After I saw the message on Theo’s phone, curiosity crawled under my skin. Theo would never betray me, but why do I feel like he was hiding something? Maybe he was protecting me. Maybe he knew more about Avril’s death and didn’t want me to start digging.
I told myself to drop it. But of course, I didn’t.
I picked up his phone from the counter, hesitated for a second, then started typing. It took me a minute, but I got in. The password was Mom’s birthday — classic Theo, sentimental to a fault. Once the home screen lit up, my pulse kicked up a notch.
I went straight to the thread from J. Only one message. Nothing else. Just that single, cryptic text. I scrolled, searching through his inbox, old chats, emails, anything that could make sense of it. Nothing. Just mundane conversations, work m
