truck … the truck … the truck that made Levi Sterling run. “Who is it?”
“I just got a call from Barbara Gaines, whose daughter is married to a paramedic who was in the ambulance. She knows you go to Vienna and wanted to see if you knew her.”
“Who? Who died, Mom?” I demand.
“Someone named Chloe.”
“Chloe Batista.” I croak her name.
“Do you know her?”
“She’s …” Oh, God. Second.
And I’m fifth.
CHAPTER XV
We gather around the computer like I imagine people flocked to CNN when news broke in the pre–social network days. Our news comes from Facebook and Twitter, which is far more informative than anything on TV.
But in the social networks of Vienna High, rumors, conjecture, and warnings are flying fast. Fortunately, my mother is content to let me give her highlights from my screen rather than read over my shoulder. Because forget about it if she saw the word second or the list or, God forbid, my name and fifth. If she realized how close to home these posts were hitting, she’d wither and cry.
“What does it say, Kenzie?” Mom asks, crossing her arms and pacing the kitchen, nervous energy electrifying the room. “Are there details? What happened?”
“Nobody has a clue, Mom. It’s just teenagers railing about how much they loved Chloe. And rumors.” About the list. The one I’m on.
“My friend’s son-in-law said her dad found her.” Mom nearly shakes with horror at this and it’s the third time she’s mentioned it. She makes a little whimpering sound and drops into the chair across the table from me. “What was she doing at that house?”
“Watering plants.” That much I knew from her last post.
“The paramedic told his wife the girl was in some kind of shock.” She leans closer and almost reads my computer, but I tip the screen.
“Just let me look, Mom,” I tell her, turning the laptop away completely.
“Oh, Lord, that poor family.” She drops her head into her hands, and I know this is hard for her, a woman whose greatest fear is an accidental death. This is hard for me, a girl who fights that same fear every day … and is just two short spots away from being next.
But that’s crazy. This has to be a coincidence, right? Or a curse. Or a—
“How well did you know her?” Mom asks.
We were “sisters” on a list. “Barely.”
On my phone, I check Instagram, which has blown up with pictures of Chloe all the way back to kindergarten, tagged with #rememberchloe and #ripcb and, oh my God, #secondtodie.
“Who would write that?” I murmur, my insides turning cold.
“Write what?”
I shake my head, and she pushes back from the table to head to the coffee machine.
“You don’t need that, Mom,” I tell her before she even pulls a K-Cup from the carousel. “It’ll keep you up all night.”
She gives a soft, derisive snort. “Like that’ll be any different from any other night.”
I hear her, of course, every night. Fretting. Worrying. Pacing every inch of the first floor. Suffering from dystychiphobia, which Google tells me is a very real fear of accidents.
And during all that insomnia, she never goes upstairs, never. Not to my room for any reason—pretending to give me privacy. But I know she can’t bear to go near Conner’s room. She just leaves it untouched. Dad’s begged her to turn it into something other than a shrine to their dead son, but she refuses.
Even when that refusal cost her Dad.
Frustrated, I don’t respond, going back to Facebook to see if there’s anything new.
There is: someone has posted a picture of a house surrounded by ambulances and police cars, with the words Where Chloe died.
“Oh, here’s …” I trail off as I click on the photo to enlarge it, my breath suddenly drawn in so deep it feels like my chest is going to explode.
“What?” Mom demands. “They know what happened?”
“No, no.” I’m trying to think straight, to be cool, not to give away that …“They don’t know what happened.” But I might.
I almost can’t look, but I have to, leaning in and squinting at the slivers of fieldstone visible between two ambulances, at the lush landscaping.
“Looks like money.” Mom’s looking over my shoulder.
Richie McRich. That’s what Molly said when we saw this very same house … just a few hours ago, with a dark pickup truck parked in front of it. There’s no pickup parked there in this picture.
I stare hard at the street and then remember the numbers I got off the truck’s license plate.
Oh my God,