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“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Eleanor,” the cop reads from Eleanor’s phone. “You burn me down, I burn you down.” She sets the phone on the desk and looks at Drea, expression blank. “Did you send these messages to Eleanor?”
This isn’t happening. Drea looks around the classroom, helplessly. There’s nobody else here.
“I – I mean, yes,” she says. There’s no point in denying it. “But I didn’t have anything to do with the fire. I was really shocked when I heard about it.”
“Eleanor’s house burned down less than twenty-four hours after you made this threat. Kind of coincidental, don’t you think?”
“I’m telling you the truth. I swear it wasn’t me.”
“Why did you want to threaten her? Was it about the car accident from the day before?”
Maybe it’s because she’s overwhelmed by this whole insane situation, but the word accident almost makes Drea laugh. Laughing would definitely be the wrong move here.
“We’re not just talking about arson charges,” the cop says. “You could be looking at murder as well. I can help you, but—”
“Murder?” Drea demands, her heart nearly jolting out of her chest. She’s going to be sick. “I thought she was just – missing, is – is Eleanor dead?”
“There was a lot of blood in Eleanor’s room. You know what that kind of amount says to us? Someone killed her and set the fire to cover their tracks.” The cop folds her arms. “Sound familiar?”
The nausea’s giving way to a feeling of complete numbness. Someone murdered Eleanor? Someone else?
The messages look bad. But they haven’t arrested her yet, right? There must be a reason they haven’t arrested her.
Eleanor’s dead? She’s been Drea’s whole life for months, and suddenly she’s just gone?
“Wait,” Drea says. “If you don’t know where Eleanor is, how did you get her phone?”
“If you want to ask questions, you’re gonna have to answer mine.”
No, this is weird. The phone doesn’t look fire-damaged, so it must have been somewhere outside the blaze. But, if the cops think Eleanor died in her room, why wouldn’t her phone have been there? If the murderer took the phone, why not destroy it?
And the police are able to access the messages on it. Maybe they had some kind of cracking tool, but Drea suddenly has a weird, creeping feeling that maybe the phone was just left conveniently unlocked.
“Did any pets die in the fire?” Drea asks.
The cop raises her eyebrows. “What?”
“Please,” Drea says quickly, “Eleanor had a lizard thing, it’s called Oscar Winner Olivia Colman, I loved that damn lizard, I haven’t been able to sleep—”
“Uh, no pets, as far as I know,” the cop says. “Maybe it got out of there.”
Oscar Winner Olivia Colman has barely twitched a finger the entire time Drea has known her. There is no way that lizard could get away from a fire.
“Fuck,” Drea breathes. “Eleanor’s alive.”
The cop’s focus narrows. “Are you keeping her somewhere?”
I wish. Drea swallows it down. “I think she’s alive. I think she’s framing me.”
“You think Eleanor burned down her own house,” the cop says, flatly. “And bled all over her room. To frame you.”
Drea looks steadily back at her. “You don’t know Eleanor.”
-
The cops don’t take her in. It feels like it’s only a matter of time.
It makes sense that they don’t have enough evidence, given that Drea didn’t actually do it. But she’s pretty sure Eleanor will have left enough to help them along.
Unsurprisingly, Drea can’t really sleep. She’s finding it hard to remember when she last could.
She reaches for her phone, opens Eleanor’s Instagram. It’s an idle thing, almost automatic: just something she does when she’s got her phone in her hand and no particular plans for what to do with it.
She’s spent so much time staring at the last photo Eleanor uploaded before the fire, before she disappeared. It’s Eleanor on the beach in sunglasses, smiling, her hair wild where it pokes out of her Yankees baseball cap. A selfie, which means Eleanor made the decision to take it herself.
Everything Eleanor does feels calculated, now that Drea knows the truth about her. What was she trying to do with this?
There are words written in the sand behind her, with a stick or a finger. They’re distant and skewed, hard to make out. Drea’s never really paid attention to them before; they just seemed like part of the background, probably written by someone else. Now she tilts her phone, squinting at them, trying to make sense of them.
They fall into place before long.
Come find me xx
“You bet I will,” Drea mutters. She doesn’t know where to start. But she’s going to figure this out.
Her eyes linger on the NY logo of Eleanor’s cap.
-
The question is how to get in contact with Eleanor. Texts and calls aren’t an option; the police have her phone. WhatsApp messages might reach her, maybe, but they’ll definitely reach the cops, and Drea doesn’t need to look any more unhinged there.
Email? Checking her email while she’s missing could set off flags; it seems like Eleanor would be smarter than that. But it could be worth a shot.
I know you’re alive, Drea writes. You’re too much of a bitch to die. Where are you?
There’s a response almost straight away, sending Drea’s stomach rocketing into her throat. But it’s an automatic reply, presumably set up before the fire.
Hey! it says. Sorry, I might take a while to reply to emails. I kind of had a fight with my best friend and I need some time to process things.
Drea half-laughs under her breath, quiet and dry.
Bestie, if you read this, I miss you. Can’t wait to talk over coffee at Leblanc again.
There’s a café called Leblanc nearby. But they’ve never been there together.
Drea opens a new tab. Searches for leblanc cafe new york.
There’s a Leblanc in New York City. Just one.
-
Trains from Miami to New York aren’t cheap. But, if Drea skips town, people might be looking out for her licence plate. She pays in cash, wincing at the dent it’s left in her bank account.
Criminal or not, she’s acting like one. Thanks for that, Eleanor.
She’s not going to have anywhere to stay when she arrives. She guesses she’ll worry about that when she gets there. Or, y’know, on the thirty-hour train ride.
