T.J. WANTED MEG TO EXPLAIN THE DIARY RIGHT then and there … in a room, in a house full of dead bodies. Thankfully, Meg’s brain had rebooted and pulled her sanity back from the brink of no return. It was funny—suddenly she was collected, her brain running a mile a minute, where half an hour ago she was ready to curl up in the fetal position, squeeze her eyes tightly shut against the realities of what was happening, and pray she’d wake up from a horrible nightmare.
That said, no freaking way in hell was she going to plop down at the kitchen table in the House of Many Dead People and start dissecting the diary of a killer while surrounded by his or her victims. Screw that.
Despite his initial frantic need to find out what Meg was talking about, T.J. acknowledged that she was right in her desire to get the hell out of the house of death as soon as was humanly possible. So with a short sojourn into the kitchen on a successful hunt for a lantern and batteries, Meg and T.J. put as much space between themselves and the Taylors’ house as quickly as the weather and relative darkness would allow.
Once across the treacherous isthmus, T.J. started up the steps to White Rock House, but Meg stopped him.
“What?” he asked. He held the battery-operated lantern up to her face. She could see the light rain falling in its beam.
“We can’t go back up,” she said, squinting into the light. “Not yet.”
T.J. sighed loudly. “Why?”
“Because,” Meg said with a significant glance up toward the house. “The killer … could be up there.” She almost said “is up there” but decided against the panic that statement might induce, particularly in herself. She was afraid of what her discovery meant, and she needed T.J.’s opinion on the matter before she jumped to conclusions.
T.J. seemed to understand. “Okay,” he said calmly. “Let’s go to the boathouse.”
They took the shorter route along the beach and up through the trees to the boathouse. With the sun fully retreated beyond the horizon, the bone-chilling cold had returned, and while the boathouse offered a reprieve from the relentless drizzle, Meg still shivered as she and T.J. huddled around the lantern.
“Spill it,” T.J. said unceremoniously.
Meg noted the edge to his voice. “I found this earlier.” She reached a shaky hand into her pocket and retrieved the diary.
“Where?”
“In my room. I thought it was mine, but … not so much.” Meg opened the first page and held the diary before the light.
“‘Is this book yours?’” T.J. read aloud. “‘No? THEN STOP READING IT. NOW.’” Despite his fatigue and strain, T.J. gave her a half smile. “So naturally you read on.”
“Funny,” she said. The fact that he could still find humor in their current situation bolstered her courage. “It gets weirder though.” She flipped two pages ahead to where the line of the quote had been copied in the center of the page.
“‘And their doom comes swiftly.’” He looked up at her. “The poem you read back at the house, right? How does that fit in?”
“It’s a quote from the Bible that starts with ‘Vengeance is mine.’”
Even in the relative darkness, she could see T.J.’s eyes widen. “The video.”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know.”
“So whoever is stalking us wrote that?”
Meg bit her lip.
“What?”
It was too impossible, too bizarre to believe. There was no way in hell Claire was the killer since she’d been dead for three months. And yet, everything pointed in that direction. Ugh. Meg didn’t trust herself. She needed T.J.’s unbiased opinion. “Just read it.”
“Fine.” T.J. lifted the book from her hand. He held it close to the light, examining both the front and back covers, then opened to the first entry. Meg sat silently at his side while he read the first few pages. Meg stopped him at the point where the pages had been ripped out, covering the photo of Claire with her hand as she took the journal away from him. She didn’t want him to see it. Not yet.
“Okay” he said. “So this girl had some problems she needed to work out. How does that relate to us?”
“Don’t you see?” she said. “It’s like a hit list. The singer. The two-faced bitch. The heartbreaker.”
“Look,” he said. “I know we were talking theoretically back at the house, but Vivian’s death had to be an accident. You almost went over the hill at that point yourself.”
“Teej!” she said, losing her patience. “We both saw that the railing had been tampered with. That was no accident.”
T.J. wasn’t convinced. “It could have been.”
“But it wasn’t,” Meg said, her mouth dry. “Listen, Lori was a singer.”
“Right.”
Meg stared into the darkness. “Vivian was definitely a bitch, and Lori even said she’d probably kill her own mother if it meant she’d get the best grade or win a competition. And don’t you remember what Nathan said at dinner? About conning some poor girl at school into helping him pass algebra?”
“So?” T.J. clearly hadn’t made the same leap.
“Don’t you get it?” she said. Why was he being so obtuse? “Lori was a singer. The diary talks about a singer who beat the author out for a solo.”
“Okay,” T.J. said begrudgingly.
“And Lori was strangled. By a noose. It crushed her vocal cords.”
“That’s just a coincidence.”
“Yeah? Was it a coincidence that her suicide note was written on the sheet music for her solo from the last concert?”
“Okay.” T.J. nodded. “What else?”
“Then Vivian,” Meg said, speaking fast, as if she was afraid she’d forget what she wanted to say halfway through. “Two-faced pain in the ass who was completely self-serving.”
“Heh.” T.J. smirked. “Tell me how you really feel.”
Meg narrowed her eyes. “Are you finished?”
“Maybe.”
“Such an appropriate time for sarcasm.”
“You’re gorgeous when you’re angry.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Come on. This is important.”
T.J. sat back and crossed his legs in front of him. “Fine, fine. Go on.”
“The diary talks about a back-stabber who got the author kicked off the debate team. And Vivian just happened to be stabbed through the back?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “Then Nathan,” she said. “The heartbreaker. The author said she hoped the boy who broke her heart would have the same done to him. And Nathan was shot through the heart.”
T.J. shook his head. “But in the diary, the author and The Boy are perfectly happy. No mention of him being a heartbreaker at all.”
That was true, Meg couldn’t deny it. But if “The Boy” and Nathan were the same person, the diary would chronicle the same story Nathan told over dinner, about conning some poor girl into helping him cheat on his algebra midterm by pretending he was in love with her.
There was only one way to find out. Meg flipped to the next entry and began to read out loud.
This can’t be happening. She did this, I know she did. That backstabbing bitch must have said something to The Boy.
The big test was yesterday, the one we’d been working so hard on. I did something I shouldn’t have done, but I just wanted him to pass, you know? I texted him last night to see how he thought he did. He didn’t respond so I called and he didn’t pick up. Then today I didn’t see him anywhere, but I found his best friend and told him I wanted to talk and could The Boy meet me after school at the usual place? His friend sort of nodded, but wouldn’t look me in the eye. And then after school … The Boy never came.
Meg swallowed, trying to control the emotion in her voice. She could feel the pain coming through the page. The tone of the entry was frantic. The handwriting grew more and more erratic as it went on so that by the last line the words blurred together and the letters were almost unintelligible. It looked as if that passage had been written in a fit of pure despair.
My heart is breaking. I feel like everything’s been taken away from me!!!! I bet his friend didn’t tell The Boy I was waiting for him. Idiot. Someone should just beat him over the head. That has to be it. I know The Boy wouldn’t have abandoned me.
He wouldn’t do this if he knew how much it was hurting me. Does he know how I feel? Does he know what it’s like to have your heart ripped out of your chest? I wish someone would tell him how much it hurts.