The Family Photo That Didn't Have Me In It novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Call
Twelve faces looked up from the page and found me.
"No," I said. "I read it."
"You wrote it."
"It showed up on my phone on move-in day, while I was taking my family's picture at the campus gates."
"I don't know how. I'm a chemist. I hate that I don't know how."
A juror in the back row frowned.
The defense lawyer laughed, small and kind, for their benefit.
"A message from the future, Ms. Tilden?"
"You have my phone. Your own expert had it for a month. Is that note in my notes app?"
He hesitated.
"It isn't," I said. "It was gone an hour after I took the screenshot."
"How convenient."
"Read the last line," I said. "Out loud. Please."
He didn't want to. The judge nodded for him to go on.
"Emery, don't be so stupid next time," he read. "Being good will never make them love you."
It sounded different in a stranger's mouth.
I had read that line a hundred times, lying awake, checking the date. Hearing it in a courtroom, it was only sad.
"If I wrote a plan to frame my sister," I said, "why does it end with me in the driver's seat?"
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Family Photo That Didn't Have Me In It are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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