One of Us Is Next: The Sequel to One of Us Is Lying
One of Us Is Next: Part 2 – Chapter 30

Phoebe

Friday, March 27

“Careful, not so close. You’ll burn yourself.”

I’m eight years old, sitting between my father and my sister in front of a small bonfire on the beach. It’s a special trip, just the three of us. Mom’s staying home with Owen, who’s too little to toast marshmallows. But I’m good at it, holding my stick the right distance from the flames, rotating my marshmallow carefully until every side is bubbling brown. I’m better than Emma, because she’s too tentative and won’t get her marshmallow close enough to toast.

It’s kind of satisfying, that I’m better than Emma at something. That almost never happens.

“Mine is no good,” Emma says fretfully. She sounds on the edge of tears.

“Let me help you,” Dad says, putting his hand over hers and holding her stick in place. And then I feel upset that I have to toast my marshmallow alone, so I shove my stick too far in the flames and let it catch fire.

“I need help too!” I say.

Dad lets out an exasperated chuckle and takes the stick from me, blowing out the flaming marshmallow. He pokes the stick down in the sand between us so it stands upright, and the charred marshmallow on top instantly starts to droop. “Phoebe, you were doing fine,” he says. “Save the cries for help for when you really need it.”

“I did need it,” I say sulkily, and he puts an arm around me.

“Your sister needed it a little more,” he whispers in my ear. “But I’m always here for both of you. You know that, right?”

I feel better nestled against the warmth of his side, and sorry I didn’t let Emma enjoy her perfect marshmallow. “Yes,” I say.

He kisses the top of my head. “And make sure you’re there for each other too. All of you. The world can be a rough place, and you guys need to stick together. Okay?”

I close my eyes and let the flames dancing in front of me paint my lids orange. “Okay.”

—

The beeping wakes me up. A machine in Emma’s room whirs to life and I do too, sitting bolt upright in my corner chair. I shove my hair out of my face as my dream-memory fades and I remember why I’m here. “Emma,” I croak. I’m half on my feet when a nurse enters the room.

“It’s all right,” she says, fiddling with a knob on the machine behind Emma. “We’re going to give her a little more fluids, that’s all.” My sister remains motionless on her bed, asleep. The room is dim, and I’m alone except for my sister and the nurse. I have no idea what time it is, and my throat is paper dry.

“Can I have some water?” I ask.

“Of course. Come to the nurses’ station with me, hon. Stretch those legs.” The nurse disappears into the hallway. Before I follow, I take another look at Emma, so silent and still that she might as well be dead. Then I pull my phone out of my pocket and finally send the text I’ve been avoiding for weeks.

Hi Derek, it’s Phoebe. Call me.

I leave the room, still feeling groggy, and replace Emma’s nurse waiting for me in the hallway. “Where’s my mom?” I ask.

“Took your brother home to bed. There’s a sitter coming, and she’ll be back once he’s settled,” the nurse says.

A clock in the hallway reads ten fifteen, and the floor is quiet except for the muted conversation of three nurses clustered around the central desk. “Someone needs to clear those kids out of the waiting room,” one of them says.

“I think they’re all in shock,” says another.

The woman who gave me the water makes a clucking noise as she leans her forearms on the counter surrounding the desk. “This town is going to hell in a handbasket. Kids dying, bombs going off—”

“What?” I almost choke on my water. “A bomb? What are you talking about?”

“Tonight,” the nurse says. “At a wedding rehearsal dinner, of all things. There was a homemade explosive device planted by some disturbed young man.”

“Aren’t they all,” another nurse says coldly.

My skin prickles, nerves jumping. “Wedding rehearsal? In Bayview? Was it—” I grab my phone out of my pocket to check for new texts, but before I can, one of the nurses says, “Talia’s Restaurant.”

I drop my cup with a loud clatter, sending water splashing across the floor. I start shaking from head to toe, practically vibrating, and the nurse closest to me takes hold of my shoulders, speaking quickly. “I’m so sorry, we should have realized you might know people there. It’s all right, someone got the bomb off the premises before it could do significant damage. Only one boy had more than superficial injuries—”

“Are they here?” I look wildly around me, as though my friends might be right around the corner and I just hadn’t noticed them yet.

The nurse lets go of my shoulders and picks up my discarded cup. “There’s a group in the waiting room closest to the ER downstairs.”

I take off for the stairs before she can say anything else, my sneakers pounding against the linoleum. I know exactly where to go; I sat in that waiting room last night after the EMTs brought Emma in. It’s one floor down, and when I push through the stairwell door into the hallway I’m immediately hit with a buzzing noise, much louder than upstairs. Several scrub-clad people are standing with their arms folded in front of Liz Rosen from Channel Seven, who looks camera-ready in a sharp red suit and perfect makeup. “No media beyond this point,” a man says as I slip behind them.

