Forget Me Not: A gripping, heart-wrenching thriller full of emotion and twists!. A. Taylor M.

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      “Of course.”

      “No, you don’t get it. No one’s telling me anything. Not the police, not her family.” Her eyes looked a little wild then; so wide they seemed to jump out of her face. Her resolve from just seconds before had left her completely and she was having trouble looking at me, or anything, for more than a split second. Her gaze flicked from one thing to the next, to the next and I wondered if she’d taken something. “I mean, I get it,” she continued, after taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself, “there’s not much to tell yet, but I’m her girlfriend.” Her chin dipped ever so slightly and the firm, set line of her mouth turned down somewhat. “Was. Was her girlfriend.”

      “Can I ask why you weren’t at the memorial on Sunday? For Nora?”

      Jenna wiped a hand across her face, exhaustion written all over it. “It was my grandmother’s eightieth birthday. I couldn’t miss it; my mom would have killed me.” She stilled suddenly, her eyes catching mine, her face pale. “I mean … I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean to say that.”

      “It’s okay, Jenna.”

      “No, no, no. You don’t understand—”

      “I do understand. And it’s okay.”

      Jenna slumped forward, her arms resting on the table, showing me the crown of her head. I thought perhaps that she was crying, but when I said: “Had Elle been acting any differently recently?” she jerked her face up and it was clear of tears.

      Taking a deep breath she turned her gaze to the window, which was a little steamed up, snow drifting lazily past it. Calmer by then, she said: “A little, I guess, yeah. She’d been more withdrawn than usual.”

      Elle had been particularly quiet on Sunday when I had last seen her, and although I wasn’t used to seeing her like that, I hadn’t thought much of it at the time; it was the ten-year anniversary of her sister going missing after all. If she had a right to be withdrawn at any time, it was then. I wanted specifics though, so I asked: “What do you mean by ‘withdrawn’?”

      Jenna sighed, pushing back her hair so that it stood on end. “Quiet, distracted. She kept cancelling stuff at the last minute. Like, we’d arrange to go to the movies, or just to hang out, but then she’d cancel right before we were supposed to meet. I thought … I actually thought she was going to break up with me.” She looked back at me, her eyes once again wide and a little wild, filling with tears.

      “Do you know why she wasn’t home on Sunday night?” This was a question that had been bothering me; why had Elle not been at home and why hadn’t anyone noticed that she was missing earlier?

      “She … she was supposed to come over to my house, to hang out, but then she texted to say she wasn’t feeling up to it, so I figured she was just going to stay home with her family. I texted and called a couple times but when she didn’t answer I thought maybe she’d just gone to bed early or something.”

      There was a shot of silence while I swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Do you think she went out anyway? To meet someone else?” I asked at last.

      Jenna nodded, blinking rapidly at me as a way to stave off tears. “Maybe. It’s the only reason why her parents wouldn’t have known where she was. If they thought she was at mine, then they wouldn’t have been worried, right? But what if she told them she was with me but she was actually somewhere else?” Her voice broke as she was speaking, tears falling silently down her cheeks, and I reached for a napkin from the stainless-steel dispenser and handed one to her. She took it silently, wiping away at her face.

      “Had she ever done that before?”

      “I don’t know,” Jenna said, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. “Maybe, I guess.”

      “Do you think she could have been seeing someone else?”

      “You mean cheating on me?”

      I drew in a breath, watching Jenna’s face fall ever further. “Yeah.”

      Jenna swallowed, shaking her head. “I didn’t ever think she’d do that. But I don’t know now. Maybe she would?”

      I felt awful asking Jenna all these questions, making it so much harder, so much worse. It was like I was digging through the rubble of a ruined building and kept uncovering body parts; I wanted to stop, but there was a chance there was a live one down there, and I needed to know. “Is there anyone you can think of who she might have been seeing? Anyone at school she was flirty with? Anything like that?”

      “No,” Jenna replied, just looking at me.

      “Are you sure? What about if I put it this way instead: Was there anyone who seemed interested in her? Even if she wasn’t interested back?”

      Jenna put down the mug of coffee she’d been drinking from and licked her lips. “Yeah, there were a few.”

      “A few?”

      “There were some guys at school who were constantly hitting on her. As if we were just some sort of act. Like we were there just to turn them on or something, and because everyone knew Elle was bi, they’d always hit on her, super creepy, all like, ‘let me know when you want a man’ or whatever. As if because she was attracted to men and women she’d be attracted to a complete asshole.”

      “Who were they?”

      Jenna thought for a second. “Johnny Phillips, Mike Stiles, Adrian Turney. I don’t think she was seeing any of them though. She thought they were assholes.”

      “Are you sure?”

      She shrugged, and leaned back in the booth. “I guess I don’t know.”

      “Did the police ask about these guys?”

      “No, they just wanted to know where I’d been and if Elle had seemed different at all recently. They asked if she’d been seeing anyone else, like you did. If we had an open relationship.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

      “So, there’s no reason these guys—Johnny, Mick and whoever—would be questioned by the police?”

      “Mike. And no, I don’t think so. Unless they decided to question the whole school.”

      “Okay. Do you have any of these guys’ numbers? So I could get in touch with them if I need to?”

      Jenna shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But they’re all on Facebook. You could just message them there.”

      “Right, of course.”

      Jenna gave me a thin smile and shifted in her seat, looking down into what I assumed was her nearly empty coffee mug. I could tell she wanted to leave.

      “Hey, have you ever been up to the Altmans’ lake house?” I asked, and Jenna nodded.

      “Yeah, plenty of times,” she said.

      “What about those guys? Would they have been there too?” I was thinking about that compass drawn in the snow next to Elle’s body, all four points leading to an “N.”

      “Maybe, but I don’t СКАЧАТЬ