Dead Ringer

by Jessie Rosen

  “I can tell you’re very adept at pushing down your feelings, Charlie,” she’d said. “But where do you think they go?”

  “I don’t know? Away?” he said.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “They stay inside you and do damage elsewhere. Pain demands to be felt, and it will force you to pay attention in whatever way it has to.”

  For Charlie, the “way out” for his pain had become insomnia. In the months after Sarah died, Charlie slept for two hours a night at most. He could barely keep his head up in class, he cancelled all his nighttime and weekend plans with everyone—Amanda, Kit and Miller included—and he trudged along the soccer field so much that Coach Stanley sent him to a doctor for a physical. It was brutal.

  “Some of my patients find relief in just writing their feelings down,” Dr. Walters said once he finally admitted that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. “You don’t have to show anyone what you write, ever. But at least you’re taking the feelings from inside your body and putting them on the page. Why not try it the next time you can’t sleep?”

  Charlie ran through that memory over and over again until he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He got out of bed, shuffled over to the closet, and opened the door. On the top-left shelf behind boxes of old soccer cleats was the one Encyclopedia Britannica he’d saved from the full stack his grandparents gave him when people still opened giant books instead of looking up whatever they needed on the internet. It was the volume for the letter C. Charlie turned to the page where he knew the printout was hidden and slid it out from between the glossy sheets of paper. It wasn’t one of the dozen things Charlie had written after Dr. Walter’s suggestion. He got rid of every one of those in the shredder his mom kept in her bedroom closet the morning after he wrote them. This was the reason Charlie needed to do all that writing—the one love note he let himself keep of all the messages she sent him. It was the one that made him believe that no one would ever understand him the way that she did, and the reason it hurt so much when she told him the truth.

  Dear Charlie,

  It’s the middle of the night, but I can’t sleep because I keep thinking about our date on Saturday. I couldn’t stop running through all the options for what I’m going to wear. Something cute? Something sexy? One of my favorite dresses? Something totally new? Then I was getting nervous about the spot I picked for dinner. What if it’s too casual? What if you think it isn’t nice enough? What if we see people we know and it’s totally awkward?!

  But then I stopped and just thought about you and how lucky I am to have you in my life, and how none of those things matter to you.

  Some people may think you’re all about image, but I know that you’re not. To everyone at school it might seem like you expect fancy, expensive things because of Amanda, but I know you’d rather eat at McDonald’s with the right person than go anywhere just to keep up with all the rich kids. I know that you feel trapped inside yourself sometimes—like you always have to be Charlie Sanders, Mr. Popular, Mr. Soccer Star, Mr. Never-Makes-A-Wrong-Move. And I know you feel trapped with Amanda because of everything that happened. So I just want you to know that with me, you don’t have to be anything but yourself, always. There is no lying anymore. You’re safe. I can’t wait to only be ourselves together on Saturday night. It makes me so happy to know that we love each other for exactly who we are. Until date night…

  –C

  It was the final email she’d sent him, and it never got easier to read.

  After that Saturday date, everything changed, and if Charlie was being honest, it hadn’t truly gotten better since. He needed to trust someone again, and he had a feeling Laura could be that person. But she was still controlling him—making him doubt his judgment, making him afraid to get close to another girl. It made Charlie furious. He couldn’t let Laura slip through his fingers because of the memory of some insane girl. What happened was a mistake, and the chances of it happening again were impossible. He had learned his lesson. Now he owed it to himself to put this all behind him once and for all. That’s how he’d truly, finally win.

  Charlie ripped the printout into as many pieces as he could. It was over. She was gone. He didn’t need this memory any more. He would throw the torn paper in a dumpster somewhere tomorrow, but for now he slipped it back in between the pages where he’d never forget—the page featuring the disgusting gray fish with the flat mouth and the pointy whiskers. It was time to get some sleep.

  When he woke up again, the red flashing lights said 7:00 a.m. It was the latest he’d slept in for as long as he could remember. He reached over and grabbed his cellphone off the bed stand where it sat plugged in every night.

  Charlie blinked twice when his eyes hit the phone screen: 12 missed calls. Kit had been trying to reach him since six o’clock that morning. Charlie was afraid to find out what had her in such a panic, but he forced himself to call. Kit picked up after the first ring.

  “Omigod, Charlie. Where are you? Can you come over to my house right now?” Kit gasped on the other end of the phone.

  “Yeah, of course, what’s wrong? Is it Miller?”

  “It’s both of us,” Kit said. “And it has to do with Sarah.”

  The phone dropped straight out of Charlie’s hand.

  “Hello? Charlie? Are you there?” he could hear Kit screaming on the other line.

  He was too frozen to reach down and grab it.

  It was as if someone had seen him tear up that letter and wanted to be sure Charlie knew it was not over. She would never really be gone.

  Sasha

  Thank you so much for the offer to appear in your ad campaign. I do have a fear of heights, so I was nervous about the bridge, but decided I could be brave because I’d really love the chance to model. Unfortunately my parents feel differently about the whole thing, so I have to pass right now. They aren’t comfortable with me modeling until I’m eighteen, but keep me posted if you’re still looking for people next year! Good luck with your shoot!

