by Kat Ellis
* * *
Dominic hasn’t slept. Or showered, I’m guessing, from the fact he’s still wearing most of his Slender Man costume. Not the mask, obviously, and he’s detached the tentacles. So basically he’s wearing a funeral suit. I guess his outfit pairs well with my long black coat.
“Come in,” he says, stepping back from the door. My breath catches once I’m in the foyer.
I knew the manor would look different, of course. The repulsive green coating they’ve given the outside gave me a heads-up on that. But I guess I never really pictured the innards changing.
The thick plum carpet and William Morris print wallpaper in the foyer—the same kind they hang in some castles in the UK—are gone. Instead, the floorboards are bare, no doubt waiting for some soulless grey tiles to be installed. The walls have been painted stark white, with chrome-framed photographs hastily thrown up where we had classic landscapes and portraits painted in oils. Looking closer, the pictures aren’t even of the Millers and their kids, which I guess would be understandable. From the handful on the wall nearest to me, I think they’re all movie people Madoc and Lucille Miller have worked with. There’s even one of them drinking cocktails with some horror director who I’m pretty sure got arrested for killing his wife.
I step back, repulsed.
“Come up to my room,” Dominic says, and strides up the stairs before I can even utter a what the hell.
And, damn him, I follow. I mean, I’m pretty sure he didn’t demand I come over so he could lure me into his bedroom, but here we are.
Dominic disappears ahead of me down the east-wing corridor, but I know exactly where I’m going, of course. To my old room.
I brace myself as I reach the door, and step inside. It looks . . . exactly how it used to.
Different furniture, of course, but it’s all laid out just how I had it. The bed in the same place; the desk over by the window. Walls the same stormy deep-water blue; same marbled gray carpet. He even has a full-length mirror hanging in the same spot I used to hang mine.
“Weird,” I murmur, and Dominic looks up from where he’s now hunched over his laptop on the bed.
“Being here again?”
The Millers must’ve arranged for contractors to start work here the very same day they moved in. There’s no way it could look this different otherwise. It’s like they couldn’t bear to live with my family’s decor for even a week.
“Kinda. I thought . . . I just thought this room would look different, like the rest of the house. But it doesn’t.”
“Oh. I like the colors you chose. It’s like being at the bottom of the waterfall.” I never noticed before, but he’s right. If you stand in the center of the room and let your eyes blur, you can imagine the water crashing down around you, the rocks beneath your feet. “Besides, I don’t see the point in redecorating when I’m not planning on sticking around.”
Something shifts painfully inside me, and for the first time I realize I kind of hate the idea of Dominic leaving.
Maybe he’ll be safer if he does.
“When will you go?”
He shrugs. “A few weeks. I need to be here until the cops finish investigating. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure we have time to finish the comic—at least enough for you to submit for your final project.”
I nod, not wanting to tell him that I already have more than enough. That it’s almost finished and will be ready to upload first thing Monday, just to make sure Miss Shannon or Hamish or whoever is making the choice about the summer art program doesn’t disqualify me for being late. And I’m really happy with the pages Dominic and I worked on together. I love the direction it’s taking in the next chapter we started. But we might not get a chance to finish that now.
“What did you want to show me?” I ask, my voice a little strangled.
“This.” He waves me over. I go and perch on the edge of the bed next to him. Any tension I feel—or imagine—vanishes as soon as I read what’s on his laptop screen.
It’s a list of what look like social-media handles, followed by some of the most disgusting, nasty comments I’ve ever seen. Calling Freya gross names, making sexual comments and threats.
“What the hell is this?”
“These are all the comments made under the Haunted Heartland videos from the last six months—the vile ones, at least.”
Dominic scrolls through the list as he says this, and I see there are pages and pages of them.
“This is from just six months?” I feel sick looking at them. God knows how Freya must’ve felt.
“Actually, these are just the ones I could localize to this state.” He casts me a sideways look. “Not that I should’ve been able to do that, but I have some software . . . It’s not strictly legal.”
Like I care if it’s legal. The assholes who left these comments should be tracked down and arrested. “Have you given this information to the cops?”
“Of course,” Dominic says impatiently. “They’ve had it since the day after Freya died. Not that they’ve gotten very far in their investigation. But they have ruled out Liam Walsh, I guess. He was in a meeting with his college professor in Evansville when Freya was killed. Anyway, ruling him out doesn’t help much. That’s why I’m going over everything myself—the video footage from the bridge camera, Freya’s emails and social media, this . . . trash.” He jabs a finger at the screen, and I understand what’s frustrating him.
“You haven’t found anything, have you?”
“No,” he admits. “But I’m hoping you might. Will you read through it, see if anything stands out? Usernames, any words or phrases you might recognize—maybe from one of the kids at school?”
I’m about to ask why he thinks I’d have any more luck at identifying any of the trolls when I remember that Dominic has only been in Burden Falls for a year. Somehow, it seems like the Miller twins have always been here.
