Morgan clicked on the image, and a standard YouTube page appeared, and in the player, a red screen, the white words were easy to read:
THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN DEEMED
INAPPROPRIATE AND REMOVED.
Eric punched the air. “That’s bullshit,” he said, then turned to Fatima. “I told you we should have waited.”
“I’ll tell you what sounds like bullshit,” Morgan said, her smile gone.
“You think I’m lying? You think I didn’t post the videos?”
“I don’t think you did any of it. None of you. You showed up here, trying to fake your way out—”
Eric pulled Ian’s note from his pocket and tossed it on the keyboard. “Try this.”
Morgan looked at the paper, then at each of them.
Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled as she typed.
She hit ENTER and the screen went white, the little circle on the tab bar spinning as the browser loaded.
The webpage appeared—silver accents on a black background with a white rectangle space that said “password.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Secrets,” Eric said. “All lowercase.”
Morgan typed the password and hit ENTER.
The page refreshed, and there were six white squares in two even rows, just like he had described to Ian. Centered in each square was a black play arrow, and above that, a name.
“The three you want are on the bottom,” Eric said, his finger tapping the squares that read KATIE, CONNOR, and HEATHER. “Click on one of them and it’ll play.”
Morgan hesitated, her hard grin twisting as she ran the cursor over the top row, buying it. “What about this Lisa one? What’s that about? Or these two that say ‘Bianca’?”
“They’re nothing. These are the three you wanted.”
“Videos?” Morgan smiled at Eric. “I thought you would have learned your lesson.” She moved her hand, and the cursor slid down, centering on KATIE.
The word turned light blue.
Morgan’s finger twitched.
Click.
A warning box appeared on the screen.
Morgan clicked “Download anyway,” and it disappeared.
Another box came up, this one with a stop sign.
She clicked “Proceed.”
A progress bar popped up in its place, the red line inching up the scale. They watched as it moved across the screen, holding at 87 percent forever, then flashing ahead to 100 percent, where it froze.
A muffled rooster crowed, and they looked at Fatima. She pulled out her cell phone and hit the mute. On the screen, the countdown clock was all zeros. Then they jumped at the knock, Shelly gasping as the door flew open, Morgan’s mother scowling from the hallway. “Two minutes,” she said, then pulled the door shut with a thud.
Shelly set the near-full Coke on the desk. “We’re outta here.”
Morgan looked back at the screen. “This isn’t playing.”
“They’re big files. It’ll take a while,” Eric said. “It’ll play.”
“It better.”
“And then you delete all the stuff you have on us. Everything.”
“I told you I would, and I will. Once I get these videos up on YouTube.”
“And don’t ever try contacting any of us again. For anything. You do, and I swear we’ll call the cops.”
“The same goes for you,” Morgan says.
Fatima coughed. “Can I have my books back now? I don’t want to have to come all the way back to get them later.”
“I didn’t want you here in the first place,” Morgan said, then opened the desk drawer and took out a worn, yellow-covered book. A spiral address book was jammed between the marked-up pages. “I have scans of all the good parts, anyway.”
Fatima took the book and slid it under her arm, front cover down, and out of habit mumbled a thanks as they crossed the room.
Shelly opened the door, half expecting Morgan’s mother to stumble in, but the hallway was empty, and from the other side of the house she could hear the faint strains of a TV theme song. “Let’s go.”
Eric and Fatima followed her out, and the three of them started down the hall, Morgan a step behind, glancing over her shoulder. “This better work.”
Eric looked ahead at Fatima and Shelly, then back at Morgan. “You’re right.”
Thirty-Three
THE VOICE ON HIS IPHONE SAID, “I KNOW YOUR SECRET.”
He paused, took a breath. “Really?”
“I think so,” Fatima said. “Does it have something to do with a picture of you dressed up like SpongeBob at a Halloween party?”
Eric laughed. “Where’d you find that?”
“Something you said the other day at Starbucks got me thinking. So, is that it?”
He started to say one thing, then said, “No, it’s a little worse than that.”
“What, Mr. Krabs? Patrick the starfish?”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Because you know my secret, so I should know yours.”
“I didn’t ask, you just told me.”
“I wanted you to know. I didn’t want you thinking it was something horrible.”
“I never did.”
“Yeah, right,” she said.
“What if it is?”
“Is what?”
“Horrible. What if my secret is something really bad? Would you still want to know?”
She was quiet for a moment. In the background he could hear her kid sister singing along with a Disney movie. “No, I guess not.”
Eric exhaled. “It was a picture I took of a friend. If people we knew saw it, my friend would have been really embarrassed.”
“It wasn’t even of you?”
“No, just . . . my friend.”
“So you went through all of this to keep someone else from being embarrassed?”
He closed his eyes and lied. “Yeah, I guess.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. “You’re a really good friend.”
“Thanks,” he said without thinking, the expression she couldn’t see saying how he really felt.
“Speaking of friends, have you heard from Shelly?”
“I haven’t talked to her since I dropped her off that night.”
“Me neither. I told her to call me. I figured we’d keep in touch or something, but I guess not,” Fatima said, a second later adding, “She’s kinda weird.”
He grunted.
“Ever find out who she really is?”
“She said her name was Shelly,” Eric said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“I wonder what she did that was so bad.”
Eric shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
“You think she hooked up with Ian?”