The waiting room is packed, standing room only. My heart squeezes at the sight of so many people I know, looking more devastated than I’ve ever seen them. Bronwyn, her face stained with tears and her pretty red dress torn, is sitting between her mother and a middle-aged woman I don’t recognize. Cooper and Kris are holding hands next to Addy, who’s hunched forward and gnawing on her cuticles. Luis is on Addy’s other side with Maeve on his lap, and he’s holding her while she slumps motionless against his shoulder, eyes closed. Her right arm is wrapped in a white gauze bandage. I don’t see Ashton, or Eli, or Knox anywhere.

Only one boy had more than superficial injuries…

I pick my way toward Maeve first, my throat tight with worry. “Is she okay?” I whisper.

“Fine,” Luis says. “Sleeping. She crashed ten minutes ago.” His arms tighten around her. “Long night.”

“A nurse upstairs told me about the bomb.” Saying the word out loud doesn’t make it any less surreal. “What happened?”

Addy runs a hand over her face. “How much time do you have?”

Kris gets to his feet and gestures to his chair. “Here, have a seat. I need the restroom. Anybody want a drink or anything else while I’m up?”

“I’d kill for a Diet Coke,” Addy says wearily. Kris circles the room taking additional requests as I drop into his chair.

“Is Knox okay?” I ask anxiously. “Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s fine,” Addy says, and I exhale with relief. “The hero of the night, in fact, along with this one.” She reaches over to lightly stroke Maeve’s arm. “He, Ash, and Eli are talking to the police. Maeve was supposed to go too, but she conked out and they said to let her rest. Knox can give them the whole story, I guess. They were together all night.”

I file that away. “Who’s hurt? The nurse said someone was hurt,” I say, glancing around the room and trying to catalog who’s missing. “Is it—”

My eyes catch sight of Bronwyn’s distraught face again right before Addy says, “Nate.” I gasp and she quickly adds, “He’s going to be all right, they say. It’s just—he and Bronwyn were closest to the bomb when it exploded. He was basically a human shield over her, so he took the brunt of it.” She reaches up a hand to twist one of her small gold earrings. “It was…do you remember the Boston Marathon bombing? How it was this pressure cooker thing with nails and stuff inside?” I manage to nod, even though I can’t believe we’re actually having a conversation in the middle of the Bayview Memorial Hospital waiting room about bomb techniques. “Same type of thing. They were pretty far away, thank God, but Nate’s arm is kind of torn up, so they have to remove…”

She hesitates, and my breath catches in my throat. “His arm?”

“No! No, no,” Addy says quickly. She tugs harder at her earring. “God, sorry. I was trying to remember the word for, like…flying bits from a bomb.”

“Shrapnel,” Luis says. I go limp with relief as Addy nods.

“But he’ll be okay?”

“That’s what they say. I don’t know how bad his arm is injured, though.” Addy lowers her voice, flicking her eyes toward the middle-aged woman sitting next to Bronwyn. “It’ll be terrible if he can’t work. Nate needs that money so he can stay in his apartment. His mom’s living with his dad, even though they don’t really have a marriage anymore, because his dad’s still in and out of rehab and somebody has to take care of him. It’s so tense in that house. That can’t be Nate’s life again. It just can’t.”

There’s too much information coming at me all at once, but still so much I don’t understand. “Why would anybody do something like this?” I ask. “You said Knox and Maeve are heroes. What did they do?”

Addy exhales. “It’s still sort of jumbled up. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk to either of them, so we don’t have the full picture, but…there was this guy Jared Jackson, I guess? His brother is one of the police officers in the news for framing people on fake drug charges. He’d been sending threatening letters to Eli, and he decided to follow through on them tonight. Knox and Maeve were tailing him—I’m not clear how they knew to do that, to be honest—and followed him straight to Talia’s.” She shudders and hunches down in her chair again. “We’d probably all be dead if they hadn’t. The bomb was literally right below the deck we were standing on.”

“At least police arrested the guy pretty fast,” Luis says grimly.

“Thanks to Maeve and Knox,” Addy says. “Knox caught the whole thing on video. The worst thing is, police were there, at the restaurant. Eli took precautions because of the threats. But they were inside. Nobody planned for this.” Her lips form a tight line. “Like, is this my sister’s life now? She has to deal with terrorists and death threats? I love Eli with my whole heart, I really do, but this is horrible.”

Maeve stirs but doesn’t wake, and Luis presses a light kiss on the top of her head. “Is the wedding still on for tomorrow?” he asks.

Addy sighs. “I don’t even know.”

My phone starts ringing in my pocket. I pull it out and stifle a groan when I see that it’s Derek, calling me back already. His timing sucks, but I don’t want to play phone tag with him. Might as well get it over with. Maybe by the time I’m done, Knox will be back to explain more of what happened tonight. “I have to take this,” I murmur to Addy.

