Page 112 of Make Me Scream

I give Joel my number, and he makes the call. My phone is upstairs in the makeshift bedroom. When I find it, I don’t have to swipe in a PIN to unlock it. Someone changed the settings. I open up the photos and then I nearly explode. My hand clenches so hard I could snap the phone in half.

“They’re gone,” I say. “All the photos I took.”

The latest images are all more than a month old. Everything I found has been erased. The trash is empty too. He deleted all of it — and he sent texts to Gwen’s phone.

How dare you humiliate me like that.

Call me back.

Call me NOW

I swear you’re going to pay when I find you

This is really fucking bad. What has Rush done to her?

But it couldn’t have been him, could it? Wasn’t he was busy? That’s why I went to his office; he was supposed to be out all night.

“Okay, seriously Lane, what the fuck is going on?” Joel asks, hands at his hips. He’s out of patience, and I don’t blame him.

“How late were you at the gallery with Rush?” I ask.

“Not late, why?”

“So you can’t say where he went after?”

“No,” Joel says. “Why?”

Goddamn fucking shit. I’m such a stupid moron.

“I thought he’d be there late, so I broke into his office,” I explain. “Maybe I set off a silent alarm or something, because I was attacked.”

Who else would have done that, except Rush? The police would have arrested me. They definitely wouldn’t have drugged me, or messed with my phone, or planted Gwen’s purse in my studio. Somebody wanted me to appear to be the last person to see Gwen — and for there to be evidence that I was out to hurt her.

Then there’s my past. Anne and Chloe. One dying by suicide is tragic. Another disappearing? Could be a coincidence. A third going missing — that’s a pattern, with me and Rush at the center.

“It must have been Rush,” I say. “He took Gwen and left her things here to implicate me.”

I don’t want them to panic, so I don’t share my next thought: that he could have done anything to her by now. That she might already be dead, if that was Rush’s intent.

If he wants me to go to jail for murder, he might just get his wish — but it won’t be just Gwen’s.

“You guys have to believe me. I care about Gwen. I love her. I do. She’s in trouble, and she needs our help.”

Joel and Martin exchange a look.

“The police should sort this out,” says Martin.

I shake my head.

“We should call them, but they’ll want to bring me in for questioning. They’ll be wasting time. Even if they do decide to investigate Rush, they’ll have to wait on a warrant. While they fuck around, I’m going after her myself.”

“How?” Joel says. “Where do you think he is?”

That’s a good question.

Assuming he’s keeping her alive — which I am going to assume for the sake of staying calm — he wouldn’t be dumb enough to take her to the school or his penthouse. He’d want somewhere more private and secluded.

The mail — the mail in his office. Some of it went to another address… in the Catskills.

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