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  “A midnight Skype date with a lady,” Rakesh observed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d start to think you had some game, Jason Moreland.”

  Game was one thing, but a game plan was a whole other. He had to figure out a way to make his omissions about Lacey’s ongoing presence in his life not seem like a betrayal. More important, he had to keep Jenna from thinking he was a complete lunatic. In the end, he decided to keep it simple.

  In the den with the door shut tightly, he balanced his laptop on his knees and placed his oversize headphones over his ears. At the stroke of twelve, he opened a connection with Jenna.

  “Hey.” She waved, and giggled. She was wearing pajamas, a T-shirt with the neckline cut wide like an ’80s pop star, and a green terry-cloth headband pulled her hair back from her face. It was like they were at a slumber party together. “Sorry about this. My parents don’t really like me being online during the week unless it’s for school. I can get away with Facebook, but video is harder.”

  “I know the feeling,” Jason said, double-checking that the lights in the next room were still off.

  “So what’s up?” she asked.

  He knew there was no easy way to break the news. He was too tired and confused — too desperate for answers — to dance around what he had to say. So he took a deep breath and went for it. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. About Lacey. I’m sort of … still in touch with her.”

  “Uh, what do you mean?” she asked nervously.

  “Lacey and I, we started e-mailing in February. And we’ve been talking since then.” He had to force himself to watch her reaction as he spoke. Her mouth was beginning to turn down around the edges, and he could see confusion in her eyes.

  “I don’t understand. Lacey’s dead. She died in October.”

  “I know everybody thinks that, but there’s something going on. At first she told me not to tell anyone, that’s why I didn’t say anything, but she says we can trust you.”

  “Jason.” She was shaking her head. “Stop it. This is sick.”

  “Please, Jenna, you told me yourself, you think you’re missing something. The thing you’re missing is that she’s not gone.”

  “I told you that in confidence, because I trusted you. I thought … I thought you were a nice guy.” He had longed for a girl to think of him as something more than just a nice guy, but this wasn’t what he’d bargained for.

  “Just let me explain. There’s a chance she’s still alive. Don’t you want to know what I know? Don’t you want to figure out the truth?”

  “The truth?” There was outrage in her voice. “You’re going to talk to me about the truth? I don’t even know who you are. How am I supposed to believe anything you say? Talking to you … this was a huge mistake, Jason. I’m sorry.” She started to take out her earbuds, and he could see her reaching for the button to end the conversation.

  He only had one chance. He took a deep breath and blurted it out. “Do you still have the penguin’s shirt in the back of your closet?”

  She froze. “What did you just say?”

  “The penguin’s shirt. Do you still keep it at the back of your closet?”

  “Who told you to say that to me?”

  “Lacey.”

  “This isn’t funny. Who told you that? How do you know about that?”

  “I know it isn’t funny. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’s something going on. I need your help figuring out what. Lacey needs both of us to help her.”

  She sat back against the couch. Jason couldn’t tell whether Lacey’s plan had worked until Jenna crossed her arms, leaned forward, and said into the camera, “Okay, I’m listening.”

  He started at the beginning, with the original message, and the response months later, the discovery of the obituary and the double profile, the strange confrontation in the woods, and the photo he’d found in his bedroom that morning. Jenna listened intently, occasionally interrupting with questions about what Lacey had said to him, until he told her everything. Well, almost everything. He didn’t go into much detail regarding his feelings for Lacey and his deep, sincere hope that he hadn’t totally misjudged the situation. “So do you believe me now?” he asked when he finished.

  She exhaled slowly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, I want it to be true. Like, more than anything. But, the body they found …” She trailed off, and Jason felt vaguely sick, like he had when he’d first found the obituary. He’d been too scared to ask — until now.

  “Yeah, about that,” he said, “is there a chance it was a mix-up? That it was someone else?”

