I hurried toward it, ducked inside, removed one of my earrings, then returned to the little hall. No one was watching, so I dropped the earring close to where I thought the booth was. There I knelt, ready to act as if I were searching for it if someone came by.
Having gone to all that trouble, I discovered the stalker and his friend were talking about music. I was just about to give up when I heard one of them say to the other, “You’re so uptight. What’s wrong with you?”
“She hasn’t found her cell phone.”
“She hasn’t?” There was a long silence, then the same guy spoke again. “Well, it’s been a week. If the police or firefighters found it and figured out it was Erika’s, they’d have contacted her by now. It’s no big deal. . She pulled her SIM card, right?”
“Wrong.”
“She didn’t?!”
“She didn’t know she dropped the phone.”
The other guy swore.
“I told Erika to delete every message in her account, but if the police have already gotten into it, we’re all going down together.”
There was another silence.
“Does she use a password?”
“Yeah, but they can crack that.”
“McManus?” The guy snickered. “Not likely.”
“They sent the old man’s body to Baltimore. They probably sent everything they had.”
“The video. She used her phone to take video of the fires and to shoot pictures of kids arriving.”
At that moment an older woman started toward me. “Did you lose something, dear?”
In response, I lifted up my shiny earring. When the woman moved on, I crawled a few feet past the booth, then stood up and headed toward the stairs.
Friends shared phones, I thought; close friends shared passwords. Who would be the most likely person to know Erika’s — and how could I wheedle it out of him?
“WHERE WERE YOU?” Zack asked. “I looked indoors and out.
You just disappeared.”
“The ladies’ room.” The only way for me to lie effectively was by telling the truth — at least, half a truth.
“I thought you were chasing down scallops wrapped in bacon.” The laughter I’d seen earlier in his eyes had disappeared.
“I couldn’t catch up with the tray. Looks like dinner is being served. I’m starved.”
Zack’s frown told me he didn’t buy my excuses.
Good. You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you, I thought, but it bothered me the way the light in his eyes had changed.
We went through the buffet line silently, then sat with three other couples at a round table. I found myself talking to the girl and guy next to me and avoiding conversation with Zack.
When I surveyed the room, I didn’t see the stalker or his friend.
Dinner was begun with a toast by Mr. Gill. Waiters had scurried around filling champagne glasses with bubbly fruit juice, then he stood up and asked us to raise our glasses in honor of the most beautiful seventeen-year-old in the world, the most wonderful of daughters, the best friend any of us could ever have, et cetera, et cetera.
The girl next to me whispered, “I’m glad this is before dinner. I’d hate to puke,” which made me snort my sip of bubbly stuff, drawing an unreadable look from Zack. It may have been the longest toast and the longest dinner I have ever endured.
Like a wedding reception, cake was going to be served much later. Erika invited us all to dance and told the guys that she expected one dance with each of them. Otherwise, it was a lot like any other event with music: girls dancing with girls, since the guys weren’t enthusiastic about it.
“Want to go out on the deck?” Zack asked.
“Okay.”
We had almost reached the door when Erika caught up with us. “You owe me a dance, Zack. And because you tried to escape, you owe me several.”
Zack smiled. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“I’ll be outside,” I said.
Zack nodded and walked with Erika to the dance floor. It was a prime opportunity for me to float around and latch on to a conversation that would provide further information. But my feet stayed planted on the deck close to the doorway. I really didn’t want to, but like the other girls, I watched.
Erika was a video tutorial on seductive dance. Lesson 1: When the song is fast and everyone’s jumping around, dance as if the music is slow; it makes you and the guy seem like you are in a romantic world all your own. Lesson
2: Take off your shoes; drop back your head to gaze into the guy’s eyes, making him feel taller and making your hair longer, so it hangs down your back and touches his fingers.
Lesson 3: Loop your hands around his neck, pretending to be casual and easy, then use your fingertips to touch and tantalize. Lesson 4“It was the ‘green tunnel’ that I got,” said a girl behind me.
I turned my head and missed Lesson 4.
“Erika makes the early clues impossible,” a guy replied.
“‘Turn at the spring flower’? I didn’t even know there was a thing called a tulip tree.”
Tulip poplar, I thought. The tree that marked the road that ran through Tilby’s Dream.
“I didn’t either,” the girl admitted, “but my little brother calls tree-shaded streets ‘tunnels.’ When we got that clue, I could picture it. And then, when Erika sent out ‘Farmer’s dream
—’”
“Everyone got it then. This time, everyone beat the fire trucks.”
The pair moved past me, through the door and toward the dance floor.
I walked slowly to the edge of the deck and leaned on the wood railing, gazing out at the river, trying to piece things together. There was a game of riddles, starting with the more cryptic clues, hinting where the fire would be set.
Maybe the point was to text the riddle’s answer to Erika, then get to the site in time to watch her set the fire. Even if Erika deleted the incriminating texts from her account, the experts could retrieve them as well as the video of the fire. I had the evidence the police needed but, unfortunately, not the information and explanations that I wanted.
I really disliked Erika, but I had trouble imagining she knew that Uncle Will was in the trunk of the car. She was a party girl. Her goals in life were guys, clothes, and lots of attention. But she wouldn’t want the kind of attention you get with a corpse; and for her, an old man wouldn’t matter enough to bother with — unless he was seriously cramping her style. Maybe he had seen something and threatened to turn her in. Or maybe it was just bad luck that she had ended up with a charred body. Or maybe, someone who had an issue with Uncle Will and a real streak of violence had taken advantage of the situation. I wondered how many contacts were on Erika’s e-mail list. I wondered if Aunt Iris could
“sense” that kind of stuff.
“Thinking about taking a swim?”
I turned quickly, then turned back, facing the river; I hadn’t heard Zack’s footsteps approaching from behind. “Not at night,” I said.
“Why not? I love swimming at night.”
“Dark water is scary. You can’t see what lies beneath its surface.”
“But that’s what I like about it,” he replied. “It’s mysterious.”
“And dangerous,” I told him. “Nothing changes as much as water.”
“That’s my favorite thing about it.”