He pictured them side by side, Ian and Shelly. Same dark clothes, same shaggy black hair, same bizarre T-shirts, same haunted stares. The perfect postapocalyptic, cybergoth, techno-loving, hard-style couple. “Maybe.”
“As weird as she is,” Fatima said, “if it wasn’t for her, we never would have met.”
“No. If it wasn’t for Morgan, we never would have met.”
“Actually,” Fatima said, adding an exaggerated Egyptian accent. “If I didn’t scribble notes on everything and if you didn’t take embarrassing pictures of your friends . . .” She laughed, then said, “I’m just glad it’s over.”
It took him an instant to replay it all in his head.
The phone call.
That voice.
Lying awake, staring at the ceiling, his stomach one big knot, scared shitless.
Then—everything.
What he had done to Connor.
To his parents.
To April.
And Morgan.
At least there was that.
Shelly and Fatima didn’t have to know everything.
Whatever.
He was just glad it was over.
There was no way he could go through that again.
; Thirty-Four
“THANK YOU TENFOLD FOR FACILITATING SUCH A THUNDEROUS participation from the worshipers.”
Shelly smiled with the priest. “There were twenty people at the mass. I wouldn’t call it thunderous.”
“You were not standing at the pulpit, miss. When I said ‘God is good’ and they shouted it back, the rafters shook with joy.”
“Maybe the church needs a new roof.”
“Mr. Nacca told me how you stood at the front door of the church and asked all who entered to participate fully,” Father Joe said. “Thank you for that kindness.”
Shelly shrugged, her cheeks reddening as she looked away. Father Joe straightened a stack of hymnals at the end of the pew.
“It’s good to see you happy, miss.”
“Happier, anyway,” she said, still smiling.
“And do you know the source of this great happiness?”
She thought of Ian’s late-night phone calls, hanging out at Sips Coffee and listening to Komor on his Beats headphones. But she kept that to herself. “There’s this girl at my school,” she said. “I was sort of, well, mean to her. Anyway, this week I finally had a chance to apologize. She was actually cool about the whole thing.”
The priest nodded. “Forgiveness is a great blessing. This is why we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others.” He paused and looked into her eyes. “And why we must forgive ourselves.”
“Now you sound like Father Caudillo.”
“I consider that a fine compliment, miss. And he is right.” Father Joe sat next to her, his long, bony fingers intertwined on his lap. “You need to forgive yourself for what happened to your brother.”
“I know I’m supposed to,” she said, not wanting to cry, yet knowing it would happen anyway. “But it’s hard.”
“People ask me, ‘Why does God let innocent babies die?’ and I have to tell them that I have no answer. Crib death—that is what we call SIDS in Sudan—it is a tragedy.” He paused. “And a test of faith.”
“Don’t worry, my faith is fine. It’s my patience that gets tested.” She sighed and brushed the back of her hand across her cheek. “Everybody looking at me. Whispering about me. Like I can’t guess what they’re saying.”
“Perhaps it is not what you think.”
“I need some time, that’s all. I mean, I close my eyes and I’m right there, like it just happened, like he’s still—” She took a deep breath, letting it out in choppy bursts, then another, the nausea fading. “I just don’t need people reminding me about it right now.”
Father Joe smiled and rubbed his hands together, finishing with a clap that echoed through the empty church. “As you wish, Miss Shelly. I shall not mention it again. When you are ready to talk, we will talk. Till then, I will pray for you, and I will pray that others respect your privacy.”
Shelly smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
Thirty-Five
SHE TOOK TWO PAPERS OUT OF THE THICK MANILA folder.
She had the file saved on her new laptop, but that was just one of the mistakes she wasn’t going to make again. Besides, there was something about seeing her handwritten notes mixed in with typed pages that made it all seem more personal. Maybe that girl Fatima wasn’t so stupid after all.
The first paper was a list of names and numbers.
It had taken weeks to come up with a fresh list, then twice as many weeks to narrow it down. There were several excellent candidates for the role, but she knew now that the more actors you had on stage, the more that could go wrong. They’d start comparing notes, changing the plot, conspiring against the director, ruining everything.
Best to clear the stage, recast the lead, and start from scratch.
This time there’d only be one.
And nothing would go wrong.
She’d make sure of that.
She popped the top of a yellow highlighter and circled a new name.
The second paper was a printout of the only thing that had survived on her old computer.
A photo.
Maybe he was trying to be ironic, but she doubted he was that deep.
The iPhone camera flash in the bathroom mirror whited out his face, but it spotlighted Eric Hamilton’s fist, middle finger raised.
She slipped on the headphones and adjusted the mike.
She opened the effects program on her laptop, selected presets, and clicked on one.
She checked the number by the circled name and dialed.
An unsuspecting actor about to make a shocking debut.
The phone rang a dozen times before a shaky voice said hello.
She paused, listening to the clicking pops, the airy whoosh, letting the static build.
Eric thought his troubles were over?
They were just getting started.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to—
Anne and Patty, for the brilliant calls.
Dinah, for picking up on the first ring.
Molly and Laurel, for not hanging up.
My family and friends, for not losing my number.
Some Ska Band, for the party line.
Librarians, teachers, and booksellers, for never phoning it in.
About the Author
CHARLES BENOIT’s teen novels include Fall from Grace and You, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. A former high school teacher, Charles is also the Edgar-nominated author of three adult mysteries. He lives in Rochester, New York. Visit him on the Web at www.charlesbenoit.com or follow him on Twitter (@BenoitTheWriter).
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