voice on the line say, “Who is that?” A woman’s voice. A knot forms in my stomach knowing he’s in bed with
someone else. But what did I expect?
“No one,” I hear him say back to her.
“I just . . .” I suddenly feel foolish for calling. But at the same time I need him to know. Would he leave and come here
to comfort me knowing I just nearly escaped the killer? “I wanted you to know I got locked in the freezer at work with Tristan.
The police found us an hour later with Tristan’s journal entry taped to the door. Whoever is doing this, they just tried to
kill me too.”
He’s quiet for a while, and I can faintly hear him breathing. I close my eyes and listen to it until he says, “Well, I’m glad
you made it out alive.”
He hangs up.
At the boys’ house the following week, we’re all seated in the living room around Wesley, who stands in front of the TV. Jake
and Charlie make a show of peering around Wes to continue watching March Madness.
“What’s going on here?” Annica asks when we walk in.
“I’m practicing my proposal for my dad tomorrow,” Wes says.
“Ladies, please have a seat.” We file into the room and Charlie moves over on the big couch to fit us all.
In the corner on the recliner Asher sits with his feet up.
The little dark-haired girl that I once saw leaving his room sits on the edge beside him.
Annica does a double take. “Who the hell is that?” she says to the group, motioning at the girl with her thumb, but not addressing
her directly. And for once I agree with her unjustified rudeness, because who the hell is that?
“This is Erin,” Asher says. The girl gives a snarky finger wave to Annica.
“Should we really be letting strangers in on a business proposal?” Annica says to Wes.
“She’s not a stranger,” Wesley says to her. “She’s Asher’s new . . . friend.”
“And who are you?” Erin asks Annica.
Annica blinks at her. “The fact that you don’t know that means you shouldn’t be here.”
“Okay,” Wes says. “That’s enough. Let’s get on with the presentation.” He starts to hook up his laptop to the TV.
Annica concedes, leaning back on the couch with her arms crossed, giving me a better view. Erin’s long, pin-straight hair
falls over her hooded Pembroke sweatshirt. She tucks a piece of it behind her ear, revealing at least six piercings going
up to the top of it. She smiles down at Asher, crinkling her small button nose. I look over at him to find he’s already looking
at me. I turn my focus back to the presentation as Wes passes out a printed copy of it for us.
Wes presents the beach house, earning oohs and aahs from the group.
He walks through the drawn-up plans and I start to flip through the pages of the presentation.
Each room has a mock-up of what it will look like after renovation, the design details provided by Russel Interiors.
And there’s something familiar about that business, though I can’t put my finger on it.
Wes continues through the financials, the projected ROI, a marketing plan, and a bunch of other business-related material I don’t understand.
At the end he includes all the contact information for the contractors he’s already received quotes and information for, and again there is Russel Interiors with the email below it listed as Katherine@.
It hits me then. Kate Holland’s maiden name is Russel.
Miles had mentioned it once before. Could this be her? Is Katherine Russel Kate Holland?
“Where did you find this interior design firm?” I ask after the presentation.
“The owner actually reached out to me. Her name is Kate,” Wes says, and my stomach drops.
I try to school my features so no one can sense my unease. “Kate Russel reached out to you? How did she find you?”
“I’ve been posting some things on LinkedIn,” Wes explains.
“I see.” I look over at Asher but now he’s whispering something to Erin.
The boys ask questions about how much money Wes is going to make, and if he’s going to let them stay there for free. I google
Russel Interiors, finding that it’s located right in Bloomfield, down the street from Cantine. I make an appointment request
for this weekend and hit send.
I’m going to talk to Kate Russel myself.