  Sincerely,

  Amanda Hunter

  Sasha was impressed by the email. Using the parents as a scapegoat was smart. Parents have the last word in the life of a teenager; any respectful businessperson would stop pushing. But the real genius was in how Amanda handled the bridge issue by using one of the options Sasha offered. Was she actually afraid of heights? Maybe, but that was beside the point. Amanda didn’t know that this email was only one part of what Sasha was watching, and a very small part in the grand scheme of things.

  If more people knew how to think like a hacker, they’d be far less likely to give themselves away. Amanda was obviously as clueless as they came, because she committed the two stupidest sins a guilty person could commit within hours of sending what she thought was a clever email that would make it all go away.

  First, she changed all her passwords—email, chat, every single social media platform, and even the checking account her parents technically ran. It was the single most-common move a suspicious person makes, and the most ridiculous. If a hacker is good enough to break into your system once, they’re good enough to do it twice, and your password overhaul tells them that they absolutely should.

  With the password change, Sasha had all she needed to know that Amanda was worth a very close watch, but those two missteps were nothing compared to her third giveaway.

  When Sasha set up her Englewood High tracking system, she took pains to build an algorithm that would alert her whenever a single student updated their privacy settings or changed their usernames and passwords on every single device or app that they owned. That coding was a two-week process, and Sasha had to pay one of the more experienced guys in the group to help with the back end.

  “Aggressive move, Phenom,” Syke messaged her when she explained the goal.

  She didn’t trust anyone enough to explain why she’d built this whole program in the first place, especially not a fellow hacker.

  “I need to prove that my theory is right, and I need this
element to do it,” was all she said.

  Her suspicion was that more than one person knew what really happened on the night Sarah Castro-Tanner died and that in every single group of guilty people, there is one weak link that will give everyone else away.

  Now all that extra work and money was paying off, and phase one of Sasha’s theory was being proven.

  Sasha had expected Charlie Sanders to do the same things Amanda did to her online profiles because they’d been chatting all along about Sarah, so it wasn’t surprising when he followed Amanda’s every move. What Sasha didn’t expect was to see two more names follow suit four days later: Katherine Jacobs and Sean Miller.

  It took no time for Sasha to figure out that Katherine and Sean were the Kit and Miller that Charlie and Amanda referred to in a bunch of their chats and emails. The twosome was actually a foursome, and the entire group knew more about the Sarah Castro-Tanner story than what they had admitted since her suicide. But Amanda had lied to both of them in a recent email. “Hey,” she’d written, “my dad’s been doing some research and found out that net security in this town is a mess, guys. He suggested you all update all your passwords and stuff, and never talk about really sensitive stuff over any electronic devices.”

  She didn’t tell them about the email that Sasha sent, but she still wanted them to protect themselves. To Sasha, that meant that Kit and Miller were involved, but Amanda was clearly in charge. For some reason she wanted to keep what was going on under wraps, maybe because the other members of the operation would have different thoughts. Charlie seemed to be her puppet; maybe Kit and Miller weren’t as willing to comply?

  Then, not even a week after Amanda talked Kit and Miller into going radio silent, one of them slipped.

  “Your greatest ally in the hacking game is patience,” Syke told Sasha when she was first setting up her system. “Make your move, make them squirm, and then sit and wait before you do anything else.”

  “How long do I wait?” Sasha had asked.

  “As long as it takes for the people you’re tracking to forget just how scared they are. The minute they feel comfortable again, they’ll mess up. They’ll forget that there’s a chance their every move is being watched, and they’ll say something they shouldn’t.”

  He was right. Seven days after the group fell silent, Kit Jacobs sent Sean Miller a chat.

  I just keep thinking that we never, ever should have invited her out that night.

  And with that, Sasha had another critical clue in her arsenal. All the detective reports said that Sarah Castro-Tanner hadn’t spoken to or made plans with anyone on the day she died. Her parents reported that she went to see a movie, but that was never proven. Now Sasha knew one more critical piece of that night’s story: Sarah was invited to do something with Kit, Miller, and most likely Charlie and Amanda.

  It was time for Sasha to make another move.

  Chapter 6

  Laura

  It was early Tuesday morning, and once again Becca had called an editorial meeting to discuss the fact that the paper only had two articles three days before print. She was not in the best of moods, and Laura’s pitch was not helping.

  “Love the initiative, Rivers, but we’re a school newspaper, not The New York Times,” Becca said. She had uncharacteristically removed the half-turkey sandwich from her mouth before speaking. Laura took that to mean Becca meant business.

  “I’m not saying it needs to be an investigation into what happened to Sarah Castro-Tanner,” Laura argued. “But I saw in the guidance hallway that September is National Suicide Prevention Month. I’m talking about an article that discusses suicide more generally—why it can happen, how it can be prevented, that kind of thing.”

