Page 48 of The Engagement Party

Will frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Emily.”

“It’s nother. The notes are about her.” Cassie’s voice almost demanded that Will keep up. “Papers about Emily in a house she’s never been to. About her death.” She looked at Will. “I thought you searched the cabinets earlier.”

“There weren’t there, or if they were I missed them.”

The conversation took off and Ruthie had no way to stop it. All of her hard work shredded in front of her. That well-thought-out plan went from practiced and studied to superfluous.

“Where did the papers come from? They’re planted here for us to find, right?” Cassie shook the crumpled stack in her fist. “Someone needs to come clean and do it now.”

Cassie looked at Ruthie. Ruthie forced herself not to look away.

No one said a word. Ruthie couldn’t. She held the right answers, but only some of them. The notes shouldn’t be here. The fact that they were meant someone else in the house was playing a game, and she’d become a target.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Book Notes: Did Brendan Clarke Take the Fall?

Brendan Clarke was an easy target. He had few friends. While it might look like he fit the role of quiet loner, he had the love and steadfast support of his parents. A few fellow students and more than one professor vouched for him. People who really knew him insistedbut, he’s really a nice guyandI can’t imagine him doing this.

We’re all cynical. We hear those denials so often in cases like these that they ring hollow. Not genuine. Easy to discount. Sitting on our comfortable couches and scrolling on our computers, we think we know better. We’ve solved the puzzle, acted as jury, and moved on.

Brendan proclaimed his innocence loud and often. He survived hours of interrogation without coughing up an admission. He held tight to his story. He was home, alone, playing an online game. He wasn’t a graduate, so he had no reason to roam around campus that night. He’d packed and was waiting for his father to come get him early the next week.

The friend who was online with him verified the gaming story. The other players verified. The company who ran the game couldprobably have verified if anyone bothered to ask them. No one did. That lone text to Emily sealed the case. Brendan’s perceived oddity shored up the allegations. His suicide settled all doubt.

The ending was so clean, so quick, that few questioned it. But they should have. The case is notable mostly for what didn’t exist. There was no discernible motive. No evidence, forensic or otherwise, to tie Brendan to Emily’s murder. No witnesses. No one saw him at graduation, near the museum on campus where Emily’s bag was found, or by the New Meadows River.

The police believed Emily was killed and left in the river. Brendan didn’t have a car. He traveled by bike and there’s no record of him renting a vehicle. So, how did he move the body? And where was the primary crime scene? None was ever located.

What the police did find was a shoe imprint in the mud on the riverbank next to where Emily’s body tangled in the weeds. The size didn’t match Brendan’s.

Brendan lived in a campus apartment with an entry card access system. His card logged him coming back to his place from a food run around noon on Saturday, while Emily was very much alive. Parking lot security footage, while not conclusive, didn’t show him leaving the building again.

The pieces, when taken together, painted a picture of a gamer guy staying in on Saturday night. Not an unusual thing for him. He dreamed of writing games for a living and viewed playing them as homework of sorts.

If he didn’t kill Emily, which seems the more likely scenario, the pressure of being questioned and accused could have driven him to suicide. It’s also possible Brendan and Emily were bound by more than a text. Both could be victims of killers who walked free.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Sierra

Sierra’s mind refused to clear. She’d been focusing on the rhythmic drumming of the rain against the house, letting it ease her back to reality. Now she heard raised voices and saw Cassie waving papers around. As much as Sierra wanted to fall into a blissful state of nothingness, that couldn’t happen. Not when this group’s secrets and lies kept crawling out and demanding attention.

“Let me see those.” Sierra held out her hand and for some reason that stopped Cassie’s agitated shifting around. Sierra wished she’d known something so simple would work earlier.

Her vision had barely cleared from the pounding shower. She’d let hot water wash over her, knowing it could clean the outward grime but never block the horrors she’d seen. She didn’t even have to close her eyes to see that head roll across the floor. The body had been cocooned so that unwrapping the surprise would provide the kind of haunting memory that never went away.

The room fell silent as she scanned the papers. Not autobiographical, clearly. This was by someone who knew Emily or thought they did. Honest to the point of being sharp and meanin places. Written on a computer and printed out, so no handwriting to test. No obvious markings to identify the author.

One thought struck her: this could be the note left to explain a rampage. Kill everyone on the island and drop this on the way out. Let it stand as thethis is why they deserved itanswer.

“Well?” Mitch asked.

She decided to lead off with a few facts. “I didn’t know Emily. I didn’t know Tyler or Jake. I know exactly one person here. You.”

Alex shimmied higher on the pillows, this time with more agility. “That makes you more of a suspect, not less.”

“Do you want to get hit again?” Mitch asked in a low voice.

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