Walking up the staircase that leads to the rooms, I steal a glance back at the table. Adrien’s shoulders are hunched over her plate, her eyes glassy and faraway, and Ellery, Luke, Josh, and Declan seem tohave pushed their efforts into overdrive to keep the conversation going.
Just as I’m about to look away, Ellery looks up at me. Her face is blank, but her eyebrow is slightly raised. After the briefest of moments, she seems to catch herself, replacing her expression with her standard soft smile.
I don’t return it.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I make a beeline for Ellery and Adrien’s room.
I can’t waste this opportunity with all of them downstairs. Hope blooms in my chest again, dangerous and deceptive. There’s still a chance I can avoid what I once thought was my inevitable arrest tomorrow. I just need to findsomething.Some evidence I can show to Villanueva.
I twist the handle and push forward, breathing a sigh of relief when the door shifts beneath my hand. Like at the Inn, the doors are not self-locking—that level of technology hasn’t yet made it to Jagged Rock—and Adrien and Ellery hadn’t bothered to lock theirs.
The room is similar to mine, equally worn down, but a tad more subdued. The walls are covered in chipped navy paint, and a chandelier with several burnt-out lights hangs over the double bed.
I ignore the quilted YSL handbag strewn across the bed, the one Adrien has had delicately looped across her body since we arrived, and head for the canvas tote that sits on a threadbare velvet recliner in the corner of the room.
The bag bears a logo for the charity that Ellery works for, the lettersWCDDprinted in intertwining font, short forWhat ChildrenDon’t Deserve. And I find myself questioning all of this. Ellery is a saint; she’s devoted her life to helping children in war zones. Could she really be behind this?
But I shake my head. This isn’t the time for doubts.
I rifle through the tote, disappointed to find its contents are nearly identical to those in my own day bag: a wallet, some ChapStick, a Kindle. I step back, resigned, and as I do, a splash of blue in the corner of the room catches my eye.
I recognize it instantly. The sweatshirt Ellery has been wearing off and on the last few days. I discard the tote bag and head there directly. When I lift it up, I know for certain that I’ve hit gold. It’s much heavier than its thin fabric would suggest, and when I reach into the pocket, my hand brushes cold metal.
I pull out her iPhone, igniting the screen with a push of the side button and illuminating a lock-screen photo of Ellery with her arm wrapped around a woman. The woman’s hand is outstretched, a small diamond glittering on her finger.
Her social media is devoted almost exclusively to her work; the only personal posts she shares are usually of her dog, an old husky named Oscar. This is the first photo I’ve seen of Ellery’s fiancé.
I take in the woman’s pixie cut, the dark curls, the wide eyes, and—
Aside from some very small distinctions—the roundness of her face, the mole sitting just above her lip, brown eyes instead of turquoise—this woman could be Phoebe’s twin.
I try to think what this could mean. Why is Ellery engaged to someone who looks just like Phoebe?
A laugh filters through the floorboards. I don’t have much time. They’ll be finished with dinner soon, and Ellery will come looking for her phone.
I turn my attention back to the next obstacle. The passcode.
Birthday, I think. I know it’s not likely, but it isn’t like I have anything better. I rack my brain trying to remember Ellery’s birthday, but it comes back to me more easily than I expected. After spending ten years reliving nearly every single day of that month in Australia, I can pretty much recite the calendar by heart. And Ellery’s birthday was one of the first nights we went out in Sydney.
December 3.
I plug1203into her phone before remembering the Canadian date format and shifting it to0312.
Incorrect PIN entered
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, my palm clutching more tightly around the phone.
Ellery’s passcode could be pretty much anything. There’s so much I don’t know about her. So many things that would signify an important series of numbers.
Then, an idea sparks in the back of my mind. Another date that could be important to Ellery. It’s a long shot, but it’s not like I have any better options.
1912.
December 19. The day Tomas died.
To my complete surprise, as soon as I type the date in, the phoneclicks, the screen erupting into a series of different icons. My eyes widen at my luck, but I force myself to continue, promising to dissect the passcode’s significance later.
I start with her gallery, scanning her recent photos. They’re all images of Ellery and the same Phoebe-like woman from her lock screen, of the elderly-looking husky, of Ellery surrounded by families, shaking their hands.