  Becca narrowed her already critical gaze. “Why this?” she asked.

  “Because I think it’s important,” Laura said. “I think people our age really struggle with suicidal thoughts, and we should be part of preventing that.”

  Becca’s face remained taut. “Forget it. We cannot touch that story. It happened. It’s over. No one wants to read anything else about it,” she said.

  “But it’s still really affecting people. Charlie had just a few classes with Sarah and he still feels some level of guilt. Shouldn’t someone be helping people here through that?”

  “Maybe, but it’s not going to be us.”

  It was uncharacteristic for Becca to shut down a big idea. Just last week she’d personally pitched taking the entire school district to task on the fact that the non-discrimination policy did not include protection for transgender students, but now she was afraid of a story about a huge cause of teenage deaths in America? It wasn’t like Becca, and neither was the incredibly serious look on her face at that moment.

  “I’m sorry,” Laura said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset,” Becca said, but her quick tone suggested otherwise. “Sarah went through enough. We’re not adding to that drama.”

  “But—” Laura started.

  “Seriously, Rivers. Drop it. Now.” Mad as Becca could be at all the Chronicle staffers, she’d never once used that tone. Something was seriously wrong.

  “Okay,” Laura said. “Sorry.” But the truth was that she was more curious than remorseful.

  “When do you think you’ll have that Charlie Sanders article in? I’d like to run it before the end of the season.”

  “I probably need two or three more sessions with him until it’s done, and he’s been crazy busy,” Laura said.

  “You need or you want?”

  Her tone was angry, not playful, and Laura didn’t appreciate it.

  “I can date Charlie Sanders if that’s what I want to do,” Laura said. “He is a great guy, and you’d know that if you gave him a chance. You should have heard how sweet he was being about Sarah.”

  Laura didn’t know if she was defending the Charlie she was getting to know, or the fact that she liked him so much. Either way, Becca didn’t seem to care.

  “You do what you want, Rivers, but trust me when I tell you that Charlie Sanders didn’t give a shit about Sarah Castro-Tanner.”

  “And how would you know that?” Laura fired back.

  “I just know,” Becca said.

  “That’s a crappy answer.”

  If Becca was frustrated before, then Laura’s comment sent her into a full-on fury.

  “Well, you’re a crappy journalist for asking the question that prompted it. Know when to stop, Rivers, or you’ll never earn the trust of the people that you want to tell you the truth. Now could somebody else please pitch me something we can use?” Becca yelled to the group.

  If Becca’s goal had been to discourage Laura from her story, she failed. Their interaction made her more curious than ever to know about how this school and town handled what happened to Sarah and why Becca was so upset about it, and she didn’t need a Chronicle assignment to find out.

  Charlie

  It was already 8:00 a.m. by the time Charlie made it to Kit’s house and found her and Miller in the bunker—the group’s term for Kit’s basement, where they spent 75 percent of their time. They’d have to figure out a way to sign themselves into school late, but that was the last thought on Charlie’s mind at the moment. Right now he was staring at a picture that he could barely hold, that’s how hard his fingers were shaking.

  “This was inside your mailbox?” Charlie asked Kit. All she could do was nod her head from the spot on the leather, sectional couch in her basement, where she sat biting at her nails. “When?” Charlie asked.

  “Yesterday, I guess? It was in an envelope. My mom left it on my desk for me. I didn’t see it until I woke up this morning. I…it’s…what are we going to do?”

  The picture was a shot of Kit and Miller sitting in the back of his dad’s convertible, eating French fries. Kit was smiling her goofy, full-toothed smile at the camera, and Miller’s mouth was full of ketchup-covered fries. It was nothing out of the ordinary. But sandwiched directly between them
—added into the photo with careful computer editing—was Sarah Castro-Tanner, so pale she was almost blue-colored. Her eyes were open, but she was dead.

  Charlie turned the picture over in his hand so that it didn’t catch his eye again, not that it wouldn’t be burned in his mind for the rest of his life.

  “Where’s the envelope it came in?” Charlie asked. Miller shoved a small, white envelope into his empty hand and then went back to pacing.

  There was nothing to look at this time. “KIT” was printed in small, computer-typed letters on the front, and that was it. No address, no return address, and no stamp.

  “Someone just dropped this in your mailbox?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes,” Kit said, “They were at my house. Charlie, they’re going to kill me!” She started gasping for air again. Miller rushed over to try and calm her down. Charlie stayed frozen, watching them both. He had absolutely no idea what to do.

  Minus the terrifying figure in the picture, everything was familiar. Kit and Miller always sat side by side in the back of the cabs they took around town before they had their own cars. They never left the diner without a side of fries to-go, and Amanda was constantly snapping shots of them eating. She always joked that it was for their wedding slideshow.

  Amanda. She took this picture. The thought hit Charlie so hard, he almost stumbled. And she lied about the email she got to cover what she’s doing.

  “Kit, have you ever seen this photo before?”

  “No,” Kit said, “It’s not real. That’s not from that night. Amanda didn’t take pictures that night.”