Jessica

The transcript of the texts between Tegan and me are released to the media on Friday.

Now everyone in the world knows that my wager led to all that happened next—the sex, the video, Tegan’s coma, and possibly Shawna’s murder. Overnight, I become the villain, the girl who set her boyfriend up to fail, and sympathy for Jake skyrockets.

News headlines reach the Daily Mail in the UK:

AMERICAN TEEN SNOGS CLASSMATE FOR FIFTY DOLLARS

It’s worse in the US:

TEEN GIRL BETS ON LOVE AND LOSES

TWELFTH GRADERS WAGE WAR OVER EX-BOYFRIEND

AN INDECENT PROPOSAL IN CRYSTAL COVE

Even Chloe is livid when she hears the news and FaceTimes me. “This whole time I’ve been defending you, and you freaking asked for this?” She stomps around her bedroom and slams her door. “How could you hide this from Jake, from me? I felt terrible for you, Jessica. I can’t believe you made the bet and didn’t tell me!”

“How do you think I felt?” I whisper. “I didn’t want Jake to find out.”

“I wouldn’t have told Jake. I—I—can’t deal with this right now. I’m leaving for Arizona soon. Don’t talk to me until after the showcase.” She ends the video call, and I fall onto my bed, sobbing.

Then my lawyer calls to tell me my fingerprints matched perfectly to the unknown print on Tegan’s phone. “Are you surprised by this?” Ms. Jackson asks on the speakerphone with my parents.

“No,” I whisper, which upsets my dad a lot.

But Jackson absorbs my response like a pro and continues, “Detective Underwood sent a new warrant to Judge Singh for your DNA, Jessica, and he’ll sign it. The detective is building a case against you for interfering with a police investigation at minimum, and for aiding and abetting your boyfriend in Tegan’s attempted murder at maximum. The BMW came back clean; there are no traces of blood, tissue, or hair—human or otherwise. The lack of physical evidence is good news for you, Jessica.”

It might be good news, but it makes me feel queasy. After the call, Mom retreats to her bedroom for the rest of the day.

Tegan promised I’d regret our bet, and she was right, but I won’t let things end this way with Jake. She may never wake up and tell us what happened to her, but maybe I can redeem myself and help him out of the legal mess he’s in—that we’re both in. I have an idea that involves breaking and entering, and it might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

Okay, maybe the second-stupidest if you count the bet.

Shawna Moore’s house is nestled in Dune Hills, a neighborhood of 1950s bungalows that were once small beach cabins for wealthy families. Behind the neighborhood are the sand dunes, and just to the north is Falcon’s Peak, the bluff where Shawna fell to her death.

It’s Friday night, almost two weeks since the party, and I’m outside Shawna’s bedroom window, once again dressed in black, except this time I’m wearing thin gloves and my hair is pulled into a tight hair-sprayed bun. I’m not leaving any of myself behind, no fingerprints, no DNA.

I had to sneak out and jog through the woods to get past the smattering of reporters that watch Jake’s house and mine. It’s a three-and-a-half-mile trek to Shawna’s, and I made it in twenty-eight minutes flat. Not bad for a noncompetitive run, I think as I catch my breath.

Shawna was going to tell the police everything she knew before she died—but she never got a chance. I think Marcus killed her and attacked Tegan too. It’s too late for Shawna to talk now, but maybe not too late for her to reveal something. The police still haven’t found the camera that was used to film Jake and Tegan—a camera that might have also recorded the violence that occurred afterward—and it’s possible Shawna took it and hid it. This is why I’m at her house, to look for the camera and for clues. I need to get Jake and myself out of this mess.

There’s a candlelight memorial and vigil for Shawna and Tegan at Blind Beach tonight, which is how I know her mom isn’t home. My feet sink into the loamy soil as I push on Shawna’s window. Only outsiders lock up their homes in Crystal Cove and the glass gives way and slides open. Seconds later, I’m in Shawna’s bedroom.

The overhead lights are off, but the moonlight illuminates the room. Her bed is made up with a quilt and a throw blanket. Her clothing is put away, but there’s a laundry basket standing in the corner, as if she’ll return and use it.

After turning on my flashlight, I flip through the loose pictures that cover her desk—photos of Tegan, Brendon, Marcus, and others. Her old sporting equipment—soccer ball, cleats, track shoes, and a softball glove—is displayed neatly outside her closet. Fairy lights decorate her headboard, and the walls are studded with flags from other countries, places Shawna hoped to visit, I imagine. The room is pungent with essential oils and incense.

“Here goes nothing.” With a gulp, I drop to my hands and knees. Then I roll onto my back and squeeze beneath Shawna’s bed. Years ago, when we were kids on the same soccer team, I caught her stuffing her diary into a hole in her box spring during a team sleepover. It’s a place that authorities, or her mother, might not have searched, and it’s possible she still hides things there—diaries, notes, the camera, or anything that might shed light on what happened to her.

It’s a tight fit, and I can’t lift my head without banging it on the slats. My nostrils fill with disturbed dust, and I sweep the flashlight, checking for spiders that might be hiding in the bed frame. The hardwood floor is littered with insect husks and dust bunnies, and when my hair gets wrapped up with a crispy-looking dead fly, my stomach heaves. “Gross,” I mutter, tasting the dust on my tongue.