  “I don’t know the details,” Jenna answered. “When we got the news, everything was so awful. The only thing I really remember from that week is crying all the time, and when I’ve seen the Grays since then, it hasn’t seemed appropriate to ask about the details.” She paused thoughtfully, biting her lip and staring intently into the camera. “I don’t understand why she didn’t message me or call me. Or why she disappeared.”

  Relief flooded Jason when he realized he could offer her some comfort on this point. “She wanted me to tell you she’s sorry she can’t talk to you herself. She said she was sorry for everything.” When Jenna looked at him, he could see the hope in her eyes. “I don’t understand it all, either. But we can figure it out. I think the photo I found in my room is a clue.” He held the picture up to the camera. “Do you have any idea who this is with Lacey?”

  “That’s Troy,” she said, her puzzlement written all over her face. “He’s her brother’s best friend. You found that in your room?”

  “I think Lacey left it for me.”

  “But you don’t know why.”

  “No. And I haven’t had a chance to Facebook her and ask. We need to find her, though. Do you have any ideas how we do that?”

  “I’m still trying to adjust to the idea that she’s alive somewhere.” She paused. “There is actually someone.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Max. Her guitar teacher.”

  “I don’t know …” Jason’s hesitance to get anyone else involved was outweighed by his desire to find Lacey. Finally, he consented. “But promise me you’ll be careful,” Jason said. “With her family, too, if you talk to them. You say Luke is harmless, but I don’t get that impression.”

  “I promise,” she said, punctuating the statement with a big yawn. “I won’t tell him anything. But he cared about her. Maybe he’ll know something that will help us.”

  “I’ll let you go to bed,” he said. The clock in the corner of his screen read 1:24. Tomorrow was going to be rough. “But I want you to know I’m really sorry.”

  Jenna looked confused. “For what?”

  “I wanted to tell you all of this in the coffee shop. I just didn’t know if it was safe.”

  “If Lacey trusts you, then I trust you,” she answered firmly.

  The words lifted an enormous weight from his shoulders. He had been feeling like a jerk for keeping this from her — not to mention he was terrified she wouldn’t believe him. “Thanks. You have no idea how much that means to me. Oh yeah, I meant to ask you, what’s the whole ‘the penguin’s shirt’ thing about?”

  The warm grin returned to her face. “I’ll tell you one day, if you’re lucky.”

  He laughed. “Oh, just what I need, another mystery.”

  It was Sunday afternoon when Jason felt the panic seep back in. School on Friday had been sluggishly slow, and in the evening, exhausted from his Thursday night Skype session with Jenna, he popped his Goonies DVD into his computer, collapsed into bed, and swiftly fell asleep. Saturday he’d gone to a record fair, blowing half the cash he had saved on a rare Pixies LP. It was a good investment as far as he was concerned. He placed it on his turntable as soon as he got home, and whiled away the evening creating iTunes playlists based around lost gems from 1989. He woke Sunday morning to gray weather, ate cereal from the box, and chugged OJ from the carton, and
then crawled back under his covers with his now-battered copy of Hamlet.

  By Ophelia’s suicide, the play had become so gripping that Jason barely moved as he read, speeding through the grave-digger’s riddles and her funeral until all of Denmark’s royal court lay in a bloody heap. Poisoned, killed by their own treachery, murdered in cold blood. And they didn’t even have Facebook to deceive one another with.

  His stomach was growling when he finished the fifth act, and as he padded downstairs in search of lunch, visions of Lacey filled his head. It had been radio silence since he’d written her about his conversation with Jenna. It was just a short note, telling her Jenna knew, assuring her they would help, and asking what, specifically, she wanted them to do. And then nothing. He was starting to get nervous. What if something had happened to her? Something worse than whatever had caused her to disappear in the first place.

  While he waited for the leftover pasta he found in the fridge to reheat, he opened his laptop on the kitchen counter and began to type. He got as far as “Dear Lacey” before the microwave beeped.

