“They’re waiting one more week before taking him out of the coma just in case, but they’ve stopped for now.” I bit my lip. I could barely stand talking about it, but I was glad for Travis.
“You sound tired, Mae.”
“I am tired.”
There was a loud knock on my door. I gasped and jumped.
“What was that?”
“Someone’s at my door. Probably the locksmith.”
“Locksmith?” he asked loudly. “Why? Did something happen?”
“No. I just don’t know who had this key before. You know Lincoln gets a little crazy when it comes to girls.”
“Oh.” He chuckled. “Yeah, good point. You don’t want any unwanted stalkers.”
“Exactly.” I walked over and unlocked the door. Gary and the locksmith were on the other side. “I have to go, Trav. Thanks for calling.”
“Of course. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
“This will only take a second,” the locksmith said.
“Go on with your business, Ms. Bastón,” Gary said. “I’ll watch him.”
“Thanks.” I smiled and walked to the guest bedroom, back to the second box with all of Lana’s belongings. There was another student ID—Lincoln’s, and a black card with his full name on it—Lincoln Bastón. On the back, the words, You’ve Been Summoned. My hand shook as I held it. Those were the same words on the card on my kitchen counter. There was also a black flip phone that had been torn in half, a computer, that I took out. It said, “Property of The Gazette” on it. I sat on the floor and opened it up.
“We’re done here, Ms. Bastón,” Gary called out.
I stood up and walked over, taking the new keys and thanking them for their help. Gary assured me that Dad had already paid the man as they headed toward the elevator. When I closed my door and locked it, I felt safer than I did last night. Heading back to the computer, I looked at the screen. It needed a passcode. I wondered if she set it or if the newspaper did. I thought about what Gary said, about Lana frequenting the building. Between that and the black card with Lincoln’s name on it, I was convinced this had to do with the secret society. I called Max. He answered on the second ring.
“You said Lana was investigating secret societies,” I started without preamble.
“Yeah.”
There was rustling on the phone line and it took me a second to realize he sounded like he’d just woken up. An apology was at the tip of my tongue, but the anxiety gripping me was louder.
“How often did she hang out with my brother?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“It seemed like she was friends with a lot of athletes. She was taking pictures at the sporting events.”
I sat back. “So basically, the same job I currently have?”
“Yep and Ella had told her she could write about student life and she chose to write about the secret societies we’d all heard about.”
My grip tightened around my cell phone. So what if we had the same task assigned to us? It didn’t mean anything. Not really, anyway.
“Mae?”
“Yeah.” I blinked out of my thoughts and cleared my throat. “I’m here.”
“Why are you asking all of these questions at this ungodly hour?”
“It’s like noon, Max.” I pulled the phone from my ear briefly and looked at the time. “It’s twelve twenty.”
He sighed. “It feels earlier.”
“I’ll let you get back to sleep. Sorry I woke you up.”
“No biggie.” He was quiet for a beat. “You know, normally when people wake you up, it’s because they’re going to invite you to brunch or something.”
“I would, but I have a ton of things I need to do,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight though.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Before I forget,” I said. “Does the paper usually provide a laptop?”
“Usually yeah. I mean, unless you have great picture editing programs on yours. Why?”
“I didn’t quite catch the password for the one they gave me.” I opened the laptop in front of me again. I doubted Max would find out I never got one from the paper, to begin with.
“Oh. It’s fuck you pay me. All together and all caps,” he snorted a laugh. “The interns in IT thought that would be funny.”
I tried the password FUCKYOUPAYME and clicked return. Sure enough, the laptop started up quickly. I held my breath and told Max I had to go as I hung up on him. The laptop had a few folders on it, one which was labeled: SS photos. The other: Hockey. I clicked on SS first. There was a photo of the little black card I’d received and the white gardenia. The next one I clicked was taken outside in a wooded area. The next one was of a waterfall, and lastly, a building on top of the waterfall. Five photos in total. I looked at each of them one more time, making a mental note before pulling out my phone and taking pictures with it as well.
I didn’t want to email them to myself and create a paper trail. As it was, I wasn’t sure why I had this in my possession, to begin with. I knew I’d have to confront Lincoln about it. The last thing I wanted was to bring my brother down, but there was no way around this. I looked at the hockey photos she’d taken. There were over two hundred pictures, mostly games, practices, and group shots. Some were individual shots—my brother holding his hockey stick, Logan looking straight at the camera with a serious look on his face that showed off his high cheekbones and defined chin, Nolan grinning, and some other guys I didn’t know.
There was another folder within this one that was labeled: MY PICS, with two pictures of Lana by herself. One was a selfie in which she wasn’t fully smiling at the camera. The other was with a waterfall behind her. She was wearing a pretty white dress with spaghetti straps and a huge smile, her long black hair hanging straight over one shoulder, one hand on her hip and the other flashing a peace sign. She looked gorgeous. She’d always been one of the prettiest girls in high school, and popular—head cheerleader, captain of the debate club, involved in the community, super smart. I wondered how she’d faired here. Was she still just as popular or did she just blend in as one does when the pool stretches as big as it did in college?
After sleuthing for another hour or so, I closed the laptop. I needed to find whatever articles she’d written about the secret societies. I needed to find out what the police had and why this wasn’t in their possession, but that would mean that I’d have to come forward and potentially throw my brother under the bus. As far as I knew, he’d never been questioned by the police because he’d gone home so quickly and they didn’t find reason to ask him anything, but something was off about all of this. Why would he have so many of her things? Had someone sent this stuff to implicate him? Who was sending me those texts and how had they gotten my number? And if Lana was still out there like they were suggesting, why was nobody searching?
I sat across from Hailey, knee bouncing, as we sipped on our lattes. I hadn’t told her everything, but I did tell her about the red cloaked people I saw on the street the other night and the ones wearing black cloaks near my apartment. I left out the part about the card, figuring it probably wasn’t a good idea to say anything about it since I was pretty sure I’d show up the next time I got one, especially after seeing my brother’s.