Page 127 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘You do have a secret, Dianne.’ That hellish voice, rattling against the speakers. ‘The one your family doesn’t know. Except Emily. She knew.’

‘Jet?’

She spooled forward, the cat jerking silently, coming alive again when she stopped.

‘She told me before she died.’

Yelling, heels rushing on a polished floor, in a race against the pounding of Jet’s heart.

‘Actually, it wasrightbefore she died.’

‘Jet?’

‘What?’ She paused the video, back in the room.

Billy touched the screen. ‘Who is this?’

‘I don’t know.’

Jet stared at the cat, into its half-human eyes.

‘Is it true?’ Billy frowned. ‘About Emily telling them a secret?’

‘Emily died seventeen years ago,’ Jet replied, not really an answer.

‘So this is someone who knew your family back then?’

Jet shrugged, but something else had caught her eye behind the cat. A window visible in the background of the darkened room. Jet swiped her fingers on the trackpad to zoom into it. Zoomed again. A silver glare in the dark, pixelated window, turning it into a mirror.

‘That’s the reflection of the laptop screen.’ Jet zoomed in again on the hazy silver shape, her arrow tracing a pinkish blur around it.

‘Pink?’ Billy said.

‘Rose gold,’ Jet corrected him. ‘And a black keyboard. Looks like a MacBook Air to me.’

‘OK.’ Billy chewed his lip. ‘And how does that help us identify the cat?’

Jet shot him a look. ‘I mean, I don’t know amanwho would buy a rose-gold MacBook, do you?’

Billy shrugged. ‘It’s a bit of a leap.’

‘You’rea bit of a leap,’ Jet muttered.

‘Can we see what’s outside the window?’ Billy leaned closer, propped his chin up on his knuckles.

‘No, it’s night outside and the laptop’s too bright,’ Jet said.

Billy thought about that for a moment, chewing his cheek.

‘Does the cat ever move in front of the laptop, blocking the screen’s reflection? Then maybe we can –’

Jet was already doing it, pressing play on this zoomed-in view, focused on the window.

‘Make it stop, Dianne,’ the cat voice said, just a reflection from this angle, an unknown person. ‘Or I’ll –’

The cat shifted and Jet paused. Its human shoulders blocked the light from the laptop, the silver rectangle gone from the glass of the window, just the darkness beyond and a pinprick of orange.

‘Hold on,’ Jet said.

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