Chapter 5: The Cold Room

In the hall outside my room, a second phone buzzed, and Hester Ashgrove stopped walking.

I saw it through the open door. She took the phone out of her coat and read it.

Her free hand went to her chest.

She came back to my door.

"It says Kellan was shot," she whispered. "It says the funeral home."

The color had gone from her face. She had a bad heart, and everyone in Westridge knew it.

It was the same photo I was holding. The same red shirt. The same silver ring.

I looked at it for a long moment, and I knew exactly what it was.

Item twelve had not been the coffin. The coffin was the rehearsal.

The real test was to see whether I would come running when I thought he was dead.

"It's a game," I said. "It isn't real."

"You're certain?"

"No."

That was the problem. Twelve years beside him had taught my body to run toward him when he was hurt.

Hester would drive there alone with her heart, and walk in on whatever they had built.

"Hester, ride with my father and the lawyer," I said. "Don't go in alone."

She nodded. She was too pale to argue.

I pushed the blanket off my legs.

"Willa, what are you doing?" my father said from the chair.

"I'm going to the funeral home."

"You are in a hospital bed."

"She's one bad shock from a heart attack, Dad, and they know it. If I'm there, she'll see me first. And I'll have it on tape."

I held up my phone with the recorder open.

"It's a trap," he said.

"I know it's a trap. That's why I'm taking a recorder and you're coming behind me with the lawyer and the ambulance."

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