“Who else was there?”
“Haley, Aisha, Kevin, Yuji . . . Tyrone, who came home from Notre Dame the day Gretchen died.” I decide to leave it at that. “And Kirsten, of course. She was acting kind of strange.”
Marcus raises his eyebrows. “How so?”
“She dressed up in Gretchen’s clothes. It seemed odd at first, but Kirsten was always trying to be like her . . .” My voice trails off as I recall her coming out of Gretchen’s room. Had she been holding something in her hand?
Marcus shifts uncomfortably and I file the thought away for later. She might have taken anything. She had on a whole outfit that wasn’t hers.
“What did she say to you after the service?” I ask.
“What?”
“I saw it on the news. She came out of the church and said something. Then you left.”
“Oh . . . she just said something about peace and respecting Gretchen’s memory.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” he says quickly. “And then I left.”
I tilt my head because he refuses to look at me, but before I can open my mouth a door slams and Ms. Jensen shatters the silence, whistling tunelessly.
Marcus turns away so fast I have to grab his arm to keep him from dashing into the open. He’s stronger, more toned than I expected, but he stops.
“Thought you didn’t want to be seen with me.” He looks pointedly at my hand.
I let go. He’s right. I don’t want to be caught alone with him again.
“I want to see your list,” I whisper. “Who could have done it, what motive they had . . .”
He gives a tight nod. “Can you come to Evil Bean tomorrow? I want to see yours too.”
The whistling moves closer and my pulse jumps. I step back. “Okay.”
“I’ll wait a minute before I leave.” He gestures to the door, but steps toward me like he doesn’t want to be left behind. “Just—just watch your back, okay?”
I hesitate, still doubtful I should trust him, but what he said about Gretchen and his feelings lingers and I can’t help wondering what else he was going to say.
I want to believe him, despite myself.
I grab a book off a shelf and shuffle as noisily as I can toward the desk. The librarian’s auburn head snaps up. A sad look crosses her face when she sees me, but she’s polite and doesn’t say much as she helps me check out. I exit the library, looking over my shoulder once. Marcus watches patiently from the stacks.
SEVENTEEN
YOU CAN FIND ALMOST ANYTHING online. A used couch. Lost pets. The love of your life.
Potential murderers are a little harder to come by.
Tricky, but not impossible—Gretchen loved to say that. But she was used to getting what she wanted.
I was supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago, but I scroll through my social media feeds with a pencil between my teeth. Since Kirsten headed me off before I could get inside Gretchen’s room at the reception, I’ve been looking for clues everywhere else I can think of. Most of my classmates’ posts have given way to gossip and general weirdness. “One bitch down” seems to be the current trending topic, complete with pictures of the vandalized memorial. I study them briefly, but the scrawled words and mess of ruined flowers make my stomach sick.
Sasha Fadley recorded herself singing a song dedicated to Gretchen, which was strange because the song didn’t seem to have anything to do with Gretchen at all. Reva Stone shared a link about waterfalls drying up with climate change. Kevin Fowler changed his profile picture to one of himself with Gretchen in a bikini last spring, which led to a heated debate with Tyrone over when exactly they dated.
Gretchen had immortalized almost all of them in one way or another on her SD card. It contains photos of Sasha with a handful of other classmates smoking bongs or saluting the camera with their beers. There’s a short video of Kevin keying Principal Bova’s car—a senior prank that still remains “unsolved.” There’s even footage of Brianne sneaking answers on a test. Some people clearly didn’t know they were being recorded, but I pay attention to the names of those who did, making notes about who was at the party and who might’ve been in the woods.
Kirsten posted a picture of her and Gretchen from the family photo shoot on the beach. They had been posed in a hug, which wasn’t a natural position for the two of them, but my eyes sting when I see it. I scroll past quickly.