I read every comment, even though I want to physically recoil from a lot of them. Dominic waits patiently while I study the handles, the type of insults, looking for something to leap out and say, “Aha! I’m the killer!” But nothing does. They’re all just random, gross people saying random, gross things about a sixteen-year-old girl, and none of them mention Ford.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him at last. “But do you really think it was some internet rando who did it? I can see how someone might’ve tracked down Freya, but she literally just announced Ford was joining the show. How would a stalker have had time to find him? And why?”
Dominic sighs, closing his eyes. “I know. I just want to feel like I’m doing something useful, but every lead I come up with goes nowhere.”
I put my hand on his arm, and he looks over at me. His green eyes are heavy with misery.
“There is something else Ford said that might be useful.”
I tell Dominic about the last text Ford sent me—the one where he claimed to have seen something critical in the video Freya posted where she snooped around his room. Dominic pulls up the video on his laptop without a word, and we both watch it play out. Or rather he watches it. I can’t look. Seeing Freya on-screen is just too much right now, especially after reading all those awful comments.
Instead, I watch Dominic’s face while the video plays. His lips press together when Freya appears, like he’s holding back tears.
“Heeey!” The sound of Ford’s playful scolding is like a hand clamped around my windpipe. I’d forgotten he appears briefly at the end of the video, right before Freya winks to the camera and ends the stream.
Both Ford and Freya are dead now.
Wait, Ford saw something in that video—and now he’s dead.
Ice-cold fear seizes my insides.
First you see her, then you die . . .
Dominic’s still studying the video. “Do you see anything?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. But he shakes his head.
“Play it again,” I say, forcing my eyes to move to the screen. If Sadie’s there in the video, I need to know.
Just as Dominic’s about to hit replay, a volley of barking sounds from somewhere downstairs.
“Pilot,” he explains. “I’ll just go let him out.”
I nod, not reaching for the laptop he leaves on the bed. I know I should. I have to. But I don’t think I can watch it solo if she’s there.
Watching as he leaves my room—his room—I notice the door along the hallway is slightly open. That room used to be my parents’ bedroom. I get a sudden flash of memory—lying on their bed with Dad when I was little, watching Mom put her makeup on in the mirror. Dad giving a whispered narration, like we were watching a wildlife show. Mom trying to keep a serious face, but I’d catch her locking eyes with Dad in the glass, see those little smile lines crease at the corners of her eyes. Then she’d turn suddenly and roar like a lion, and there’d be lipstick all over her teeth.
That was a lifetime ago.
With a heavy feeling, I step toward the door. Through the sliver of doorway, I see a four-poster bed with blood-red sheets.
That’s got to be Freya’s room now.
Before I even really decide to do it, I’m going in. Dominic’s bounding footsteps continue downstairs, in the direction of the kitchen.
Freya’s bedroom looks like she just stepped out. A dressing table near the window has her makeup scattered across it, the chair pushed out as though she left it in a rush.
I’m sure the cops must’ve taken a look around in here, gathered up anything that might lead them to a possible suspect. I wonder if any of the stuff she kept in here pointed them in my direction. A diary, maybe, saying how horrible Ava Thorn was to her. Because I was. At the time, it felt justified—Freya was such an asshole from the moment I met her.
I regret the things I said to her now, though. And isn’t that the beauty of being the one left behind? I get to relive those nasty little remarks over and over, for the rest of my life.
“What are you doing in here?”
I jump, and turn to find Dominic in the doorway. He’s holding a drink in each hand—a glass of water, and one of the cold coffees I always drink.
“Sorry. I should’ve asked. I haven’t touched anything.”
He holds out the coffee to me, still looking wary.
“Thanks. This is my favorite.”
“I know,” he says simply. “So why are you in here?”
I try not to look guilty because it was really just idle curiosity. But now that I’m in here, something does occur to me.
“I was just thinking: The way Freya was going through Ford’s stuff in that video, like tapping on the bottom of his underwear drawer to see if there was a hidden compartment, checking inside his shoes in the closet, stuff like that . . . It seems like she was the type of person who might hide things in her own room. Things she might not want your mom and dad to see. Or is that completely off base?”
Dominic stares at me, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“So, maybe if she had a secret boyfriend she didn’t want anyone to know about, there might be evidence somewhere in here . . . don’t you think?”
“What kind of evidence?” he says.
“Notes? Photographs? Mementos from dates? I mean, the cops already have her phone, which is the obvious thing, but . . .” I shrug, then open the coffee Dominic gave me. “Shit, this tastes amazing.” It’s creamy and sweet, but without that bitter afternote I’m used to. I check the label, but it’s the exact same brand I have at home. How’s that even possible?
Oh God. I prefer the taste of Dominic Miller’s coffee. I’m doomed.
“The police did go through everything—in here, and on her phone,” he says, but I can tell he’s uncertain.
“Could she have had another . . .”
My mouth hangs open. I suddenly know what Ford saw in that video. And it wasn’t Sadie, or some secret compartment.
“She was recording herself on her phone, and pretending to use another one!”