I stand and pick through the crowded waiting area until I’m in the corridor. “Hello,” I say, plugging my free ear with my index finger.

“Phoebe, it’s Derek. I’m really glad you got in touch.” His voice sounds far away, and if I didn’t already know who it was, I’d never have recognized it. I have no idea who this person really is, I think as I lean against the wall.

“Why,” I say flatly.

Derek clears his throat. “Well, to be honest, the thing is…ever since that party at your friend’s house, I can’t stop thinking about you. I feel like we could have something special if—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I don’t realize I’m yelling until a passing nurse gives me the evil eye. I lower my voice. “Do you realize Emma is in the hospital?”

“She’s what?” Derek sounds bewildered. “No. How would I know that? I haven’t talked to Emma in months. What happened?”

“She’s falling apart! And I think it has something to do with what happened between you and me—which, by the way, was not special. It was stupid. But anyway. Emma found out about us last month, and now she’s suddenly drinking herself to death. So who did you blab to? Did you stop to think for one second that running your mouth might get back to Emma?”

“I…” Derek falls silent, the sound of his breathing the only sign that he hasn’t disconnected. I’m feeling a surge of righteous satisfaction that my words must have hit their mark when he adds, “Phoebe, I told Emma. The day after it happened.”

I plug my ear harder against the noise of the corridor. I can’t have heard him right. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“I told Emma about you and me. I felt like shit and I figured you were gonna tell her, so I just…wanted to get it off my chest, I guess.”

“You told Emma,” I repeat. I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it, like that’ll help me make sense of his words, and a series of texts from my mom flashes across the screen:

Phoebe, are you still here?

The nurses said you went downstairs.

I need you back in Emma’s room.

Right now.

Oh shit. That doesn’t sound good. I bring the phone back to my ear just long enough to tell Derek “I have to go” before I disconnect and retrace my steps upstairs.

—

I was steeling myself for lots of things when I reached Emma’s room, but a police officer wasn’t one of them.

“Um. Hi,” I say nervously, clutching my phone as I step inside. Mom is sitting beside Emma’s bed and the police officer is standing at its foot. The gray-haired nurse is writing something down on Emma’s chart. Emma herself is still asleep. I gaze at her peaceful face, wishing I could see directly into her brain. Emma knew about Derek and me. She knew. Even when she confronted me in Café Contigo, red-faced and almost crying, waving her phone like it was the first time she’d ever heard the news.

Unless Derek is lying. But why would he? My head aches, my brain working overtime trying to connect the dots on all the new information that’s hit me tonight.

Mom’s strained voice pierces my tangled thoughts. “Phoebe, this is Detective Mendoza with the Bayview Police. He has some questions for you.”

“For me?” I tear my eyes away from Emma as the nurse straightens.

“You can stay here, if you like,” she says, crossing to the door. “We can close this for a few minutes and give you privacy. Just press the call button if the patient needs me.”

I hover next to the door after it closes, and Detective Mendoza clears his throat. “Phoebe, I’ve already explained this to your mother, but you are not being accused of anything related to this evening’s events. Your presence for the entirety of tonight is accounted for. However, we’d like your cooperation as we build the case against Jared Jackson, and to do that effectively we need to understand your relationship with him.”

“My…what?” I wish I had my cup of water back. My throat is suddenly so dry that it hurts. “I don’t have a relationship with him. I only just learned his name downstairs.”

“We’ve spent the past hour interviewing Mr. Jackson about his motivations for tonight’s events at Talia’s Restaurant. We also seized his phone, which he claims has months’ worth of correspondence with you. He says he met you in an online forum called Vengeance Is Mine in late December, that the two of you bonded over family tragedies, and eventually agreed to, as he put it, take out one another’s enemies. Mr. Jackson says he fulfilled his end of the bargain when he executed a texting-based Truth or Dare game at Bayview High that led to Brandon Weber’s death earlier this month.”

My legs suddenly go weak, and I barely make it into the corner chair. “I don’t understand. Brandon…what about Brandon?” I dart my eyes toward Mom, who stirs beside Emma’s bed like a sleepwalker trying to wake up.

“Wait. Brandon Weber?” she asks thickly. “You didn’t mention him before.”

Detective Mendoza looks down at a notepad in his hand. “According to Mr. Jackson, he used gossip about Bayview High students—yourself and your sister included—to kick the game off.” He glances up at me briefly, then back at his notes. “The actions that led to Brandon Weber’s death were the result of a Dare issued to him. Mr. Jackson made use of his background in construction work to remove supports from beneath that landing, causing Brandon to fall to his death. In return, you were supposed to help Mr. Jackson get revenge on Eli Kleinfelter, for putting Mr. Jackson’s brother in jail. However, Mr. Jackson says you fell out of touch after Brandon Weber’s death, and became unresponsive to his attempts to contact you. Thus tonight’s attack. He decided to take matters into his own hands, and conclude the deal without you.”

