Chapter 19: Sent 11:02

Daniel pulled over under the streetlight in front of Winnie's, and neither of us got out.

The photograph filled the little screen.

It was smaller than the printout, and yellower, and it was the same hand with the same dark nails.

"Press the sideways button," Daniel said. "The one for details."

I found it with my thumb.

A line of tiny gray type came up under the picture.

Sent 11:02 PM.

The date was the night of the crash, three Decembers ago.

I held the phone at arm's length.

"I was in the car at eleven," I said. "I'd been driving a while. I'd been sitting in the driveway first, with the engine running."

"Laura."

"I remember the screen lighting up. It came in just like this. And there was a message under it."

I scrolled up a line.

The recipient was my own number.

The message said: Ask him where he really goes.

I read it out loud, and my voice didn't sound like mine.

It was the first time I had seen the words with my eyes since the night I'd read them in the snow.

I hadn't dreamed it.

I had not imagined it, or invented it, or heard it in a fever.

Someone had typed it with her thumbs and pressed send.

I made a sound I didn't know I could make.

Daniel put his hand on my back.

He asked with his eyes, and I leaned into it, and the rule did not come up between us at all.

"You were never wrong," he said into my hair. "You were never wrong about that one thing, Laura. I'm so sorry I said you were."

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