But somehow, Posie Washington had survived.

"How did you know?" Jeremy startled me. The question was barely more than a whisper in the dark. I pulled my head from my hands and looked up at him, unsure what he was really asking. Was he asking me how I knew where to find her, or how I knew she was alive? It didn't matter. I couldn't tell him anyway.

I let my silence speak for me. For Emily and Marcia and Posie. For the mysterious numbers etched in their skin. There was nothing to say. My puzzle was riddled with holes, pieces thrown everywhere and none of them fit. I had no answers for any of this.

Instead, I said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just needed to see her. Are your ribs okay?"

Jeremy massaged them tenderly. "Remind me never to sneak up behind you."

"Why were you so mad back there?"

He gaped at me, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe I'd asked the question. "You were trying to run headlong into what may or may not have been the scene of an attempted murder, Nearly."

"But it was Posie!"

"No, it was a mistake!" Jeremy spoke firmly in a tight, low voice. He wasn't joking, and the stern expression he wore stole any argument I'd been ready to make. "Getting called in to the police station for questioning isn't the way today was supposed to end. If I hadn't pulled you out of there when I did, that's exactly where you'd be."

It was my turn to look away. He was right. I had made a mistake, but not the one he thought. I should have figured out the clue sooner, rather than letting Reece distract me. I should have been there under the tower's shadow, waiting, and maybe I could have done something to stop what happened to Posie.

If I'd spent more time studying instead of chasing after a boy, we wouldn't be here.

I'd left Jeremy for Reece, and let him touch me, wondered if there was a chance he could be something more . . .

"You're right," I conceded to myself. "It was all a mistake."

21.

Posie's face was the first thing I thought of when I woke early Saturday morning. I scrambled for the phone and called Jeremy, desperate for news. Had she made it through the night? Did they have any clue who might have done this to her? Jeremy said he'd searched online, but Posie was a minor, so her case would be kept confidential. For now, all I could do was hope. And wait.

Mona was still sleeping, so I took a few dollars from the cookie jar, hefted the basket of dirty clothes under one arm and my backpack over the other, and headed to the coin laundry across the street.

The Laundromat was always empty on Saturday mornings, and the tumble and slosh of the machines drowned out the street noise on Route 1. I tried studying. Tried letting the machines drown out every other intrusive thought in my head, but I was restless, and couldn't focus. When I was little, my dad and I always did laundry on Saturday mornings. He'd keep me entertained with card tricks while we waited for the wash cycle to finish, then we'd walk next door to Bui's for donuts while it dried. But that memory of him that used to be so clear in my mind had become hazy, wrapped up in smoke, smudging what was real and what was imagined.

My father couldn't be these people Jeremy had found. A gambler. A phony. A man who'd run out on his family for no good reason. He couldn't be those people, because he was like me. We had the same sweet tooth. The same nose and eyes. He was smart. He had to be. I pulled the photo of him from my backpack and studied him, arm in arm with his buddies at the Belle Green Poker Club. Touching them, and smiling.

Touching them, like it was easy. Like it didn't faze him at all.

Maybe I'd been wrong. I shut the photo inside my textbook. Maybe we weren't the same person at all.

Mona was stirring behind the closed door of her bedroom when I pushed open the trailer door later. I set the laundry basket on the table and pulled a fry pan from the rack inside the oven. The pat of butter slid slowly across the pan while it warmed, and I mixed up some milk and eggs with sugar and set two slices of bread in the bowl to soak. While the bread swelled and softened, I found the kitten mug I'd given her on Mother's Day, and heated water for coffee. Mona liked it strong, with one packet of artificial sweetener, and I left it for her, steaming at her place at the table.

Her door opened and she ambled to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. They were bright green and ringed in old mascara. The whites were bloodshot, making her olive skin look sallow. She pulled her robe shut and smoothed her long, unruly hair-the only thing we had in common-back from her face.

Inhaling deeply, she reached for her coffee and sipped. "Do I smell French toast?" She raised a suspicious brow, but behind the mug she hid the hint of a smile. "What's the occasion?"

I scooped the toast onto a plate and set it in front of her place at the table. "No occasion."

Mona eased into her seat, looking at me skeptically while I washed the pan. "Something you want to talk about?"

"No," I said, rolling my eyes. She took another slow sip of her coffee, still watching me. "Okay, maybe there's this one thing."

Mona nodded knowingly, lip curled as she cut into her toast sideways with her fork. She took a bite and watched me dig around in my backpack. "Ace another trig test?"

I pulled out the photo of the Belle Green Poker Club and set it on the table. Mona stopped chewing. "Where did you get this?" she asked, and set down her fork.

"Jeremy's house," I said. There was no need to go into the details of how he found it. I didn't think she was even listening. She didn't acknowledge me, lost somewhere in her own head. After a minute, she snapped the photo down against the tabletop and slid it back to me. She stuffed another forkful in her mouth, chewing and blinking away the wetness in her eyes.

"Who took this picture?" I asked, trying not to let her hear the urgency in my voice. She knew this picture. She'd seen it before. I was certain of it. She glanced at it bitterly.

"Jenna Fowler," she answered quietly.

I took a moment to process what she'd just said. Jeremy's mother had taken this photo. And the only way my mother would know that is because she was there. I looked again at the smiling faces in the photo, the men arm in arm wearing matching team shirts. These were my parents' friends. Which meant she should remember the man whose face was missing. If he was close to my father then, maybe this man would know where to find him now. Maybe they were still connected.

"Who is that man Dad's holding? The one whose face is torn away?"

My mother scraped her plate absently. I reached for her hand to make her look at me. She dropped the fork with a clatter and stood up, pulling her hand away. But not before I felt it. The grief, and loss, and shame. She clutched her robe and looked down at the table. "Get that picture out of my house," she said, low and angry. "I don't ever want to see it again."

22.