man?”

“Jill.”

I turned around to see my mom staring at me, looking more steely than she had in months. “What?” I asked, not sure what I’d done wrong.

“The police are never going to solve the case,” Mom said, sounding more forceful, too. Sounding angry. “They lost interest when they learned that your father was a criminal, too, as surely as his killer!”

I’d known that my excitement was ill-advised, and yet when Mom said that, snuffing out my hope, and calling my dad a criminal, a flash of anger tore through me, too. A wave of fury that bordered on rage. Mom was giving up on Dad, too . . . My fingers wrapped around the teacup, and for just a second I had this crazy urge to hurl it across the room so it would shatter against the wall in a million pieces.

But of course I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t break things. Instead, my eyes filled with tears. Crying . . . that was the pathetic way I expressed rage. “Mom, please don’t call him a criminal.”

My defense of Dad, weak as it was, only seemed to make her more mad, though.

“Your father lied to us, Jill,” she said through gritted teeth. “He stole out of the house in the middle of the night while I was working and you were sleeping! He stole chemicals from his employer!” She paused, then dropped the bomb she’d been holding all along. “He stole your college fund, Jill! Nearly every cent!”

I froze in place, stunned into mute silence. “What?” I finally asked.

“Your college money,” Mom repeated, her own anger seeming to dissolve closer to tears. Her eyes got wide, miserable, like suddenly she couldn’t believe what she was telling me, either. “He withdrew it from the bank in the months before his murder. I don’t know why, and I tried to work extra shifts to replace some of the money, but I’m so tired . . .”

Mom closed her eyes again then, anger seeming spent, and buried her face in her hands, like she couldn’t bear to face me when she added, “I’m so sorry . . . but I don’t know if you can go to school next year. Even with loans—I just don’t think we can afford it right away.”

The teacup that I held did shatter then, but not in a satisfying way, as it slipped from my fingers, which seemed to have gone numb. “No.” My voice sounded strangled in my ears. “Dad wouldn’t have done that. Not to me.”

Mom still didn’t look at me, and it seemed like the room started to spin. I reached for the kitchen counter to steady myself.

My college fund . . . I had a shot at valedictorian, but I might not even go to school? My father had stolen my future?

All at once, as I stood in that puddle of tea, I hated my dad, just like I suspected Mom did. For a split second I was glad that my father was dead.

“I’m sorry, Jill,” Mom mumbled again.

“Yeah. Me, too.” Silly, silly me . . .

There was nothing else to say after that. Not much left to feel, even. So I got a rag and cleaned up the mess I’d made. Mom sat at the table, not even trying to help, like she was too exhausted to move.

When the kitchen was clean, I went back upstairs and climbed into my bed, where I stared straight into space, into the darkness, for about an hour, my mind just blank. Completely numb, like somebody had jammed a needle full of Novocain deep, deep into the cortex of my brain.

Then, when the room was pitch black—it must have been almost midnight—I noticed that the green light on the bottom of my laptop’s monitor was glowing. I got up, went to my desk, and shook the mouse, thinking I should shut down the computer for the night. Heaven knew we Jekels couldn’t afford to waste power!

But when I rattled the mouse and the screen came to life, I jumped a little.

Because there, staring straight out at me, was none other than Tristen Hyde, whose MySpace page Becca had never closed.

Tristen, the guy who’d come to my rescue the first time I’d hit rock bottom.

I slid down into my desk chair, studying Tristen’s face. Studying him and wondering, with a growing flicker of excitement.

Was there a chance he might be able to help me again?

Maybe. If I could just convince him . . .

But the rules we’d have to break, the locks we’d have to pick . . . Was I really ready for that kind of trespass, even to right the huge wrongs done to me?

I leaned closer, staring hard into those intense, brown eyes.

And was I ready to do those things with . . . him?

Chapter 8

Tristen

“TRIS, THIS ISN’T THE ROUTE coach mapped,” someone griped as I led the cross-country team off the paved streets and onto the path that ran along the Susquehanna River. “Coach said—”

“Coach isn’t here,” I reminded them over my shoulder. “If someone else wants to lead . . . ?”

I didn’t await a response. Of course they would follow me, their captain, because they knew that, should one of them pass me, it would be only a temporary state. I would let my lungs burst before I ceded my spot in front.

“I hate this trail,” I heard a loud complaint from the back.

“Me, too,” I muttered. But I had to take that route again and again. Needed to see the spot. Face it down.

As we ran deeper into the forest, the canopy of trees grew denser, blocking the September sun, and shadows dappled the path. The path in my nightmares. The dreams where I held the knife.

Stop it, Tristen, I told myself. Get control.

Yet I subtly picked up our pace, trying to outrace the images that were already bubbling up from my troubled subconscious. Of course, my thoughts matched me stride for stride—threatening to overtake me, hurrying faster than my footsteps.

This is the way I approach her . . .

I stretched out my legs, running harder.

“Geez, Tris.” I heard another protest,

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