One of Us Is Next: The Sequel to One of Us Is Lying
One of Us Is Next: Part 2 – Chapter 27

Maeve

Friday, March 27

“Is there a word for stalking your friend’s stalker?” Knox asks in a low, musing voice.

“Congenial pursuit,” I say without looking up from my laptop.

“That’s two words. And terrible.”

It’s almost eight thirty on Friday night, and we’re settled into a window table at a coffee shop in Rolando Village. Bronwyn is with Nate, Luis is working, my parents are at a charity event, and I couldn’t stand rattling around my house alone for two hours while I waited for the afterparty at Ashton and Eli’s rehearsal dinner to start. So I called Knox. Neither of us could talk about anything except Intense Guy. Talking turned into driving, and here we are.

The coffee in this place is awful, but the view is ideal. We’re almost directly across from the house we followed Intense Guy to from Callahan Park.

“There’s something comforting about knowing he’s at home,” Knox says. The driveway was empty when we got here, but the blue car pulled up a few minutes later, and we watched Intense Guy enter the small ranch house alone. He hasn’t left since.

“I know,” I say absently, my eyes on my laptop screen. I brought it along so I could keep working on opening the documents I pulled from Knox’s mother’s computer. Knox has his computer too, and he’s been using it to Google “David Jackson” with the usual useless results.

Knox sucks down half a Sprite with one noisy pull on his straw and asks, “What time do we have to leave to get to—where is Ashton and Eli’s party, again?”

“Talia’s Restaurant, on Charles Street,” I say. “We can hang out here for another twenty minutes or so.”

“Great,” Knox says, glancing around the nondescript coffee shop. The walls are prison-gray, the tables and chairs are grade-school cafeteria style, and the baked goods displayed on the counter look like they’ve been there for a while. The barista yawns as he erases hot chocolate from the chalkboard menu behind him and tosses an empty Swiss Miss cardboard box into the trash. “Do you think Phoebe will be there?”

“I doubt it. She’s pretty much living at the hospital right now.” Suddenly the document in front of me springs open, and I give Knox a triumphant smile. “I’m in! Got the first one open. This is…hmm. Probably not relevant. It’s something to do with a case settled for the Weber Reed Consulting Group in Florida.” I scan the first few pages quickly, then close the document and pull up the second. “Let me try the other one.”

“Nice work, Sherlock,” Knox says. He looks pensive, though, and rubs a hand over his face as he gazes out the window. “I wish we had the same luck digging dirt up on this guy. We’re right across the street from him, and we still don’t know who he is. Has the revenge forum said anything interesting lately? Or worrying?”

I have Vengeance Is Mine open in another browser and I’ve gotten a couple of PingMe alerts since we’ve been here, but it’s just ranting from names I don’t recognize. “Nothing from Darkestmind,” I say. “He’s been quiet since that post about Phoebe.”

Knox shifts restlessly in his seat. “What did the note he left at Café Contigo say again? He didn’t sign it with an initial or anything, did he?”

“No,” I say decisively, and then I pause. I read that note pretty quickly, after all, and I wasn’t in the calmest state of mind. “I don’t think so, but let’s double-check.” I tear my eyes away from my screen, where the headline SETTLEMENT ON BEHALF OF EAGLE GRANITE MANUFACTURING CORPORATION, EASTLAND CA has popped up, to dig my phone out of my bag. I open my photos and scroll until I replace the right one. “I took a picture,” I say, handing the phone to Knox. “See for yourself.”

Knox squints, and then every bit of color drains from his face. His head snaps up, his expression tense. “What. The. Hell.” Before I can question the quick-change demeanor, he adds, “Why didn’t you show this to me before?”

I blink. Is he mad at me? “What are you talking about? I read it to you at Café Contigo.”

“That’s not the same thing!” he insists.

My scalp prickles at the decidedly un-Knox tone of his voice. “How is it not the same thing? You know what it says.”

“But I didn’t know how it looks.”

“I don’t—”

He thrusts my phone at me, cutting off my next bewildered question. “I’m talking about the font. How the note was written. You know, this type that looks like handwriting but isn’t? I’ve seen it before. The latest batch of death threats at Until Proven used it.”

“What?” I ask. When Knox doesn’t answer right away, I repeat, “What?”

“Yeah…hang on,” Knox says. He puts my phone down and turns to his laptop, fingers flying over his keyboard. “Sandeep thought the threats were related to the D’Agostino case, so I’m gonna…I have a bunch of stuff in my G drive.” He angles the computer so I can see his screen. “This is a spreadsheet of everybody involved in the D’Agostino case. I’ll check for David Jackson.” He types the name into the search bar, and neither of us breathes until it comes up blank.

“Try just Jackson,” I say.

This time we get a result right away: Officer Ray Jackson, defendant. Accused of assisting Sergeant Carl D’Agostino in blackmailing and framing seventeen innocent people for drug possession. Age: 24. Status: In jail, awaiting trial.

“Huh,” I say. “Ray Jackson. Maybe he’s related to David Jackson?”

