The note he left for me wasn’t evidence that he was murdered. Yeah, it seemed shifty that he left a note “in case something happens,” and something did, in fact, happen. But that might have been a coincidence. I didn’t exactly have anything to take to the police. Especially after they had already investigated the hit-and-run. And double especially when the notebook insinuated that the cops themselves were corrupt.
The last bell rang, and I grabbed what I needed from my locker, then wandered over to Toni’s to see if she needed a ride home. But she had her back to her locker and her tongue in Reece’s mouth.
“Eww, guys,” I said. “PDA is so first boyfriend, freshman year.”
They—thankfully—separated their faces. Toni giggled and tucked her hair behind her ears. “What’s up, Morgan?”
I shifted my backpack to my other shoulder. “Do you want me to drive you home?”
“Nah, I’ll give her a ride,” Reece said, and made a thrusting motion with his hips as if the joke itself wasn’t obvious enough.
Toni gave him a look that could freeze a fireball in midair.
He cast his eyes down like a scolded dog. “Sorry.”
She looked back at me. “He’s a work-in-progress. But, yeah, he’ll drive me home.” Then she pointed down the hall. “Oh! I left my notebook in Spanish. Be right back.” She shuffled off with a giant goofy grin on her face.
It worried me. I wasn’t quite convinced that dating Reece was a good idea. And Toni didn’t date lightly. She fell hard. It happened twice freshman year and once in tenth grade. She also tended to forget she had a best friend during these times. Until the relationship crashed and burned and her crying face became a permanent fixture in my bedroom every afternoon. But, if I warned her not to go too fast with Reece, she’d just tell me that this time was different. That’s what she said every time.
I felt sort of awkward, momentarily abandoned with Reece. “So . . . how are things in Happy Love Land?”
I expected a Too Cool Reece response since we were in the school hallway and all, but he only smiled and said, “It’s great.”
I took a moment to take in everything about him. Despite his momentary slip a minute ago, his look, his demeanor, all seemed to be dedouchified. Undouched, if you will. “You’re different,” I said.
“It’s nice not to have to be on all the time, you know?”
His sincerity chipped away at my skeptical little heart. “So you really like her?”
“A lot.”
Toni being lovestruck wasn’t as bad if Reece was equally so. But still, it couldn’t hurt to give him one last tip. I took a step closer and lightly pressed my finger into his chest. “Good. Because if you hurt Toni, they will find your body in twenty-seven pieces at the bottom of the river. Got it?”
He smiled and swatted my finger away. “Got it.”
Toni returned at that moment, witnessing my threat. She rolled her eyes. “Is Morgan getting all best friend protect-y?”
“Protective,” I said.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Reece said, grabbing her hand.
I wanted desperately to believe that this wouldn’t end in tears. That this would be different from Austin in ninth grade or Corey in tenth. But the way Reece looked at her, like she was an amazing miracle and he was lucky to just be standing by her side, gave me hope.
And for some reason, it made me think of Evan. Not Flynn, which was weird, so I pushed the thought away.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, shooing them off. “Go have fun playing tonsil hockey.”
“I’ll call you later!” Toni yelled as she hurried away from me.
I’d barely reached my car when my cell rang. I pulled it out of my bag and put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Morgan, it’s Felicia at the paper.”
A group of girls walked by practically yelling rather than talking. I got into my car and closed the door so I could hear. “Hi, Felicia. What’s up?”
“Want an assignment? You’d have to go right now.”
“I can do that,” I said.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Great. Rebecca is in labor and Chris is at his other job. You’re my only freelancer available.”
“Where do you need me?”
“There was a suicide at the falls. A man who’d lost his home to foreclosure, then his wife took the children and left. Yada, yada.”
My stomach lurched, but Felicia continued as if she were ordering from a menu. “We’ll need a photo of the falls, from whatever angle makes them seem most treacherous. And if anyone has laid a wreath or some sort of memorial there, I want a shot of that, too. Double pay if you get crying mourners. You have the release form for them to sign?”
“Yep,” I squeaked. I always had extra release forms in the car. People needed to sign them before you could use their photograph in the paper. But I wouldn’t bring one to the falls today. If anyone was there, crying, I wouldn’t take a picture of them. It just felt wrong.
“I’ll e-mail you what I get,” I said.
• • •
Cascade Falls was beautiful, especially after weeks of heavy rain, when the waters raged as if controlled by an angry, invisible hand. During the Great Depression, they’d been dubbed Suicide Falls. Reason: obvious. But jumpers went over only once every couple of years now. Including this morning, apparently.
The falls were in what used to be a River’s End town park. But the park lost its funding, the land overgrew, and now it was yet another place in town that once held beauty and now only sadness.
It was usually an empty area. Sometimes you’d find a couple attempting to have a picnic, but they’d try it only once. The falls were loud. And mist sometimes blew in your face when the wind changed direction. So it wasn’t as romantic as it looked from a distance.