Squirming farther beneath the bed, wiggling like a snake on my back, I study the box spring above me. The fabric is ripped in several places, revealing the framework. I don’t remember which side of the bed her secret spot was on, or which end. I’ll have to explore each little hole.

Swallowing, I reach my hand into one of the dark openings and feel around for any thingamajig that doesn’t belong. My fingers encounter a layer of dust, more dried-up insect bodies, and sticky webs. I reach deeper, my lips twitching in disgust. Nothing.

I try another dark, filthy opening. Then another.

Finally my fingers close around a small notebook and I slide it loose, inhaling more dust through my nostrils and sneezing. A critter crawls across my fingers, and I yank back my hand. A brown house spider clutches my pinkie for dear life.

I squeal and slam my head into the box spring as I slide out from under the bed. I fling the spider off, and it lands in a patch of moonlight and then scurries across the floor, its eight legs a rapid blur.

I didn’t find the camera, but at least I found something. Opening the notebook, I flip through the lined white paper, growing excited. It’s a diary and the dates are recent.

I scan half a dozen entries about Marcus. Shawna describes going to parties with him, taking drugs, and having sex in his apartment. There’s one about Tegan’s Fourth of July party that includes two sentences about the bet. Jessica bet Tegan fifty bucks she can’t kiss Jake. This is going to be hysterical.

The ugly, bitter side of me thinks, Look who’s laughing now, and I instantly hate myself for it.

I flip forward and read more about Marcus. Shawna believes she loves him, but it seems more like obsession to me. There are several entries where she’s upset because Marcus doesn’t call or text her, or he shows up with hickies from other girls. He flirts heavily with Tegan, and Shawna’s afraid he likes Tegan better than her. She also berates herself for being “just a high school girl.” One of the last entries is dated on Tuesday, two days before a kayaker found her body in the sea. My pulse jumps as I read.

Just talked to the police—I am so fucked! Prison! I should turn him in. I don’t want to go to prison! If I tell the police what he did, they’ll go easier on me, but he’ll be so mad. Shit! Everyone is lying and Jake is clueless. If Jake knew the truth…he would kill us all. Stupid! Stupid! Why did we ever think this would be funny????????

My hands shake as I finish reading. “What did you do to Jake?” I wonder out loud. When Shawna wrote this on Tuesday, Jake already knew about the video and the broadcast, so Shawna must be talking about something else. Something he doesn’t know about.

Brendon said something similar, that Jake’s stupid and has no idea what’s going on. Maybe they’re talking about planting Tegan’s phone in Jake’s glove box. Shawna wrote: I should turn him in. But who is “he”? Does she mean Marcus or Jake?

I think back to the night of the party and everything weird that happened after—hitting a creature on Blood Alley, lying to the detective in the woods, Shawna’s death, and Tegan getting stuffed into a storage bench like a discarded toy, and then Jake beating up Brendon and getting arrested. This all started because Jake and Tegan did more than kiss. That’s what turned the live feed into something criminal.

I inhale and shove that memory aside. It seems obvious that Tegan’s friends played a joke on her that backfired with that illegal broadcast—and one of them is picking off the others so they don’t confess. And I think they’re setting up Jake to take the blame. He doesn’t know if it was really Shawna texting him to meet her at Falcon’s Peak. It could have been her killer, trying to make him look guilty.

I bet whoever has the missing camera is the one responsible, and it’s not here. Brendon the Cameraman is the obvious choice, except the police questioned him and let him go. The word at school is that after he left the party, Brendon stayed up all night watching movies with his insomniac father.

No, everything circles back to Marcus. If he snuck into Tegan’s room and assaulted her like he did that girl in Nevada, maybe he kept the camera recording as a souvenir, or a trophy. That footage could be my best hope to clear Jake’s name, and I have an idea how to get it.

I search Shawna’s diary for a clue about Marcus—his address, his social media handles, anything—and as I flip through the pages, I travel back through Shawna’s life. When I reach a page from seven months earlier, the day Shawna and Marcus first met, I find something promising—phone numbers, two of them. Shawna drew a heart around them and wrote Marcus’s name. One number is starred and the other is labeled extra.

Using the new phone my parents bought me, I snap a photo of the numbers and then one of Shawna’s final diary entry. Her mother deserves to have this notebook, so I leave it on Shawna’s bed, where it will be found tonight or tomorrow—her daughter’s private thoughts.

They are hard to read but they are honest, and some of them are sweet: I got an A on my essay! Mom is so proud of me. And: Watched a movie with Mom last night. We both cried. I should hang out with her more.

Gazing down at Shawna’s bed, my life feels surreal, bizarre. Senior year was supposed to be exciting—not morbid.

After jogging back home, this time in thirty-one minutes, I shower and remember one of Jake’s silly notes from last year: Roses are red. Violets are blue. I might be failing math, but at least I have you. P.S. I’m not actually failing. I have a D.

Having a D is failing when it comes to college admissions, but Jake’s never been one to pay attention to details. He doesn’t keep scores or hold grudges—he’s nothing like Tegan or me—but because of our bet, he’s caught in a web he doesn’t understand.

It’s time to end this. I pull up the photo of Marcus’s two phone numbers. I know he deals drugs, so I believe the “extra” number is a burner phone, and hopefully it’s still active. I compose a text to the extra number, swallow a breath, and hit send.

I’ve set the bait; now to see if he bites. If this works, I could soon be face to face with a killer.