-
The café’s reasonably busy, which is probably for the best. The more chatter there is in the background, the less likely they are to be overheard. And, with witnesses, maybe there’s a lower chance they’ll end up stabbing each other.
Whatever the number of patrons, Drea only has eyes for one of them. A girl sitting alone at one of the two-person tables in the front, the seat facing the window, although she’s been watching Drea since she came in. Short-cropped black hair.
With a different nose, Drea hadn’t recognised Nora at all; she’d barely even remembered her. But there’s no fucking way she’s ever forgetting that face now.
“You made it,” Eleanor says, smiling. She looks a little pale. Maybe because she fucking bled enough to make everyone think she’d been murdered.
“Eleanor,” Drea says.
“It’s Nell where people can hear us.”
Drea edges into the seat opposite her. It feels like she’s trapping herself, pinning herself between the table and the window. “You know, if you keep pulling stuff like this, you’re eventually going to run out of nicknames for Eleanor.”
“You’d be surprised how many there are,” Eleanor says. “How’ve you been?”
“Not great,” Drea says. “You framed me for your murder.”
Eleanor beams at her. “And you got away. I’m so proud of you.”
Drea shrugs. “Maybe not. Now it just looks like I ran away. I bet you planned that, too.”
“Oh, I didn’t know if you’d get arrested or you’d find me,” Eleanor says. “I’m not that good at planning. I just tried to set things up so I’d be satisfied with either option. If I get both, I guess that’s a bonus.”
“How long were you going to keep coming to this café?”
“Until the news reported a suspect was in custody, I guess.” She passes Drea a menu across the table. “You want anything?”
It feels unsafe to eat or drink anything around Eleanor, even if she wasn’t the one who prepared it herself. “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“Sure,” Eleanor says. It feels like she’s just along for the ride, just following Drea’s lead to see what happens, like everything Drea does amuses her.
-
Eleanor’s staying at a motel, it turns out. Nothing special, but it’s kind of impressive she can afford it.
“The police said your card hadn’t been used,” Drea says.
“Of course it hasn’t been used. I’m not stupid.”
“If you’d taken out a load of cash before you disappeared, they would have guessed you were still alive,” Drea says. “How long have you been preparing for this? I thought it was just a spontaneous thing.”
“What, because of your messages?” Eleanor asks. “I thought I might have to do something like this at some point. I just wanted to be prepared.” She laughs. “But, yeah, it was your messages that pushed me into it. You burn me down, I burn you down? Who could resist that? You basically were the one who burned down my house.”
There’s not much to say to that. “Wow.”
“There were a lot of cheaper places on the way,” Eleanor says. “But the clues I’d set up pointed to New York, so I was going to New York. I hope you’re grateful.”
The room feels like a cage. Drea looks around, consciously keeping her arms at rest, her pose casual. Spots Oscar Winner Olivia Colman lounging insolently under a NO PETS sign.
“No pets,” Drea says.
“You’re going to report me?” Eleanor asks. “Maybe you haven’t got this yet, but I’m not really somebody you want to mess with.”
“I’m not going to report you,” Drea says. “I don’t want to know what’s on the revenge tier above you frame me for your murder.”
There’s a brief silence. Drea keeps looking around the room, although there’s not much to see. Her instincts are screaming at her to keep her eyes on Eleanor, but she’s trying not to watch her too closely, not to seem too threatened.
“Why did you come after me?” Eleanor asks.
It startles Drea into looking at her. “I thought you wanted me to.”
“Yeah, but there’s still a reason you actually did, right?”
“The cops think I killed you,” Drea says. “It’s kind of in my interest to prove you’re still alive.”
“If that’s why, you wouldn’t have come to New York by yourself,” Eleanor says, leaning against the closet. “You’d have sent the police to the café.”
“If I trusted the police, maybe.”
“So what is it?” Eleanor asks. “Are you here to kill me? Are you here to kiss me?”
Each question feels like a blow. Why the hell did she come here?
Eleanor’s eyes are still focused on her. The air feels dense and damp and charged, like a thunderstorm’s about to break out in this tiny motel room.
“I could try to kill you,” Drea says.
Eleanor smiles. “Go ahead.”
“If you survived, you couldn’t report it without letting everyone know you’re still alive.”
“I mean, I faked my death to frame you,” Eleanor says. “If you actually try to kill me, it’s not like I need the fake death any more. Are you ready to bring physical violence into our relationship, though?”
“You hit me with your car,” Drea points out.
Eleanor snorts. “Barely.”
“I was unconscious. I was hospitalised.”
“You know, I don’t think you’re giving me enough credit for what I achieved,” Eleanor says. “Do you know how goddamn hard it is to hit someone with your car? At an intersection? Anyone could come up behind you and run you off the road, but then everyone knows it was deliberate. It takes real planning to come at you from the side.”
Drea actually hadn’t thought about that. In the aftermath, her mind was kind of taken up with the what the fuck of it all.
“You really dedicated yourself to screwing me over, didn’t you?” she asks.
“And you dedicated yourself to me,” Eleanor says. She takes two unsettling steps closer, reaches out to brush Drea’s hair back behind her ear. “You figured it out. You came all this way to find me. I’m dead, you skipped town; you know we’re going on the run together, right?”
“Shit,” Drea breathes. “Fuck. We’re actually going to kiss, aren’t we?”
Eleanor leans in, very close. Blows on Drea’s lips, a quick puff of air. “Not until you admit you want it.”
“God fucking damn it,” Drea mutters, and she pulls Eleanor into a kiss.