White-hot heat shot down Brynna’s spine. Erica was dead, it was confirmed, and suddenly, the harassment stopped. Had she been alive just three days ago?
“No,” Brynna muttered to herself, sweat making her T-shirt stick to her back. Her father said that Erica had been found—and here the sick roiled in her stomach again—in pieces. They didn’t find Erica, they didn’t find her body—they found her bones. Brynna’s heart beat in her throat.
“Dad, Dad!” She sprinted down the stairs, breathing heavily when she threw open the door to his office. He froze, standing with his hand wrapped around a cut-glass highball glass, an inch of brown liquor at the bottom. Brynna’s eyes went directly to it. His eyes followed hers. Her whole body clenched and thirsted. The glass, the bottle, could make all of this so much less real. The knife-sharp edges of memory, or reality, could be blurred out or forgotten completely. Maybe not forever, but even a few minutes would do.
Then she remembered why she was there.
“Dad, how did they know it was Erica that they found?”
He set the glass down, pushing it behind a framed picture, so it would be out of her line of sight, she guessed. “I told you, Bryn, they did something with forensics, I guess. They were able to match her.”
“You guess? Are you sure? Or did they just assume the body was Erica’s? Did it look like a teenage girl, so they figured it must be?” Brynna could feel the flush in her cheeks.
“No, honey. They wouldn’t do that to the Shaws. They must be sure it’s her.” He sat down behind his desk. “Where is all this coming from?”
“She was alive, Dad, I know she was. She was here in Crescent City just a couple days ago—”
He shook his head. “She had been dead for months. There was no doubt about that.”
Her father spoke with the kind of certainty that blanketed her entire body in a heavy, dark cloud. Because if Erica truly had been dead for months, then someone else was sending her those notes.
Brynna bristled. Now that Erica was gone, would her stalker go too?
ELEVEN
Brynna yawned as her mother turned the car into Dr. Rother’s parking lot that Monday morning. She glared at the numbers on the dashboard clock—7:12 a.m.—and groaned.
“Couldn’t we have done this after school?”
“Dr. Rother didn’t have any openings after school, and your father and I both thought it was important for you and her to talk after…” Her voice dropped off. “Either way, we didn’t think it was appropriate for you to miss any more school. Dr. Rother is really doing us a favor taking you before class.”
Brynna hated the way her parents were suddenly presenting a united front, as though as long as she stayed screwed up, they’d hold together their screwed-up relationship so everyone could be nuts together. It wasn’t exactly the picture of familial perfection she wanted. But the one thing she wanted less was to sit in Dr. Rother’s office for the next fifty minutes and talk about Erica.
As her mother slammed the car door, Brynna’s gaze wandered over to the coffeehouse where she had seen Erica slip in. It was as bright today as it had been that day, and the colors of the house and its patrons seemed to throb in the sunlight. It had been Erica. She hadn’t made her up. Her stomach roiled. Had she?
“You coming, hon?”
Dr. Rother met them in the foyer where the right-out-of-high-school-looking receptionist usually greeted Brynna and her mother. Brynna never made eye contact with the girl, certain that when she disappeared behind Dr. Rother’s door, the girl would press her ear against it, listening, thanking god she wasn’t as messed up as Brynna was.
“I’m the first one here today,” Dr. Rother said by way of apology, “so if you’ll give me just a sec, we can begin.” She fiddled around the stark-looking room—which could have been the waiting room of a dentist, an accountant, a lawyer, or a shrink, so generic were the beige paint, pressboard furniture, and itchy couches—while Brynna wedged herself against the arm of the couch and picked up an ancient-looking copy of Seventeen magazine. She didn’t open the magazine, instead watching while Dr. Rother flipped on the coffee maker and her mother made benign conversation with the doctor, as though her daughter weren’t suffering from paranoid delusions, severe depression, and/or a possible stalker.
“Okay, Bryn,” Dr. Rother said with far too much cheeriness. “I’m ready for you.”
Brynna and the doctor took their usual places across from each other, and Dr. Rother pulled out a new sheet of paper while Brynna went around studying every nuance in the room, just as she did during every session.
“Your parents are quite concerned about you.”
Brynna shrugged, averting her gaze.
“They told me that Erica’s body has been found.”
Dr. Rother’s words needled a tiny, cold opening in the blackness of Brynna’s mind that she refused to acknowledge.