I imagine by now you’ve found my phone and pulled all the text messages between Michael and me. You seem thorough like that. My memory is pretty solid, but it’s probably best you refer to the actual texts from my phone rather than what I have below for this sort of thing. I’ll try to get it right but a girl can sometimes make mistakes. Right, Jessica?

  

Standing in Dr. Bart’s office, staring at his display case, I pulled my phone from my back pocket, then quickly wrote out a text.

Michael, r u there?

“Come on, come on,” I muttered.

My phone vibrated. Yes.

Where r u? R u safe?

Nearly a minute passed before his reply. Did you get into his office?

Yes—you were right, the baseball card is gone. Someone left a feather in its place.

How’d they get in?

Can’t tell. Nothing broken.

Anything else missing?

I looked back at the display case. I didn’t see any other feathers. And for each engraved display plaque, there was a corresponding piece of memorabilia.

I don’t think anything else is missing, I typed back.

When Michael didn’t reply for several minutes, I typed, Still there?

I looked at the clock on my phone and realized I had already been in here for nearly thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes was too long.

My phone vibrated, and I glanced at the display.

Can u get in the dark room?

My chest tightened.

No way!

The feathers, Meg—this is about the dark room.

No, no, no.

Please!

I quickly fired back, You said there’s a tape—did you listen to it?

Michael’s reply came much faster this time. Not yet. Soon. No opportunity yet.

I needed to change the subject. R u coming home?

Michael went silent again.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Then—

If you won’t go in the room, get Dr. Bart’s files. There’ll be a file on Alyssa Tepper—must be a connection somewhere. And maybe Roland Eads.

I turned and looked at Dr. Bart’s desk and the matching credenza behind it. I’d seen him reach into those drawers a hundred times, a thousand. Plucking out one file, returning another.

Patient files.

I typed, Do you have any idea how much trouble we could get into if someone found out we looked at those files?

Again, his response came fast. Not look—take! Get the files. Important!!! Hide them. Buy burner phone. Next contact from that only. Not your regular phone. Not anymore.

I stared at the message. A burner phone? WTF?

A second later: Meg, please!

My finger hovered over the keyboard. I don’t know when it started trembling. I should never have agreed to come in here.

When I finally typed a response, my hand had gone from trembling to downright shaking. My heart felt like it might burst through my rib cage. I sent back a single letter, all I could manage—

K.

  

You’d do it too, wouldn’t you, Jessica? If your brother asked?