CHAPTER 98

GIOVANNA PUSHED THE ART ROOM door open a full foot and poked her head inside. Clear. She stepped through. Hopefully the police wouldn’t think of coming down here. Not until she was done, anyway.

The room had always been an escape for her, and today it would be her final one. It was fitting too. Art had a way of speaking to people. And Giovanna’s death would do the same. It had to.

She scurried past the worktables, straight to the front of the room, and then she stopped. Pandora’s Box sat there —mocking her even at this moment.

Giovanna had cracked open her own Pandora’s Box the night she accepted Kat’s invitation to the party. And there’d been no closing it. Maybe it was symbolic that the box should be here at this moment. She set the pair of Glocks on the closed lid and wiped slick hands on her jeans.

She propped her phone on the closest worktable, holding it in position with a hunk of modeling clay. She adjusted the angle to be sure the pink Pandora’s Box was in the foreground and the entire chalkboard was in the background. Her last moments would be caught on film, and her message would go out to the world. She started the camera and looked directly into the lens. “Here’s something to add to that YouTube site.”

She grabbed a stub of white chalk and scrawled a message across the green board in big letters. Bullying must be stopped. It destroys people. I didn’t kill myself. Not really. I just finished the job others started. I can’t take it anymore. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And —

Giovanna hesitated. She’d already written more than she’d planned. Her hand hovered over the board —and she listened. But for what? The fire alarm had been replaced by an alarm in her head, shouting, Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

Or was the voice saying something different? You know what you need to do. Get it done. She started writing again. And I’m so scared. So terribly scared.