Chapter 16: Zero Eight Two Seven

The VanDerpool boathouse stood at the end of a dock, with one bulb burning over the water.

It was eight on Thursday night, and the counter on the forum read 33.

Brock sat on an overturned canoe in a wet hoodie with his knees pulled up.

"Where's my phone?" he said when we walked in.

"What?" Elias asked.

"Nothing. I'm checking if I still have a spine." Brock rubbed his face. "You brought her."

He meant Roxanne.

She stood behind me in her mother's jacket, with her hands shoved deep in the pockets.

"Everyone in the notebook is welcome," I said. "She's in it."

"She's the cheap phone."

"I know she is," Roxanne said, and her voice shook.

"I said it to my mother yesterday morning. I'll say it to you."

Brock looked at her for a while.

"Fine," he said. "Then nobody here is clean."

Dane was already there, standing by the oar rack with his blazer buttoned wrong.

The lab partner sat on a crate beside him, in a gray sweater, with her chin tucked down.

She wouldn't look at the lamp.

"Who woke up this week?" Elias asked.

"Me," Brock said. "Wednesday, in the boat."

He shivered.

"I rowed out in my sleep. My father's driver had to wade in after me."

"Not me," Dane said. "Not since Monday."

Elias took a folded page out of his jacket.

"The nurse gave me an update," he said. "Forty-one names now."

"Forty-one?" the lab partner whispered.

"And a line at the bottom. Two adults, no names. She wouldn't say more."

Brock laughed once, a cracked sound.

"My dad's lawyer says the five million is a clean win," he said.

"He wants me to sign a paper saying I'll stop talking about it. He wants me to say I was drunk on the balcony."

"Okay," I said. "Stop."

I turned to the lab partner, because she hadn't said a word yet.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Dead Girl's Wheel of Wish from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.