“Emily, wait,” I said. “Why can’t you talk to the police?”

For a moment I wondered if Emily could be the one behind everything, the one telling Grace and Jacob what to do. But really, it just didn’t seem likely. Emily had already offered me so much information about the case and had said she’d be happy to talk to me whenever. She seemed as though she had enjoyed all the attention she’d been receiving this week, but she just didn’t seem malicious enough to stage a kidnapping and frame an innocent person.

“There’s someone else involved in all this,” she said. Her eyes widened, as if she was surprised by her own admission. “They’d be so mad at me if I said anything. They’re already mad about Grace and Jacob getting caught by the police.”

I felt a jolt of adrenaline running through me. I had been right about another person being involved, and Emily knew just who that other person was.

“Emily,” I said, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. “Who would be mad at you if you said anything to the police?”

Emily hadn’t stopped moving since Bess, George, and I had entered the room. Now she was nearly finished packing. She looked at me as she was zipping up her suitcase and said, “No way. Sorry, Nancy, but I can’t tell you that.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. Emily was the only lead I had, and I had no idea how to convince her to tell me anything. Perhaps Emily was actually a fairly decent person who’d gotten wrapped up in something not very decent at all.

“Emily, please,” I said. “This is really important.” Then I remembered why she was even part of the recent events. “Jacob’s your boyfriend,” I said. “He and Grace are going to be blamed for all this unless I can figure out who else is behind those photographs.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Jacob is not my boyfriend,” she said. “We just go to school together. I guess the original plan was only to have Grace go missing. They thought the police would shut down the exhibit immediately. But the police just thought it was a hoax, and no one in town really cared because Grace hadn’t been here for that long and no one knew anything about her. It was easy for everyone to believe that she had just gone back to where she came from. So Jacob was going to pretend to go missing too. He hoped it would scare more people in town if they thought the curse could apply to anyone who even went near the photographs, not just the people involved in displaying them. And this time they also wanted someone to hype everyone up about it.”

“And that’s where you came in,” I supplied.

Emily nodded. “I’m a theater major. They needed someone who could act scared and hopefully frighten everyone in town enough that the police would be forced to act as soon as possible.”