Page 49 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘There, stop!’ Billy leaned forward, his hand over hers on the mouse. ‘That’s JJ.’

Yes, it was. Hardly recognizable in his striped shirt and denim overalls, thick black scars painted across his face. A brassy red wig on his head, the hairs static-straight, about five inches long. He was standing with his arm slung around his little brother, Henry, matching smiles they’d both inherited from their Malaysian dad, but not much else because he’d skipped out when they were kids. Henry was wearing a pirate hat, emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, a gold plastic hook for a hand. JJ was resting his head on his brother’s shoulder: younger but taller.

‘Does that match the hair from the scene?’ Billy asked.

‘Think so. Same color, the right length.’

Jet dragged the photo across onto the second monitor,left it there waiting, the Lim brothers staring at them as they kept going.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jet hissed as she clicked onto a zoomed-in picture of herself, a photo she didn’t know had been taken,clearly: her eyes glowing red from the flash, nose crisscrossed into a maze as she bit into a candy apple, caramel smears on her cheeks. ‘I’m deleting that one,’ she said, clicking on the icon, the photo shrinking down, dropping into the trash, where it belonged.

‘Jet,’ Billy scolded her.

‘I’m dying,’ she reminded him, a catch-all defense.

She skipped through more photos. A group shot: three witches, a skeleton, a werewolf, and Ghostface. The same kids from the doorbell cam, who stole all the Masons’ candy. That one witch was flipping off the camera, and Jet liked her even more now.

More photos.

‘That kid’s wearing a red wig.’ Billy pointed at the screen, a girl grinning with a creepy-doll smile, standing between two men, one of them dressed as a cop, because it was Lou Jankowski, Chief of Police. ‘Does actually look like the same wig.’ Billy looked back and forth, from JJ to the kid.

‘Yeah, it does,’ Jet said, sucking her teeth. ‘But an eleven-year-old girl is probably the one person who isn’t taller than me. Rules her out. Off the suspect list.’

‘Agreed.’ Billy smiled.

Jet clicked on.

‘Aw,’ Billy said as a photo of Luke and Sophia popped up, Luke holding baby Cameron in his pumpkin costume.

A puff of air out of Jet’s nose, before she could hold it in.

Billy knew what that meant.

‘You and Sophia used to be best friends,’ he said, tentatively.

‘You and Iused to be best friends too, Billy.’

‘Wewere kids. You and Sophia were really close. What happened?’

Jet snorted. ‘Not me. She’s the one who never replied to my texts when I went to college. Dropped me and made a beeline for my brother instead. Luke’s too stupid.’

Billy nudged her. ‘You were maid of honor at their wedding.’

‘Yeah. Maybe Sophia thought that might make up for her abandoning me. It didn’t. Ugly dress too. Bet she did it on purpose.’

‘Well. Cameron’s cute.’

Jet shrugged. ‘Kinda boring.’

‘Jet, you can’t call babies boring.’

‘Babies are boring, and people who’ve just had babies are even more boring.’

‘Jet!’ But he was laughing too.

‘Wait,’ Jet hissed, eyes drawing her back to the screen, pulling at something in her head. Not Sophia, something about her brother.

Luke was holding the baby up for the camera, hands gripped around the rotund pumpkin costume – both hands, knuckles out, ridges in the thin skin. Jet reached for the screen, swiped her finger across Luke’s clean hands.

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