I leave a gap for her to reply, with a sign or a coincidence, but she never does.

She only smiles from the picture by my bed, and that will have to be enough.

Chapter 21

I don’t open my eyes right away. I lie there, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, knowing there’s a camera pointed at me and that out there, on phones and iPads and computer screens, I’m being watched instead of the morning news.

I can hear Danny breathing, and I imagine the moment right before Mom came face-to-face with the Magpie Man. When she sensed him but couldn’t see him. When she knew her time was almost up.

I fight the urge to cry, trying to slow my heart by focusing on the memory of my mother for five, ten, fifteen seconds.

When I do open my eyes, I see the blinking red light on Michael’s camera. Danny is sitting on my beanbag with a smile on his face.

His smile says: It’s showtime. It says: Action! It says: Welcome to the rest of your life.

I lie in bed, stretching under the covers, trying to act as normal as possible. I wonder if Lucas, Ella, Sonia, and Ryan are tuning in, seeing what I do well and what I mess up.

There are two ways to go now. I either get it right or I don’t. I either start with a bang or I choke.

Danny is only a director in terms of camera angles and lighting. He’s only there to capture whatever I do. There’s no script except the one I’ve rehearsed in my head over and over again.

So with time already running out, I sit up, stare into the camera, and say, “Hi.”

Chapter 22

“My name is Jessica Simmons,” I say, “and my mom was killed by the Magpie Man.”

I don’t have time to ease them in. I have to start strong.

“Ten years ago, on January twenty-second, my mom was killed in the alley near my house as she walked home from work. She was murdered by a man who was just getting started.”

This speech has gone through more rewrites than I can count.

“I was seven when she died. When my dad told me, he took the horror away. He told me she was taken by someone who collected beautiful things, and that was where the name came from.

“My dad called him the Magpie Man, and I told my friends at school, and they told their parents. Somewhere along the line, the newspapers started putting it on their front pages, and suddenly, we’d made a monster.”

I look at Danny, making sure this is okay, and he nods but doesn’t smile.

“We didn’t know he would become a serial killer. My mom was the first person he murdered. But there are thirteen now, and he won’t stop. He will keep going until he’s caught.