Unresponsive to his attempts to contact you. We need to talk. That’s what the note I got at Café Contigo yesterday said. If I’m understanding Detective Mendoza correctly, Jared Jackson must have sent that. And set up the entire Truth or Dare game…for me. Which makes no sense whatsoever. Even putting aside the insane idea that I’d agree to hurt Eli—how could a person I’ve never met believe I made a deal with him? And that I wanted Brandon dead?

I’m going to be sick. “No. That’s not…I wouldn’t in a million years do anything like that,” I say. An image flashes through my brain of Brandon in my apartment, assaulting me and hurling insults. In that instant, I hated him. Did I tell the wrong person? Who did I tell? How could Jared Jackson even know about it, or about me? “Why would I? Brandon and I aren’t…we didn’t get along all the time, but he wasn’t my enemy.”

Detective Mendoza’s tone doesn’t change: calm and unemotional, like his notes are a textbook he’s using to teach a class. “Mr. Jackson says you told him how Brandon Weber contributed to your father’s death by causing a forklift to malfunction during a critical point in its operation.”

Everything inside me stills. I forget how to breathe. The tears that had been gathering behind my eyes freeze. My heart, which was just pounding loudly in my ears, is suddenly so silent that I wonder, briefly, if I’m dead.

“What.” I push the word through numb lips, cold and flat. It doesn’t seem like enough. There have to be more words. I search my brain for them. “Did. You say.”

A strangled cry bursts out of Mom. “I never wanted you kids to know, Phoebe. What was the point of knowing something like that? I’m so sorry I didn’t prepare you for it. But you could have talked to me. Why didn’t you talk to me?”

Brandon. Dad. This is a nightmare. I’m asleep and having the worst dream of my entire life. I pinch my arm, as hard as I can. I don’t even feel it, but I don’t wake up, either.

“I didn’t,” I finally say. “Know any of that.”

“According to Mr. Jackson, the two of you discussed this in great detail,” Detective Mendoza says. “When you first told him about the accident, he looked you up online and saw media coverage of your mother’s wedding planning business. That’s why he proposed the revenge pact—he knew you could provide access to Mr. Kleinfelter.” For the first time, Detective Mendoza’s voice gets the tiniest bit gentle. “You were still processing a traumatic revelation when you met him. The law understands that, especially when we have your full cooperation. Can we count on that?”

“No.” My voice gains strength, finally, because the hell with this. The only thing I know for sure right now is that I had no clue who Jared Jackson was before tonight. “Jared Jackson is wrong, or lying. I never met him online or in person. I didn’t know Brandon had anything to do with what happened to my dad until right this second.” Everything’s coming unglued now: tears fall, my heart accelerates, and my voice shakes. “I didn’t do any of this.”

“Then how would Jared know that Brandon was involved in your father’s accident, Phoebe?” Detective Mendoza asks. Not like he’s mad. More like he’s genuinely curious.

I open my mouth. Close it.

“I told him.”

I blink, utterly confused. Did I just say that?

Detective Mendoza’s head swivels from me to Emma’s bed. My eyes follow. She’s sitting up, pale but alert. Her hand is folded in my mother’s. “I told him,” she repeats in a low voice. “And I told him I was Phoebe.”

Mom’s face goes rigid with shock as Detective Mendoza moves closer to the foot of the bed. “Are you saying you executed this revenge pact with Jared Jackson, Emma?” he asks.

“I…no,” Emma says haltingly. “Not like you said. I met him online, and I pretended to be my sister because I was mad at her for…other stuff.” She flicks a glance at me, and I flush. “And I told him what happened to my dad and he—he said we could help one another.” Emma’s voice trembles as she pulls her hand from Mom’s and starts fumbling with the edge of her hospital blanket. “But he never mentioned Eli. I had no idea they even knew one another. And as soon as the Truth or Dare game started, I hated it. I regretted everything. I told Jared to shut it down, and he said he would.”

Her voice shakes harder, and her eyes fill. “But the game kept going. I didn’t understand why, but I was afraid to get in touch with Jared again. I kept hoping he’d get bored and stop. And Brandon…” Emma lets out a choked cry as tears spill down her cheeks. “Brandon wasn’t supposed to die.”

I hear my own sharp intake of breath as Detective Mendoza asks, “What was supposed to happen to Brandon?” The gentler tone from before is entirely gone.

Emma hesitates, and my mother speaks before she can. “That might be enough for now,” Mom says, the shell-shocked look on her face slipping away. Her shoulders straighten, like something’s finally clicking into place, as she adds, “I think we should hold off on any further conversation until we have a lawyer present.”