Envy

And that bothered her. Deeply.

It happened so fast. Like gas poured on a bonfire. Whoosh! In less than a minute after Moira was pitched into the black waters of Paradise Bay, the stunned teenagers had piled into the backseat of the car. Hedda was safely in Taylor’s arms, already asleep despite the horrific turn of events that had just occurred. Hayley leaned into Colton, breathing hard, scared and unsure. He took her hand and gripped it.

Shania looked in the mirror, her sad, dark eyes assessing each of the kids.

“Take a deep breath,” she said. “All of you. It had to be done.” Her voice was full of emotion. “I had no choice. I protected what had to be protected. There are things she should not know … or repeat to anyone. I made a promise to Valerie all those years ago …”

The teenagers looked at each other, unable—or unwilling—to speak. Each knew what the other was feeling inside. They were breathing hard, their eyes wide with shock. All three were scared to death over what they’d done, but deep down they were glad that Moira was gone. As Shania James had said, there was no choice.

It had to be done.

postmortem

AFTER THE FLURRY OF POLICE ACTIVITY that had marked the weeks following the winter holidays had finally died down, Port Gamble began to return to its more sedate (at least on the surface) and familiar mode. To outsiders, it once more appeared to be the pretty town on the water with the happy faces of visitors and residents, all enjoying views of a stunning bay as spring took over the ice and snow.

Most who lived there, however, wouldn’t really say that it was quite the same as it had been before Katelyn Berkley’s unfortunate double-tallskinny death in the bathtub. For many, things were very, very different.

Harper and Sandra Berkley sublet the remainder of the lease on the Timberline and made plans to start over in a place where there weren’t as many memories. It wasn’t thoughts of their beloved daughter they were running from, but the recollections of living next door to the hurt and hate that had caused her death. They knew that Katelyn’s resentment of Starla had been the spark of the tragedy, but it was easy to lay the blame squarely on the occupants of house number 21. The hatred Sandra had for Mindee, Starla, and Teagan had a strange effect on her. She was able to use that emotion to replace the other that had marked her life since she stood on the Hood Canal Bridge, saving only her own child.

Hate felt better than regret. Better than guilt or shame.

The Berkley house was rented three days after it went up for lease—fast by anyone’s standards, especially considering what had occurred in that upstairs bathroom. A new girl named Amanda O’Neal moved into Katelyn’s bedroom and was working her way into the circle of friends at Kingston High.

Next door, a vindicated Jake Damon stood by button-pusher Mindee Larsen, though he was about the only one in town who really did. Mindee tried her best to prove that she was sorry for the cruel game that she had initiated to such a tragic outcome, and she was grateful when the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office gave her probation for her relentless cyberstalking of a teenage girl. She never told anyone that Starla had been involved too. Teagan was required to attend two years of counseling sessions to deal with what he’d done. It had, of course, been a terrible accident.

Starla turned her mother’s evil plot and her brother’s freak-show infatuation with Katelyn to her advantage, causing even more Kingston High teens to fall at her feet in awe. In envy.

“My dysfunctional family is part of my backstory,” she said. “A messy backstory is essential to true stardom. Ask just about anyone in Hollywood.”

Moira Windsor’s body was recovered and her death was also ruled accidental. The Jefferson County sheriff’s department reported that while her blood-alcohol level wasn’t beyond the legal limit had she been driving, it apparently was much too high to walk with sure footing. They concluded it was the booze that had caused her to tumble down the bank to her rocky death in Paradise Bay.

Neither Colton nor his mother talked about what happened that night. In fact, a week after Moira died, people in town noticed that the old Camry was gone. Shania James had donated it to a children’s charity in Tacoma. Many assumed she had finally decided she wanted no more reminders of the incident that involved the car.

They were right, of course, but wrong about exactly which incident.

When Kevin Ryan called the North Kitsap Herald to launch his new book, he mentioned Moira’s name to offer his condolences to the editorial staff. They’d never heard of her. If she had been working on a story, it wasn’t for their paper.

Or maybe any other paper at all.

Hayley and Taylor continued to talk through the outlet between their bedrooms. They knew they had to keep quiet about Shania, but everything about that night kept resurfacing in their thoughts during the weeks after the incident. They were relieved their secret was safe. But did the ends justify the means?

They continued to get the feelings and visions that had been a part of them long before that plunge off the bridge. Whenever they could, they revisited what occurred when they were five years old and fighting for air in the icy waters of Hood Canal.

Sometimes they talked about it, speculated, even made jokes. Other times, new details emerged in dreams, bits about Shania, their mother, Moira, and someone else, someone sinister they couldn’t quite see. Taylor had one that came over a series of consecutive nights the week after Teagan confessed to sneaking into Katelyn’s bedroom.

That dream again. Official-looking papers. A file. One word:

REVENGE

She rubbed her eyes and leaned over to whisper to her sister on the other side of the wall.

“Going to get a drink,” she said. “Want anything?”

“What time is it?” Hayley asked. Her voice was groggy from what had to be a much sounder sleep than her twin’s.

Taylor sighed. “Late. Too late.”

“You aren’t going to guzzle some water to recall something,” Hayley said.

“No,” Taylor said. “Just thirsty.”

Hayley smiled and turned to roll back into the cozy slumber of the bed she shared with Hedda that night. “Good,” she said. “We’ve had enough drama around here for a while.”

Hayley was right, of course. And yet, as Taylor started down the stairs, she knew that the deep chill that came with that terrible December was the start of something dark and dangerous.

She could feel it.

TRUTH IN FICTION

WHILE THE CHARACTERS and the plot of Envy are fictional, the story line in the novel takes some cues from a famous case involving the October 17, 2006, suicide of Missouri teenager Megan Meier.

The case involved Megan, thirteen years old, who had a falling-out with her neighbor, Sarah Drew. Sarah’s mother, Lori Drew, created a phony MySpace account and pretended to be a teenage boy named Josh Evans. She and others used the account to harass and taunt Megan as retaliation for the fight with her daughter, which may have led to Megan’s suicide.

In 2008, Drew was indicted and convicted, but her conviction was reversed on appeal in 2009. Megan’s tragic case sparked a greater awareness of cyberbullying.

And though awareness has increased, so have the crimes. Cases in which adults are the perpetrators of cybercrimes against children have been widely reported. Crimes in which young people seek to discredit, inflict pain, humiliate, and embarrass others are on the rise.

In 2010, two teen-aged girls in Lee County, Florida, allegedly created a fake Facebook page, accumulated 181 friends, and systematically sought ways to humiliate their classmate by digitally combining photos of the victim’s head with a naked body and posting the manipulated photos online. The case led to charges against the fifteen- and sixteenyear old of aggravated stalking of a minor.

Unfortunately, cyberbullying crimes involving younger victims and perpetrators have also been reported. In