With a shudder, I pull the ziplock bag out of my backpack. His eyes darken as he takes in the blade. He runs his hand over it, and I bite back a scream as the knife glides through his intangible palm—but of course, he draws no blood. Not this time.
“I don’t remember.” He shakes his head in frustration. “My last memory is the rock.”
“What rock?” I press.
He doesn’t answer. Instead he takes a step away from the blade in my hands.
“Get rid of it,” he says. “You can’t be found with this. Bury it someplace where it can’t be tracked to you.”
“Okay,” I whisper, a sick feeling in my stomach. I take a breath, clear my throat.
“I thought about what you said before, about the early days of you and me. Were you talking about our visit to Brooklyn? Do you think this was—I mean, could it be Justin Jensen’s revenge or something?”
The idea of Justin—who could still be in juvie, for all we know—risking his family by coming after Chace sounds as far-fetched as anything else I could come up with. But Chace stops still.
“Maybe Justin. Maybe someone else…”
His reflection wavers, and I rush forward, trying to hold him in place. But my hands only brush against air.
“Don’t go!” I wail. “Stay with me.”
But our time is up.
I’m all alone.
Again.
OCTOBER 29, 2016
I know something must be wrong when my phone rings at six a.m. on a Saturday. At first I let it chime on aimlessly, afraid to hear whatever news is on the other end of the line. But on the thirteenth shrill ring, I finally answer.
“Hello?”
“Nicole, it’s John Sanford.”
In my groggy haze, it takes me a moment to remember who he is. And then, with a wave of dread, it hits me. The lawyer.
“What is it?” I sit up, instantly alert.
“I’m afraid the police found the email you were composing to Chace the same day he died. It’s still in your drafts folder.”
“What email?” I ask, bewildered. “I didn’t write him anything that day.”
“You may not have sent it, but the draft is there in black and white. You wrote that you would never forgive Chace, and that you wished he were dead.”
The room around me begins to spin. I grip the side of my mattress to keep steady. This isn’t happening.
“I never wrote that,” I tell the lawyer, my voice shaking in my shock. “There must be a mistake. I’ll log in to my account and show you—”
“I already saw it, Nicole,” Mr. Sanford says heavily. “Detective Kimble sent it to me first as a courtesy.”
“But—but that’s impossible!” I cry. “I’m telling you, I didn’t write that. Someone is setting me up.”
I hear him pause.
“That’s not the worst of it. Someone turned in your sweater from that night.”
“What sweater?” Now it’s my head that’s spinning. “I didn’t lose a sweater.”
“It has Chace’s blood on it—and hairs that match your DNA. I’m afraid we need to prepare for the worst.”
The violent banging at my door shocks me awake. I blink my eyes open, disoriented. The banging continues in earnest and I pull the covers up over my head to block out the noise. If I ignore it, maybe it’ll go away.
But then the door to my room is kicked open. I sit bolt upright, a scream lodging in my throat as I see a flash of blue.
It’s the cops. What are they doing, why are they here?
“Lana Rivera, you have the right to remain silent,” a burly policeman barks at me, brandishing his badge. His partner throws the covers off me, grabbing my elbow and pulling me out of bed.
“Stop! Don’t touch me!” I shout.
But now they’re pinning my arms behind my back, locking my wrists in handcuffs, not even letting me cover myself up as I stand in pajama shorts and a flimsy tank top.
“Let me go!” I scream. “My mother is a United States Congresswoman. You have to let me go!”
“Lana.” Someone pokes me in the ribs, then rubs my arm. What the hell? Since when are cops allowed to be so handsy with people? “Lana!”
I blink my eyes open. Stephanie is standing over me in pajamas, her hair a tangled mess. I look wildly around the room, but it’s just the two of us.
“You were having a nightmare,” she tells me. “It was freaky. You just got up like a sleepwalker and started yelling.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. I fall back into bed, practically wilting with relief. It was a dream—just a dream.
I burrow my head back into the pillow and close my eyes, but all I can see are the panic-inducing images from my nightmare. Looks like sleep is out of the question. I mindlessly reach for my cell, and find it already blinking with a new message. Who would be texting me at two in the morning? Mom, of course.
Turn on the news.
My heartbeat quickens. I jump out of bed and grab my laptop off my desk.
“What are you doing now?” Stephanie groans, but I ignore her, clicking open the Google News window. And there it is, right on the front page: “Nicole Morgan, ‘The Girl in the Picture,’ Taken into Police Custody in Chace Porter Case.”