  “Who’s Lacey?” Jason hadn’t heard his mom come in the kitchen. He spun around and pushed the top of his laptop down.

  “Mom! A little privacy?”

  “What? It was open in my kitchen.”

  He glared at her.

  “Touchy, touchy,” she said, holding her hands up in surrender. “Moving on. Don’t eat too much of that spaghetti, my little meatball. Mark’s grilling chicken for dinner.”

  It was later in the afternoon than he’d realized, but just to make a point he hoisted an enormous forkful of noodles into his mouth and chewed dramatically. “Sure thing,” he said sweetly with his mouth still full.

  “You’re adorable. Totally adorable. Seriously, though, if you don’t put that bowl in the dishwasher when you’re done with it, I really will take this away for a month.” She tapped his laptop menacingly.

  “Fine,” he said once he’d swallowed. “Besides, when do I not clean up after myself?”

  “Ha! Good one, muffin. Look, I can tell you’re doing the whole, ‘I’m a sullen teenager’ thing today, so I’m gonna get out of your way. But pull it together before dinner, ’cause I’m really not in the mood for any more of this.”

  She was right that he was being immature, but he was so annoyed both that she looked at his computer and that she was patronizing him that he rolled his eyes as soon as she turned her back. Still, when he’d finished off the pasta, he took care to rinse the bowl and load it into the dishwasher, and washed the empty coffeepot that was sitting in the sink for good measure. Then, laptop under his arm, he returned to the safety of his room.

  Sitting down to write, he wished for the gazillionth time that things with him and Lacey could be simple. He wanted so badly to brag about the album he’d scored the day before and send her the playlists he’d made. He’d been scratching new lyrics to the song he was writing in his notebook, reciting them aloud and crossing them out when they sounded clunky or cheesy or wrong. He was determined to write a song she would love, and the desire to impress her felt strange considering he had bigger problems than being liked. Despite all of her warnings about how they were in danger, he kept picturing them going to the spring formal together. But there’d be no chance of that if he didn’t figure out how to help her soon.

  Lacey,

  I’m worried about you. I’m sure you have a good reason for not answering my note, but I’m really lost right now. I went to Jenna like you asked — I mean, you know that already — and now I feel like I’m waiting for something, but I don’t even know what.

  And … were you in my room? I didn’t bring it up because I thought it was a dream. But it wasn’t, was it? Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have thought about you in my room before, but usually when I imagine it you don’t just disappear. Did you leave that photo? Gahhh, I’m sorry I keep sending you these questions, but I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.

  If you’re still there, please just answer this and let me know you’re all right. Let me know what I can do to help you. I hope you know you can trust me. Really. Whatever you want. You just have to ask for it.

  — J

  He thought about asking the obvious question. Are you still alive? but it seemed too absurd. Mostly, though, he didn’t want to consider the possibility that she wasn’t. If Lacey Gray was dead, then what was it all for? He took a deep breath, and clicked send.

  Though Jason would never tell Mark to his face, he secretly loved his stepdad’s cooking. The chicken was juicy and flavorful, and Jason tore into a drumstick like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. He’d finished the pasta to spite his mom, but his stomach could barely tell the difference. He had just shoved three quarters of a buttered roll into his mouth when she asked, “So seriously, Jason, who’s Lacey?”

  “She’s a friend,” he said carefully once he’d swallowed.

  “Lacey’s a nice name,” Mark chimed in. “Are you two … you know.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively, and Jason shot him a withering glance. It was bad enough when his real dad asked after her politely.

  “We’re just friends,” he said firmly.

  “Does she go to Roosevelt?”

  He could tell his mom she went to Brighton. It wasn’t exactly true, but it was close. He hated being dishonest with his mother because she rarely lied about anything. Even when he was little she would always level with him. But they didn’t talk about girls much at the dinner table — or at all — so Jason knew the more details he gave the more questions she would have. If he said Brighton, she would want to know how they had met and why he was writing her. And what if she had somehow heard about Lacey’s death?

