“I’m with Eva on this. Amy’s a gossip, but she wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Grace shakes her head. “What did Amy say?”

The detective shakes her head. “Nothing. We think she was the latest victim.”

“Is she . . . where is she?” I ask. The waver in my voice says the part I don’t want to say aloud: something about the detective’s tone makes me suddenly sure that Amy isn’t okay.

The detective ignores my question and opens up the case on her iPad. “I need you to look at some things, Eva.” She turns the tablet so I can see a strange flower. “Can you tell me what this is?”

I shake my head. She moves to a picture of another flower. This one looks sort of like a lily, but not quite. “No,” I whisper.

“Asphodel and amaryllis. Do they mean anything to you personally? Are there any secret clubs at school or anything at all that would tie to these that you know?”

I want to laugh at the idea of secret clubs, but I can’t, not with the growing fear that something awful happened to yet another of my classmates. I look away from the iPad and meet Detective Grant’s gaze. “They’re pretty, but that’s all. They don’t mean anything to me, and there are no secret societies at Jessup.”

“Are you familiar with the idea of flowers being a language?”

Grace says, “Like in Hamlet.”

“English class last year,” Nate adds helpfully.

At this, the detective perks up a little. “Did the whole grade level read it or just your section?”

“All of us, and they’re doing it this year, and they did it the year before us. Maybe before that too.”

“So whoever did this goes to Jessup High?” Grace interjects, and I shiver at the realization that my attacker—the killer—is at my school. I can’t imagine anyone I know being this sick.

“It’s possible, or they know someone who does.”

“Which is pretty much all of Jessup,” Nate says.

I am a little relieved by his point. The thought that someone I know is responsible makes me feel even worse. I’m extra comforted that it’s summer. I don’t know how I could sit in class thinking that someone in the room tried to kill me and Amy and had killed Micki.

Detective Grant draws my attention back to her by asking, “Do these words or anything about them mean something more to you?”

She opens up her tablet and turns it so I can see a close-up of three words in an odd red font on a kind of beige paper: FOR EVA. JUDGE.

I stare at them as the reality of what I’m looking at comes clear.

It’s not a font. It’s not paper.

“That’s skin,” I whisper.

“Yes.”

“Amy’s skin?”

She nods.

Grace makes a choking noise, and Nate reaches out to take my hand. I’m not sure when he moved closer to me, but I’m immeasurably grateful that he did. He feels like an anchor holding me steady, keeping me from sinking into the sickness that threatens to engulf me.

“Someone wrote that on Amy’s body?” I can’t force myself to say the correct words. They cut it into her body.

“Yes.”

I reach out and flip the tablet cover closed. I can’t look at it. No one should look at it. Ever.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I swallow before I can continue. “Whoever killed Micki and Amy did it because of me? They’re trying to say they did this for me? How does that even make sense? Someone tried to kill me, and now he’s killing my classmates, and saying it’s for me?” My voice grows shriller as I speak. “What am I to even do? How do I even—”

“Nothing,” she says. “You do nothing. You’re to stay safe and tell me when you think of anything, anything at all, that you think of about your relationship with or related to Amy Crowne or Micki Adams.”

I nod because I don’t know how to speak around the sudden tightness in my throat. It hurts to think that someone did this because of me. It hurts to imagine Amy or Micki suffering.

“Does the ‘Judge’ part mean anything to you?” Detective Grant asks.

“If I wanted to judge her, it would be because she slept with my boyfriend.” I force the words out carefully. I don’t want to say them, but I don’t want to lie to the detective either. I swallow to try to keep my throat from feeling like it’s closing.

I don’t look at anyone other than the detective. “Plus, she told people I slept with him . . . with Robert earlier this year. They were already sleeping together then. I had no idea, but that’s all we have in common: Robert. I didn’t know about her, but he said she was angry about him not breaking up with me.”

“Could Robert do this?”

“Kill two girls in our class, and try to kill me?” My voice is getting shrill again. “No! No, he couldn’t. He’s not like that.”

“Not even to make amends with you?”

“How would killing them make amends with Eva?” Grace sputters. Her hand flings into the air in a gesture of frustration, almost as if she can’t stop the motion. It stays there, upraised with her fingers splayed open, as she half yells, “Are you crazy?”

Mrs. Yeung catches Grace’s hand and holds it. “Are you done with us, Detective?”

At Detective Grant’s nod, Mrs. Yeung tells my parents, “Someone will escort Grace to your house so the girls are able to see each other.” She looks at Nate. “You can bring her over if my husband or I can’t, but I trust all of you”—she gives the three of us a stern look—“to stay together. No slipping off to the parties you don’t think we know about.”