“Which means we’re back where we started, right?Because we already figured Tafton and Gerald had argued about Tafton fucking around on his phone.This is just confirmation.”
“It explains why Gerald was upset after his interviews Friday morning.”
“Yeah, but since somebody killed GeraldandTafton, he’s not exactly our lead suspect.”
Tean put his chin in his hand.He considered the pages again, flipping through the rest of the conversation.Maeve and Milo were climbing on the concession counter, and Jem cupped a hand to his mouth like he was shouting up to a mountain top and called, “Be careful up there,” which only made them giggle.
“Anything else interesting?”Jem asked.
“Not unless you count user error.”Tean flipped through the pages.“When Tafton asked for a face pic in return, hornyforheaven99 sent this.”It looked like a screenshot of the home screen of a phone.Little icons from apps covered the wallpaper photo: a nice suburban house.“Then he tried again and sent the proper image, and Tafton agreed to meet up in the men’s room of the ski rental.”
The face pic showed a square-jawed, dark-haired man who would probably be at home on a sailboat with a sweater tied around his neck.Jem said, “This is definitely some catfish shit.”
Tean made a noise that might have meant anything; he was staring into the middle distance, not seeming to see anything—or, for that matter, hear anything.“We know Tafton went somewhere with Stephen the night Gerald was killed.And we know Stephen was in Tafton’s chalet.Is it possible that Stephen knew about these photos and convinced Tafton to help him kill Gerald?And then, when he didn’t need Tafton anymore, he got rid of him?”
“But somebody else took Tafton out of that chalet,” Jem said.“Somebody had to march him out to that tree well with a gun.”
Tean’s mouth tightened.
“You don’t have to say it,” Jem said.“I know you think it was Brigitte.”
After a moment, Tean said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Nothing.It’s okay.I get it; we’ve got to consider her.And it makes sense.She and Stephen were stealing from Gerald.They had a motive.”Jem rolled his still-tight shoulder, working at it with his fingers.“But something feels weird.”
“It’s possible Tafton wasn’t involved at all,” Tean said.“It’s possible Stephen or Brigitte learned about these messages, and they realized it gave Tafton a motive.It made him the perfect person to frame for the murder.”
Jem opened his mouth to respond to that, but something on the page caught his eye.“What does this mean?”
“It says ‘hornyforheaven99 unsent a message.’”
“What message?”
“I don’t know.”Tean frowned.“I would have guessed the picture, since they clearly didn’t mean to send that, but it’s still there.”
“Usually when you unsend a message, there’s a little spot that shows you where it used to be.Why isn’t there something like that?”
“I don’t know.”
Jem considered the page for a moment.“Because we’re not looking at the app.We’re not looking at printouts from Prowler.We’re looking at printouts from Stripling.The whole point is to record everything from Tafton’s phone.It wouldn’t be very useful if Tafton could delete stuff on his phone and have it disappear from the tracker.”
“Okay,” Tean said slowly.“But what does it matter?It’s an accidental screenshot.And it would have disappeared from the app, so hornyforheaven99 wouldn’t have been worried about it.”
Jem started to answer.
And then he saw the sign taped to the glass of the lobby door.
No power.
“Fuck me,” Jem said.“I know who did it.”
37
“We’re not going back!”Maeve howled as Jem herded her toward the theater’s exit.She spun and put her hands on her hips, and she had what Jem thought of as crazy dance girl eyes when she announced, “We’ll run away again.”
“If you run away again,” Jem said, “I’ll find you, and next time, I’ll cut your hair off.”
Maeve put a hand to her hair and shrieked.
