“So then, it’s definitely someone from school. Probably a senior. No one younger than that would know about the paper.”

Then my focus snags on the image, and shock sucks the air from my lungs. It’s a picture of the baby I found in the girls’ locker room.

It’s the picture I took of the baby I found in the girls’ locker room. The angle and lighting are identical, though the photo has been zoomed in.

“Everyone’s saying someone leaked a photo from the police,” Penn says, looking at my phone from over my shoulder. “Or that the Clifford PD was hacked.”

It wasn’t the police department that was hacked. Fortunately, Penn doesn’t know I took that picture. The only person who knows is Jake.

He wouldn’t.

“Beckett,” Penn says, and I look up to find him staring at me. “Read the caption.”

CRIMSON CRYER

@crimsoncryer · 2hr

Rumor has it someone left a dead baby in the Clifford High School girls’ locker room. Rumor also has it the mother is @BeckettBergen, who only *pretended* to find the baby she actually gave birth to.

#CliffordBaby

#Discuss

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Chapter Four

FOUR

When I went to bed last night, the Crimson Cryer account had just over five hundred followers, despite being only a couple of hours old and having posted only that one tweet. Because a picture of a dead baby is evidently destined to go viral.

This morning I slept in, because it’s Saturday, and when I woke up around ten, the Cryer had two thousand new followers, including two of the three news stations in Jackson, and it had retweeted two posts. The first is from the Clifford PD (@CliffordTNpd), confirming that the remains of a newborn were found on the grounds of Clifford High School yesterday afternoon, but that no further comment will be offered, because police are still investigating.

The second retweet is of a picture from Lilly Copeland (@LillyPadCopeland), confirming for the world that the #CliffordBaby is not hers, along with a mirror selfie showing her still very swollen belly, in profile.

I spend ten minutes sitting in bed while I scroll through nearly two hundred Twitter mentions of my own, most from people I’ve never heard of, demanding to know why I would abandon my baby like garbage. By the time I get out of the shower, there are twenty-eight new mentions, all on that same theme. Except one, from someone I’ve never heard of.

Watch yur back @BeckettBergen b4 sum1 leaves you ded on the floor like your baby

Wrapped in a towel, wet hair still dripping, I sink onto the edge of the tub and stare at the message in shock. Is that a death threat? A warning?

This can’t be real.

I click the button to report the threat for violating Twitter’s policies. Which seems like a pretty serious understatement.