Today, though, as I parked my car in the lot and walked the well-worn trail to the waterfall, I knew I wouldn’t be alone. If I’ve learned one thing from my newspaper job, it’s that tragedy attracts looky-loos. And there they were. Just a handful of people milling around, but they wouldn’t have been there on a normal day. They were curious. The type of people who slow down to gaze at the carnage of a car wreck.
I didn’t want to stay any longer than I had to. The whole scene felt morbid to me. I got as close to the top as I safely could and snapped a photo looking down. It was probably a fifty-foot drop, dangerous in and of itself, but the river’s wild current dragged you down after that. There was no surviving a fall here.
I shivered as the misty spray spat at the nape of my neck below my ponytail. I took another handful of shots, then worked my way down the trail to the bank of the river to take some pictures from below. I was more comfortable there. Away from the dizzying heights. Down where the air was drier, the waterfall’s roar less ear-splitting.
I snapped more photos from this position and knew from previewing them in the display that one of these would be the winner. From below, the waterfall seemed even more menacing. For good measure, I took a couple of shots of the river itself. The water was dark, almost black, with a churning white surface.
A makeshift memorial was beginning to grow on the largest rock on the riverbank—a few flowers, a candle. At least the looky-loos paid their respects while they were here. Though, now, as I cast a glance around, I realized most of them had returned to their lives, their curiosity sated. Only one person remained, a man about my dad’s age. He wore a business suit and stood facing the waterfall, staring at it with an expression I could almost, but not quite grasp. Regret, maybe?
He probably knew the guy who’d jumped. He would probably stand there all afternoon, wishing he could go back in time and save him.
But I knew there was no going back. No matter how much you tried to relive a moment. How much you wished you could change one small thing, bump the time line, know then what you know now
.
Once the dead are gone, they’re gone.
CHAPTER 17
The school day dragged on Friday. The highlight was a slice of tastes-like-cardboard pizza from the cafeteria. After the last bell, I stood at my locker and filled my backpack with whatever books I’d need for the weekend. I checked my phone for new messages. Felicia e-mailed that she’d chosen two of my photos—the shot of the falls from below and the one of the makeshift memorial.
Part of me had been hoping for a text or missed call from Evan.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and tapped my fingernails against the locker door. I could always call him. I did have information to share. And nothing to do. Toni had plans with Reece.
I felt the weight of my cell phone in my pocket. I wanted to call him. But thinking about him made me nervous, excited, and a bit light-headed, and that scared me. So as I drove home, I talked myself out of calling. I would ignore the ache in my chest that told me I wanted to see him again. It was too soon to feel this way about someone. And too strange that Evan looked so much like Flynn. Everything about the situation was overwhelming.
I would spend my Friday at home, I decided. I could do my homework, get that out of the way. Maybe watch TV with my parents, see if they were acting normal again.
But, you know, a girl plans, and fate laughs right in her face.
When I got to my house, Evan’s car was parked on the street out front.
I pulled into the driveway, and he got out of his car, walking slowly, hands in his pockets. I met him halfway across the front yard. Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then I said, “Hi.”
He looked up at me with an adorably awkward smile. “I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by.”
I could feel my cheeks flush. “No, not at all.” I was just obsessively thinking about you, so it’s fine.
“I just . . . I was going to call, but then I found myself driving here instead.” He paused and looked at me. Like really looked at me. Like he was trying to see inside my mind, inside my soul. “How are you?” he asked.
My throat suddenly felt dry. “Good . . . okay . . . weird.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Weird?”
“There have been some developments,” I explained.
He aimed a thumb over his shoulder at my house. “Want to go inside and talk?”
I chewed on my lip for a moment. My parents weren’t back from work, but what if he stayed until they got home? “Can we go to your place instead? It’s just . . . if my parents come home. I haven’t told them about you yet and . . . how much you look like . . . him.”
He swallowed hard and hesitated a moment, like he was unsure about something. Then he smiled, that dimple showing again, and said, “Sure. Hop in, I’ll drive.”
I hefted my bag up onto my shoulder and followed him to his car.
He gave a sideways look to my backpack. “Plan on doing some homework at my house?”
“That development I was talking about is in here.” I patted the bag.
“Intriguing,” he said with a smirk.
We made small talk about school until he turned quiet as we slowed to a stop at the top of his massive driveway in front of his ridiculous house. I realized, at his silence, that he was expecting some sort of reaction. Oh yeah, I remembered. He didn’t know that I had done some mild stalking with Toni and already knew he lived in a mansion.
I faked the best gasp I could. “Wow. Quite a humble cottage you have here.”
“That’s kind of why I didn’t want to bring you home,” he admitted. “I don’t want you to . . .”
“Think you’re some spoiled rich kid?”
He smiled. “Yeah, for starters.”
“It’s good that I got to know you first, then.”
He still didn’t look comfortable. But I didn’t care if a person had money or didn’t. My family had been comfortably upper middle class, and now we were struggling day by day to hold on to everything we’d earned. But we were still the same family, the same people.
