Anna closed The Crucible and then closed her eyes. It was nearly dawn; she’d been staring at her sister’s note all night.
Courtney was alive. Her sister was alive. She turned the idea over and over in her mind, trying to find a reason it might not be true. The note might be a hoax. But what would anyone have to gain through such a trick? Anna didn’t know, and anyway, the idea that Courtney was out there somewhere filled her with such hope she couldn’t let it go once she’d tested the feeling. She wondered if Courtney, wherever she was, knew about Ted’s upcoming trial, how she’d be portrayed as a lying slut by both the prosecution and the defense.
Anna bolted up in bed, suddenly wide awake. The trial. Ted Parker. What would happen to him if Courtney came back from the dead? They’d want Courtney to testify. And what if Courtney had murdered Hugh? It was a crazy thought, but why had she disappeared? She needed answers, and Courtney hadn’t given her enough clues. Anna grabbed her laptop before realizing she had no information to go on.
The laptop beeped, and she reflexively checked her email inbox. A message from an address she didn’t recognize—it looked like spam, from some place called Rahim’s Rare Books:
We hope you found your copy of The Crucible to be satisfactory. Please contact us if we may be of further service.