One of Us Is Back (ONE OF US IS LYING)

Phoebe

Tuesday, July 21

Unfortunately, talking to Nate is easier said than done.

He hasn’t answered any of my texts. He’s working, Addy responded when I asked where he was. So I drove to Myers Construction headquarters, and now I’m picking my way through a parking lot littered with pickup trucks, cement mixers, and other yellow, industrial-looking vehicles with names I don’t know on my way to the main office.

“Help you, miss?” a gray-haired man in a yellow vest calls before I get there.

“I’m looking for Nate Macauley?” I say, shading my eyes against the sun.

“He’s at a site,” the man says.

“Do you happen to know where?” I ask. “I need to talk to him. It’s kind of an emergency.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the man says. “Let me check.”

Another text from Addy comes through while I wait: Everything OK? I’ve been meaning to catch up with you. Want to get coffee?

Ugh, I do, but not now. Maybe later, I write.

“No luck, miss,” a voice calls. The yellow-vested man is in front of me again, his expression apologetic. “Nate’s not on the schedule, so it was probably a last-minute add. If you want to come back in an hour or so, Keith Myers should be here then. He owns the place, and he always knows exactly where everyone is.”

I don’t bother telling this helpful man that I already know who Keith Myers is, seeing as I’ve climbed through a window in his house multiple times. “Thanks so much,” I say.

I head back to my car but don’t unlock it, hovering next to the passenger-side door while I debate what to do next. Wait for Mr. Myers? Meet Addy for that coffee after all? Go to Nate’s house and confront Sana, demanding to know whether she slipped a dead boy’s necklace into my brother’s backpack?

No, that’s a terrible idea. Obviously. But maybe I could do some indirect poking around. I could drive to Café Contigo and ask Ahmed and Evie whether they ever noticed anything. That would kill some time before Mr. Myers returns.

Are you at work? I text to both of them. Ahmed doesn’t reply, but Evie answers instantly. No, home today, she writes. I have more questions, but I can’t ask them over text. Leaving a digital footprint on this subject is probably a bad move.

I glance around me. The last time Evie and I had a conversation about Bayview, she mentioned she lived in an apartment complex called something like Glasstown. It’s kind of in an industrial area, she’d said. That’s why it’s so cheap. I plug Glasstown into Google Maps and get nothing closer than Sacramento. But when I try glass, the first result is Apartments at Glassworks, just 0.2 miles away.

Worth a shot.

I follow the directions on my phone until I reach a four-story, gray-brick building. The entire front lobby is made of glass, but other than that, the name seems like false advertising. It’s the right address, though. There are sixteen buttons on a pad beside the front door, and all of them except apartment twelve have names beneath them. None of them are Evie’s, so I’m about to press the button for twelve when the door opens.

“Hey,” the guy leaving the building says, holding the door open for me.

“Thanks,” I say, ducking beneath his arm.

Inside, there are hallways to both my left and right, and an elevator in between. A quick walk around shows four apartments on the first floor, so I figure that Evie’s is probably on the third. I take the elevator upstairs, my phone chiming as the doors close.

It’s Nate, finally. What’s up?

I need to talk to you. Are you around? I write back.

I’m at work, but I’ll be done at 3.

Can I stop by?

Sure, Nate texts, dropping a pin with his location.

Thanks!

I pocket my phone as the doors open and step onto the dimly lit third floor. I make my way down the right-side hallway first, then backtrack after passing apartments nine and ten. Number twelve is in the left-hand corner, and I say a quick prayer that I guessed right before knocking on the door. There’s nothing but silence for a few beats, and then a familiar voice calls, “Hello?”

“It’s Phoebe,” I say.

The door opens and Evie stands within the frame, a puzzled look on her face. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

“I need to ask you something,” I say, brushing past her to enter the apartment. I definitely don’t want to have this conversation in the hallway.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Evie says.

“This won’t take long. Wow, cute place,” I say, gazing around me. I could’ve guessed that Evie’s apartment would be as bright and organized as she is: the living room walls are painted a cheerful blue, the love seat is decorated with a half-dozen patterned throw pillows, and there’s lots of botanical-themed art everywhere. A small kitchen is to my right, and there’s another room to my left that…

“Oh my God.”

The words slip out of me before I realize I’ve said them, as I stare at the green vine-patterned wallpaper that’s been haunting my dreams ever since the night I was kidnapped. Delicate stems and heart-shaped leaves, twisting and turning every which way. I’d convinced myself that the wallpaper didn’t really exist. That my drug-addled brain conjured it out of nothing, creating a false memory that sent Addy, Maeve, and Nate on a dangerous wild-goose chase to Ramona.

But it does exist, after all. Here, in Evie’s apartment, which means…

“What,” Evie says, but there’s nothing question-like about the word. When I look at her impassive face, I get the eerie sense that she can see inside my brain—that she knows exactly where my thoughts are headed, and she’s simply waiting for me to get there.

All Sana did at Café Contigo was pick up a backpack that somebody else had already slipped Reggie’s necklace into. Somebody who was at Nate’s party the night I disappeared, who’s been at the edges of every Murder Club conversation over the past few weeks, and who had plenty of opportunity to wait for my brother to leave his backpack dangling from a chair at Café Contigo while he used the restroom.

“Evie?” I ask. “Is that really your name?”

Her eyes are like chips of blue ice as she closes her front door with one swift motion and says, “You shouldn’t have come here, Phoebe.”