“Maybe,” Knox says. He’s still tapping away, eyes glued to the screen. “Hang on, I indexed all the media coverage too. Let’s see if they mention family.” He’s silent for a couple of minutes, then angles his screen toward me. “This article includes Jackson and brother in it somewhere.”

A news clip fills the screen, showing Sergeant D’Agostino with his arm around a clean-cut young guy holding a plaque. “I remember this article,” Knox says. “I read it with Bethany. It’s about D’Agostino giving some mentoring award.” He points to the caption. “The week before his arrest, Sergeant Carl D’Agostino commended San Diego State University students for excellence in community peer mentoring.”

“Okay, so that’s D’Agostino,” I say. “What does it say about Jackson?” Both our eyes race over the page, but mine are faster. I almost gasp when I see it. “Ironically, one of the at-risk youths receiving peer mentoring was Ray Jackson’s younger brother Jared, 19, on probation last year for petty theft,” I read. “Program officials said Jared Jackson excelled in the program and now works part-time for a local construction company.” I turn toward Knox. “Is there a picture of Ray Jackson anywhere?”

“Yeah, not in this article, but…” Knox pulls up another news story with thumbnail photos of each of the accused officers. He clicks on the one marked Ray Jackson, then enlarges it until it fills half the screen. At that size, even though it’s a little blurry, there’s no mistaking the similarity around the mouth and eyes between Ray Jackson and the guy we trailed to and from Callahan Park.

“Intense Guy is Jared Jackson,” I breathe. “Ray Jackson’s brother. He must be. The age is right, and the face is right. They’re definitely related.”

“Yeah,” Knox says. “And the note he left for Phoebe is identical to the ones we’ve been getting at Until Proven, so…Jared Jackson must also be the person who’s been sending threats to Eli.” His brow furrows. “Which makes a twisted kind of sense, I guess, since Eli put his brother in jail. But what’s his problem with Phoebe?”

“I don’t know, but we’d better tell Eli,” I say. Knox reaches for his phone, but I’ve already pressed Eli’s number on mine. Within seconds his voice fills my ear: This is Eli Kleinfelter. I’m not checking voice mail until Monday, March thirtieth. If you need immediate assistance with a legal matter, please call Sandeep Ghai of Until Proven at 555-239-4758. Otherwise, leave a message. “Straight to voice mail,” I tell Knox.

“Oh right,” Knox says. “He promised Ashton he’d shut his phone off all weekend. So they could get married in peace.”

Unease nips at my stomach. “Guess we’ll have to tell him in person, then. It’s almost time to leave for the party, anyway.”

“Hang on.” Knox’s fingers move across his laptop’s trackpad. “I just plugged Jared Jackson into Google and there’s a lot here.” His eyes flick up and down the screen. “So, yeah, he was arrested for stealing from a convenience store right after he graduated high school. Got probation, did that mentoring program, started working for a construction company.” Something tugs at my subconscious then, but Knox is still talking and the fragment disappears. “He doesn’t seem to have had any run-ins with the law since. But there’s a bunch of stuff here on the fallout from his brother’s arrest…”

He goes silent for a minute as he reads. “It doesn’t mention their dad by name but I’ll bet that’s David Jackson. He has lung cancer, and they lost their house after Jared’s brother went to jail. So, that sucks, obviously. Understatement. And their mom…oh shit.” Knox sucks in a sharp breath, raising troubled eyes toward me. “The mom killed herself on Christmas Eve. Well, they think it was suicide. She overdosed on sleeping pills, but she didn’t leave a note.”

“Oh no.” My heart drops as I stare at the Jacksons’ house, dark except for the yellowish glow of a lamp silhouetted in a first-floor window. Everything about the house looks forlorn, from the crooked lampshade to the lopsided blinds. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it is.” Knox follows my gaze. “Okay, now I feel bad for Jared. He’s had a shit time. Maybe this is all just some twisted way of blowing off steam.”

“Maybe,” I say, and then I jump as the lamp in the Jacksons’ window suddenly goes off, plunging the house into darkness. The door opens, and a shadowy figure emerges. Knox pushes his laptop to one side and fumbles with the zipper on his backpack, rooting around in it until he pulls out his binoculars. “Seriously?” I ask as he brings them to his eyes. We’re the only ones in the coffee shop except the barista, who’s been ignoring us since we got our drinks, but still. This is not exactly a stealthy way to keep tabs on your nemesis. “You brought those?”

“Of course I did. They have night vision mode.” Knox adjusts the outer lenses and leans forward, peering through the window as the figure steps onto a section of the driveway illuminated by a nearby streetlight. “It’s Jared.”

“I could tell that without binoculars.”

“He has a backpack and he’s getting into the car.”

“Knox, I can see him perfectly fine—”

A PingMe alert flashes across my screen. The website you are monitoring has been updated. I minimize the document from Mrs. Myers’s computer and navigate to the Vengeance Is Mine forum.

Tick-tock, time’s up. Guess I’ll just fucking do it myself.—Darkestmind.

My blood chills. I don’t know what the words mean, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can’t be good. I slam my laptop closed and stuff it into my bag. “Come on, we need to follow him,” I say. “He’s up to something.”