  On second thought, maybe lying wasn’t such a bad idea. “Uh, yeah. We’re working on a chem project together.”

  “I thought Rakesh was your lab partner.”

  “He is. It’s just that this is a group project, so me and Rakesh are working with Lacey and her partner … Jenna.” Before his mom could pick up on the second unfamiliar name, Jason charged onward. “Actually, we’re going to need to work on it after school a couple days this week. So I might not be home for dinner. I may wind up staying out kind of late.”

  “Maybe Karen and I can do some chemistry experiments of our own while you’re out.” Mark laughed at his own joke loudly. Jason’s mom joined in.

  “Um, gross.” Jason pushed his food away. It was disgusting, but at least it had ended the conversation. “May I be excused?”

  Jason was actually looking forward to English class. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Hamlet, even if most of those thoughts revolved around the parallels to his own situation with Lacey. He’d highlighted and underlined and circled so many different lines and passages that the play would be virtually useless to someone else who was trying to read it.

  “The fool seems like a Gatsby-esque figure to me,” Dave Jordan started obnoxiously, and Jason stifled a groan.

  Apparently even Mrs. Granger had grown tired of the Gatsby references. “I think we’ve covered Fitzgerald well enough. Let’s focus on the Shakespeare in front of us. What is the clown saying in this scene?”

  In the margins of his book, Jason had written, “death is certain,” and underlined it three times. For all the subtleties in his work, sometimes the Bard was pretty straightforward. He raised his hand, and Mrs. Granger suppressed a smile when she called on him.

  “Delighted to hear from someone new. Yes, Jason?”

  “When he says, ‘the houses he makes lasts till doomsday,’ he’s not joking, even if it is part of that riddle. I don’t really think anything he says is supposed to be a joke, even if some of it is funny.”

  “Yes, excellent. And as I’m sure you all realized reading the footnotes, ‘clown’ is not a scary guy with big shoes, a painted face, and bozo hair — the closest parallel to that is Yorick, the jester whose skull Hamlet gets philosophical with. Here, though, ‘clown’ is just a term he’s using for a country
bumpkin type with a wicked sense of humor. Jason, can you talk about why he’s the one Shakespeare wanted delivering these lines?”

  “Well it’s foreshadowing,” Jason continued, blushing inwardly at his use of one of the literary terms Dave and Katie were prone to abuse, “because really everybody in this play is about to die.” The class laughed. “I mean, this is coming right in between a suicide and a bloodbath. If he’d had a character say this stuff seriously, it would have been way too heavy-handed — not to mention a total downer. It doesn’t make what’s going to happen funny, but it makes it, like, okay. Kind of like what Hamlet is saying about death being inevitable and life being something more than just having a body. If that makes any sense.”

  She beamed at him. “It certainly does. Let’s talk about what Hamlet is saying,” she said to the class. “Do you guys think there’s anything strange about it?”

  Relieved that his contribution to the class had not been disastrous, Jason withdrew and reconsidered some of what he’d said. It had sounded solid, and Granger had gone for it, but he felt a cold hollowness in his chest when he thought about Lacey’s life being over. Just because she was going to die someday didn’t mean he was okay with her dying right now, regardless of clever riddles. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth. It was just like everything else in his life lately: Whenever he thought he knew something for sure, it turned out he knew even less than he thought was possible. Just then, something Katie was saying caught his attention.

  “Hamlet’s always going on and on about his inner turmoil, but he doesn’t feel any guilt or even any responsibility for Ophelia.”

  “Should he?” Mrs. Granger asked.

  “Well he basically killed her,” Katie said definitively.

  “How do you figure that?” Dave challenged.

  “He murdered Polonius, and that’s why she killed herself. So he’s responsible.”

  “He could plead temporary insanity to Polonius.”

  “Yeah, except he keeps trying to tell everyone he’s not crazy!”