Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: [silence]
County Jail: Hey . . . are you—
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Yes, I’m still here. And I . . . yes, yeah. Of course. [shaky sigh] I believe you. At least, I think I do. I want to. I’m just . . . scared.
County Jail: [shaky sigh] It’s okay. I don’t blame any of you. I mean, I’m mad, it hurts, but it’s okay. Like you said, I get it—everyone’s just scared. Or maybe, maybe—
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Maybe what?
County Jail: I don’t know, I just have had a lot of time by myself here, a lot of time to think over the past couple of days, and I’m wondering, like, what if someone wanted me to take the fall?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Like who?
County Jail: Like whoever really killed her.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: [silence]
County Jail: So . . .
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Where would I even start?
County Jail: I overheard something when I was at the station. You won’t want to hear this, but . . . apparently Patrick Donovan has gone missing. Since that night.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Wait, what?
County Jail: Yeah, apparently one of the Donovans called in to say their great-nephew hadn’t come home Friday night. I’m not saying this means anything, I’m just saying . . . it’s worth following up on, don’t you think?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: [pause] I—I don’t know. But what about your fingerprints?
County Jail: What do you mean?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: They were everywhere. At the, the scene.
County Jail: [sigh] Oh, come on, really? It was my truck. How could my fingerprints not have been everywhere? I drive it every day. I—I can’t believe I even have to explain myself. Not to you. Not to any of you.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: So are you saying you weren’t there at all that night? Out on 28? What about—
County Jail: Kit had a copy of the keys. I made her a copy for Christmas. Those were the ones in the ignition—no one’s saying it, but they have to be. Mine are at home on my nightstand, where I always leave them. If someone would just come to their senses and look, they would see my keys are at home and they were never in the truck with her, because she went out alone. She took the truck without asking me. I didn’t even know.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: You didn’t notice it was gone all night?
County Jail: Did you?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: [pause] I didn’t know she had your keys. Are there any other things I should know about you two?
County Jail: Don’t do this.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Don’t do what?
County Jail: Don’t start doubting me. Listen to me. Listen to what I’m saying. Listen to sense. I have always cared so much about all of you. I have only ever done right by you. I don’t deserve this. I can take being blamed by cops who don’t know me, who just want the easy story. I hate it, but I can take it. But I can’t stand being doubted by you. I’ll really lose it, if I think that you . . . [crying]
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: What do you want me to do?
County Jail: [sniffing] The person who did this, [whispered] the person who killed your sister. You need to find him. [pause] I would do it. I would try. But I’m stuck in here and you’re out there.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: [silence]
County Jail: They’re saying this will go to trial. They want me to plead guilty so it will make my sentence less bad or something. Which is crazy. Why should I admit to something I would never do? Listen, I don’t know how soon this is all going to go down. We’re waiting on a court date. Okay?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Okay, what?
County Jail: So you have to hurry. [pause] But—but I want you to be careful, okay? Can you promise me you’ll be really careful? [crying]
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Boyd. Boyd.
County Jail: [sniffing again] Yeah.
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: Okay.
County Jail: Okay?
Tessa Malloy’s iPhone: I’ll help you.
Chapter Five
Before
9/13
Dear Diary,
September is a lie.
It’s supposed to be fall, you’re stuck in class all the time, but out here the leaves are blazing green and the sun is just mocking us with this tanning weather. It’s lunch period and we’re lying on the grass right now. Dar is saying, I don’t know, something hilarious about what happened in gym today. Mel literally just snorted out her chocolate milk (how unclassy) and some got on your pages. I’m sorry for that. My friends are heathens.
While they’re talking I’ve been observing the boy across the quad. Patrick. Aka THE CRIMINAL. He’s sitting alone under a tree with one ankle over the other, wearing headphones and tapping his pencil against an open textbook like a drum. All around him, the Frisbee kids are in a heated game.
I’ve heard at some schools the people who play Frisbee are the cool ones? Yeah, no, that’s not a thing here at Devil’s Lake. Here they’re the geeks who aren’t actually smart enough to be in the real geek clubs such as Roman Coins.
Here are some things to know about our school:
Studio Band is hot. Orchestra is not.
Art class is hot. Art Club is not.
Winter musical is sorta for losers but the student-directed spring play always has people waiting in lines that wrap all the way down B hall and into C (mostly bc of the epic student theater cast parties).
I’m not going to lie. It’s nice to be a sophomore and know this stuff.
Patrick probably feels lost without all this information.
Not that I feel sorry for him or anything. He is the criminal, after all.
Also, much as I hate to admit it anywhere but here in the privacy of your gold-and-pink-lined pages, Diary . . . he is also just as hot as Mel (and her mom, gross) have said. Like, when he pointed out in fourth-period geometry yesterday (our only shared class) that the volume of a cylinder is contingent not just on its width but also its length, Mrs. Gluckman literally broke the piece of chalk she was holding against the chalkboard, okay?
Just trust me.
His hotness is kind of weirdly exaggerated by the fact that he saves his voice for only these occasional comments. This is a good indicator that he is a complete asshole, but fuck it.
I made a promise to Mel. And, Diary, you should know that people do NOT break promises with Mel.
Besides, I already tried to tell her he seems like bad news and she was like wah, you’re not even giving him a chaaaance. He’s probably just shyyyy. He doesn’t knoooow anyone here.
Now she’s bugging me to make our move before “someone else nabs him first.” I swear, to her dating is the exact equivalent of bargain shopping on Black Friday. Pure mania, and you don’t even really know what you’re bringing home until you open your bags later and go WTF did I just do?
But Mel . . . she’s like an undertow, okay? She asks you to help her with something—running for class pres or asking out a boy—and you say yes. You get sucked into her rhythm, into doing things her way or else toppling over and landing flat on your face. And sometimes Tessa will say that Mel is making me her gofer or whatever, but that’s easy for Tessa to say because she doesn’t really HAVE friends (other than a few weirdos).