“So . . . are you going to invite me in?” I asked.
His face relaxed. “Yeah, let’s go.”
I followed him through white double doors and into the foyer. He tossed his keys onto a marble table beneath a gold-framed mirror. In the reflection, I caught the curve of a spectacular staircase. One that you see and immediately picture yourself slowly walking down, wearing some beautiful ball gown. This seemed more like a movie set than a house.
“We can head to the library,” Evan said.
A library. Of course he had a library.
I followed him down the hall, my shoes squeaking on the glossy floors. Every inch of the space was immaculate. The only thing that stood out was a window in a den held together with masking tape. I pointed as we passed. “What happened there?”
Evan winced. “That’s my bad. I was practicing in the yard with a friend from the team, and a baseball broke the window. My parents are getting a new one today, and then we have to get the alarm company out to rewire the window sometime next week. It’s a whole big thing.”
I wanted to ask him what his parents did for a living, but I could tell from his tense body language in the car that it was a topic he didn’t like to get into. So I didn’t bring it up. Besides, what did it matter?
“The library is in there.” He pointed at an open doorway behind me. I’d been expecting some stuffy, almost tacky room filled with dark leather chairs and dusty old books that were only for show. But as I walked in, I found the opposite. The room was bright and welcoming, with big, overstuffed chairs flanking a huge floor-to-ceiling window, which filled the room with warm natural light. I let my fingers trail along the bookshelves. They held everything from nonfiction to romance novels, and their spines showed signs of being read.
Evan motioned to a glass coffee table between two comfy-looking chairs. “You can put your stuff down there.”
I gently dropped the backpack onto the table and sank into the nearest chair. “This room is amazing.”
“I do all my homework in here.”
“I’d live in here,” I said.
“It bothers some people,” he said quietly. “The money.”
I met his gaze. “Well, I’m not that superficial.”
He didn’t say anything to that. We just stared at each other for a long moment. The butterflies in my stomach started to take flight, so I broke eye contact and pulled my backpack off the table. I unzipped it and reached inside for Flynn’s notebook.
But as I went to pull it out, my portfolio came with it. I’d brought it into school to show my photography teacher the progress I’d made. It fell to the floor open, and Evan reached down to pick it up. He paused, staring at the photo on the page. One glance showed me it was the shot I’d taken of the castle at Happy Time Mini Golf. I had to explain or he’d think I was some weirdo who went back and took pictures of the place where we’d had a “moment.”
“That’s my portfolio,” I said quickly. “It’s something I work on in my spare time.” I still hadn’t applied for the summer course. My teacher told me my work was ready, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Maybe Toni was right. Maybe I was procrastinating because I didn’t want to risk getting rejected.
“Can I look?” he asked.
I nodded, feeling self-conscious already. The only people who’d ever seen my photos were Toni and my teacher, and I think they both found them creepy.
Evan reopened the book from the beginning. The title page read:
ABANDONED RIVER’S END
Morgan Tulley
He took his time, giving each picture full consideration before slowly flipping the page. He said nothing until he was finished, and then his gray eyes found mine. Every nerve in my body was standing on edge, waiting.
“Morgan, these are amazing.”
I let out an almost-too-l
oud breath of relief. “You think so?” Not that I would stop taking them, even if he hated them. My best friend hated them and that didn’t slow me down. But for some reason, his opinion mattered to me.
“Yeah.” He shook his head in amazement. “The theme kind of speaks to you, doesn’t it? I mean, at first it’s kind of sad. But then, and I don’t know if this is what you were going for, but looking at some of these forgotten places I feel . . . hope. Like what’s lost can be found again. Right?”
My ego was practically soaring. “That’s exactly it.”
He closed the album and handed it back to me. “Wow, these are so much better than the photos you take for the newspaper. No offense.”
I laughed. “None taken. There’s only so much you can do with a photo of a high school football game.” I was pretty sure my cheeks were lit up like Christmas lights. I’d never felt so flattered. But then a thought occurred to me. “How did you know I take pictures for the paper?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen your byline.”
“You read the River’s End Weekly?” I asked, surprised.
“No. I Googled you and it came up.”
I snorted. “Stalker.”
A crooked smirk played across his face. “Hey, I was just protecting myself. I was told you were dangerous, remember? You can’t blame me for doing a little research after I finally found out your name at the party.”
“About that . . .” I glanced down at the notebook in my lap. “Do you still have that photo of me?”
“Yeah . . . ,” he said slowly. He rose and crossed to a desk in the corner. He slid open a drawer and returned a moment later with the now familiar picture in his hand, placing it writing side up on the coffee table. I opened the notebook, flipped past the messy pages, and stopped at the clean, final page. Flynn’s message to me. I laid it open on the table, beside the warning.
Evan leaned forward. His breath hitched as he read the note. “This is from Flynn?” he asked.
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