They Just Don't Know You

Chapter 10

Jade's POV

Saturday, September 21

"What are we looking for?" Karl asks. 

"I don't know," I admit, placing a stack of yearbooks on the desk in front of him. We're at the Echo Ridge library on Saturday morning, armed with jumbo cups of take-out coffee from the local diner. I wasn't sure we'd get them past the librarian, but she's well into her 80's and asleep in her chair. "Anything weird, I guess."

Karl snorts. "Jade, we've been here three weeks. So far we've reported a dead body, gotten jobs at a murder site, and been targeted by a homecoming stalker. Although that last one was all you." He takes a sip of coffee. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

I drop into a seat across from him and slide a book from the middle of the pile. It has Echo Ridge Eagles on its spine, date stamped from six years ago. Caitlin's junior year, one year before she died. "I want to check out Caitlin's class. It's strange, isn't it, how these people who were part of her inner circle when she died are suddenly back in town? Right when all this other stuff starts happening?"

"What, you think Perrie's brother had something to do with that? Or Kamille's sister?" Karl raises a brow. "Maybe we should've invited them along for coffee and crime solving."

"You know what you always say, Karl," I say, opening the yearbook. "Nobody wants to hear my murder theories. Especially when it involves their siblings. That's the kind of thing you need to ease into."

We're snarking, because that's what we do. A lifetime of living with Norma provided a master class in pretending everything's fine. But I've barely eaten since yesterday and even Karl, who usually inhales Nana's cooking like he's trying to make up for 17 years of frozen dinners, refused breakfast before we left. 

Now, he runs his eyes over the remaining yearbooks. "What should I do? Look at their senior year?" He sucks in his cheeks. "It's probably pretty grim. In memoriam for Caitlin, that kind of thing."

"Sure. That, or..." My eyes drop to the bottom of the pile. "Norma's yearbook is in there too. If you're curious."

Karl stills. "About what?"

"What she was like in high school. What they were like. Her and Amelia."

His jaw ticks. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I lean forward and glance around the small room. Besides the sleeping librarian, there's no one here except a mother reading quietly to her toddler. "Haven't you ever wondered why we've never been to Echo Ridge before? Like ever? Or why Norma never talks about her sister? I mean, if you suddenly...disappeared," I swallow against the bile in my throat, "I wouldn't move across the world and act like you'd never existed."

"You don't know what you'd do," Karl objects. "You don't know what Norma's really thinking."

"No, I don't. And neither do you. That's my point." The little boy's mother turns our way, and I lower my voice. I reach up and squeeze the dagger on my necklace. "We never have. We just got jerked from one town to the next while Norma ran away from her problems. Except she finally landed in trouble she can't make disappear, and here we are. Back where it all started."

Karl regards me steadily, his dark eyes somber. "We can't fix her, Jade."

I flush and look down at the pages in front of me: rows and rows of kids our age, all smiling for the camera. Karl and I don't have yearbooks; it's not really a thing overseas. "I'm not trying to fix her. I just want to understand. Plus, Amelia's part of this somehow. She has to be." I rest my chin in my hands and say what I've been thinking since yesterday. "Karl, nobody in that school voted me on to homecoming court. You know they didn't. Someone rigged the votes, I'm sure of it. Because I'm connected to Amelia."