Page 31 of Reading Between the Lines
“Because Delaney’s right. Weston’s author voice shines in these pieces.” I tapped the laptop screen. “But that one.” I motioned to the bed and the printed short. “It’s vastly different. Someone else wrote it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. I don’t buy it. He wrote a ton of shitty stories for this writing club thing he joined.”
“No, he wrotetheseshitty stories for the writing club.” Again, I gestured to the computer. “That one on the bed is someone else’s pile of crap.”
“I’m going to contradict you and back it up with evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“The kid was a researcher at heart, right? That’s what his mother said. The police even used it to explain why he might have been in the woods by the river. Look.” Diem took command of the mouse pad and closed the document I’d left open. He located a different file and opened it. Inside were several subfiles. He scanned, selected one, and opened it too. Dozens ofphotographs appeared on the screen. Diem clicked the first one, blowing it up.
A forested landscape.
He clicked the arrow at the side, bringing us to the next image.
A river.
Click.
A footpath with ice patches and mucky bootprints.
Click.
A steep embankment showing a rushing river below.
A chill raced up my spine. “What the fuck?”
“Research.”
“But… For his attempted murder?”
“No. For his short story.”
“But he didn’t write it, D. I’m telling you. It’s not the same, and if it was his, wouldn’t it be in the file on his computer with the others?”
Diem worked his jaw, staring into the middle distance for a while before reopening the folder containing the short stories and running his finger along the list of titles. Ours didn’t have a title, but it didn’t matter. None of them matched.
“See?”
Diem chewed his thoughts, and I stayed quiet. Emerging from deep inside his head, he scanned the room, zeroing in on a printer located on a far shelf. He shuffled forward on the desk chair, closed the open files, and searched the bowels of the laptop.
“What are you looking for?”
But he didn’t answer. Diem was on a mission.
I silently watched as he opened the system control panel for the printer. After poking around and doing stuff I didn’t understand, he collapsed back, making the chair creak as he scrubbed a hand over his bristly jaw.
“What?”
“I can’t find evidence he printed that story.”
“Because it’s not his.”
“Well, if he didn’t write it—”