Dominic’s eyes widen. “Two phones.” He looks around the room, already searching out possible hiding places the cops might’ve missed. “I’ll start in the closet. Can you go through the drawers? I don’t really want to deal with my sister’s underwear.”
Neither do I, particularly, but I take pity on the guy.
We set to work, checking every possible nook where a phone might fit but be overlooked by the police. I’m careful to put everything back exactly as it was before I move on from one drawer to the next, one part of her room to another. The whole time I’m doing it, I feel like Freya’s standing over me, watching me poke through her stuff.
“Is everything okay?” Dominic asks, noticing my sudden lack of movement. “Did you find something?”
I’m about to answer when a phone rings across the hall in Dominic’s room. I look at him, but he shakes his head.
“Not my ringtone.”
I hurry over and grab my long coat from where I left it on his bed, searching through the folds to try to find the pocket where I left my phone. Finally, I lay my hand on it.
But, when I look to see who’s calling, the screen is black. Not just black—cracked. I stare at it, baffled. The ringing continues somewhere nearby.
“It must be yours,” I call out absently, still trying to figure out how the hell my screen got cracked.
Just like I thought it did the day I found Freya.
“I’ve got my phone in here,” Dominic calls back.
The sound is still coming from my coat.
From the other pocket.
I reach in and take out my phone. Another one. And this one is perfectly intact (well, aside from a very small crack in the corner of the screen). Daphne’s face cheeses up at me.
How the hell do I have two phones? At a glance, they look pretty similar, except for the damaged screen. But, now that I have them side by side, I see the damaged one is slightly smaller, the screen a little more rounded at the corners. And it’s definitely not mine. I mean, I know whose it is. Whose it must be. But how the hell did it get in my coat pocket?
Then I remember: I was wearing this coat the day I found Freya’s body. When I stumbled into the pavilion and picked up a cracked phone that I thought was mine.
This is the phone Dominic and I just spent thirty minutes searching for.
THIRTY
“How did you not know you had that in your pocket for almost two weeks?”
Dominic has this look of total exasperation on his face that makes his eyes look twice as big.
“I don’t usually wear this coat.” I cringe when my voice wobbles. But I know I’ll have to explain all this again to the cops, and they’ll probably think I hid the phone on purpose, or that I, I don’t know, stole it from Freya when I murdered her. “Look, a phone that seemed to magically fix itself wasn’t exactly at the top of my Weird Shit List that day, okay?”
Dominic pinches the bridge of his nose. I suspect I’m giving him a migraine. “Fine. I’m sorry for yelling.”
He wasn’t, really. But somehow his apology just makes me feel even worse. Before I can hold it in, I’m crying. Not just a melancholy stray tear, but kneeling on my old bedroom carpet, face in my hands, tears flooding out of me.
It’s all too much. All of it.
Ford. Freya. The cops.
Sadie.
And for some reason I’m caught up in the middle of . . . whatever this is, and I don’t know why.
An arm wraps around me, and I turn to lean into Dominic’s shoulder. It’s an awkward angle, both of us kneeling, and as he shifts I lose my balance and we end up tangled on the floor. And somehow—somehow—when I sleeve-wipe my face and look up at him, we’re millimeters apart. My breath stalls. I can’t hear him breathe, either.
Oh, screw it.
I kiss him. Pressed together on the floor like this, it’s so easy, his lips warm and sure against mine. His fingers brush down the side of my face, my neck, mirroring the way I touched him when we danced last night. Was this how it felt to him? Did my touch make his skin tingle like this?
I roll off him onto the carpet and stare up at the ceiling, needing to catch my breath before I do something stupid right here on the floor of my old room. Damn it, he even kisses well.
After the longest silence in history, I say, “That was weird.”
He rolls his head toward me and I’m pleased to see his breathing is pretty ragged too. “Bad weird?”
I shake my head. He grins.
“Dominic?”
“What?”
“I think I got snot on your Slender Man costume,” I tell him.
He nods earnestly. “I know.”
* * *
* * *
When I drive away from the manor a little while later, I take the burner phone. Dominic offered to tell the cops it was him who picked it up and forgot about it, but lying to them about something like this feels wrong—even if telling the truth hasn’t been working out too well for me lately.
I really hope whatever’s on that phone leads the cops to the real killer. If it doesn’t, I’m all out of ideas. Or rather, there are too many ideas. Including one particularly unlikely one, but I can’t deny my mind keeps wandering back to Sadie . . .
No. Focus on what’s real.
Freya had her online haters, some of them kind of unhinged, judging by those comments I saw earlier. Pretty much anyone from school could have had some secret obsession with her.
Ford’s another story, I guess. I literally can’t think of a single person who might’ve wanted him dead. But the fact that both he and Freya were murdered makes me think it must have been someone who knew them both.
Someone who knew I had reason to hate them?
I shake that idea away. Only the police and the people closest to me knew about my argument with Ford, and none of them would’ve taken it on themselves to kill him as some kind of act of retribution. No, I don’t think I’m the connection. But maybe Haunted Heartland was? I mean, Ford had just been announced as a new member of the Hauntlanders crew, so maybe that pissed someone off?