1-7-9-3. Year of death.
It works.
I whoop in triumph as the home screen comes up. An angry red 11 shouts out from the messages app. I tap in. Three threads are clearly spam, advertising something or other in Spanish, and there are a few older ones labeled with names like Ashley and Brian, but there’s only one that’s an active conversation. There’s no real name, unless her paramour’s name is Beau. But I reckon it’s a continuation on the French theme.
I take in a succession of gray speech bubbles filling up the left side of the screen. I read them from the bottom up, tracing panic backward.
Emma, wtf, where are you? Answer me, please. I’m worried.
Emma, are you OK?
I need you, babe. Don’t keep me waiting!
Are you coming? (insert racy pun here)
I’m here, aching for you.
I gag, even though they’re hardly sexts. Aching for you? No thank you. I scroll up through the chat history until I get to Emma’s last message to Beau.
I’ve had the worst fucking night. Need you. Usual place. 2 a.m.
I check Beau’s final panicked text. It’s from 2:30 a.m.
Back, back, back, I find evidence of at least three months’ worth of flirty texts and references to clandestine meetings. There are some legitimate sexts, as well as more-intimate selfies of Emma and even a freaking dick pic that I did not need to see, ever, and will struggle to banish from my memory. Isn’t this what Snapchat is for?!
I am able to deduce one thing from the dick pic: Beau is likely white. I never thought analyzing dick pics would be a life skill I’d develop.
Otherwise, his texts to Emma don’t offer many clues. He always uses complete sentences and proper grammar, though his emoji game is also perfectly on point. He’s generic, like every try-hard guy who pulls out cheesy, romantic bullshit from TV and movies because it’s what he thinks girls like. Tyler calls Emma “babe,” too.
All I know is that Beau lives on campus—there are no instructions about sneaking past main security. It doesn’t mean much, since hundreds of students go here.
What I don’t get is why Emma needed a whole other phone to text this guy. Who would be so bad that Emma would need to keep their texts attached to a completely different account?
I pull up Google on my laptop and type in the number. Most of the results are advertisements—pay us for more information on this number!—and painfully obvious things, like Boston number information! Like I don’t already know it’s a Massachusetts area code.
Then I pull up my phone, scrolling through my contacts to see if I have the same number in my phone. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, especially not with boys at school, but it’s worth a try. Predictably, it yields nothing.
I throw the phone hard against my pillow. How did I miss this? Emma was my friend. We lived together. I had no clue any of this was going on. Is it like Sierra insinuated, that these things go straight past me?
Or, more likely, did Emma go out of her way to hide this? If so, why?
A low rattle makes me jump. Is Beau texting right now? I look at Emma’s phone but realize it’s mine instead.
Meddling, Quit has sent a new email. The message is once again short and sweet.
You’re stubborn. So was Emma, and look what happened to her. For your own sake, stop.
I need to find Beau. Now. Before Emma’s killer finds me.
I text Ethan to come over ASAP, then pick up Emma’s phone again. That last message Beau sent, at 2:30 a.m.—what if it was a plant? Sent to make him look worried about her. An alibi text. I check the one before that. There’s a twenty-minute gap.
I zoom all the way to the top of the chain and read every message again, trying to discern any identifying details. I’m halfway through when my phone buzzes from my side table. Ethan is here.
I’m downstairs. I don’t actually know where your room is.
I let him know where to find me. I hate the way Quit Meddling’s email clings to the top of my in-box. I get a jolt every time I see it. I swipe the email to archive it, put it in the back of my mind. I’m definitely not telling Ethan, not about this new message or the previous one. Tracking down Beau is far more important. So some dick is telling me to stop digging. It’s not like they’ve overtly threatened me or anything.
There’s a knock. I crack my door open, check that it’s Ethan and he’s alone, and then grab him by the arm and secrete him inside, even though it’s not yet 8:00 p.m. and he’s totally allowed to be here. But this feels so explosive, so wrong.
“Whoa, what’s going on?”
“I cracked the code for Emma’s phone. The one she used to text Beau.” Before Ethan can ask, I clarify. “That’s the code name she used for him. Elle avait un penchant pour les choses françaises.” Taking in Ethan’s confused look, I translate. “She had a thing for French stuff.”
“Can I see?”
We sit on my bed, side by side. I hand him the phone, but not before I scroll all the way back up to the top. “You can help me go through these, comb for clues to who he is. I’m lost.” Ethan’s eyes widen. Then he bows his head and starts to read. I scoot in closer so I can read, too. Excitement skitters up my spine, making the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end. He smells good, like lemongrass and clean skin. The thought makes me feel like a serial killer, and I hope he doesn’t turn his head to look at me, because I am sure my entire face has gone pink. Also, that would put his lips in alarmingly close proximity to mine. And now I’m certain my face is raspberry red.
“Ah!” Ethan cries out, and my eyes whip down to the screen.
“Shoot, I meant to warn you about the dick pic!” Ethan turns his head toward me now, our lips hovering oh-too-close, but the look of numb horror on his face is anything but romantic. I suppress a giggle, pulling back a blessed extra few inches. “Sorry. I would have deleted it, because no one deserves non-con nudity, but it’s evidence.”