Ellie Burbank’s Instagram feed is not private and is filled with mostly those hook-armed full body shots or the duck-lips pose that girls are certain makes them look sexy. I study the photos. There is no denying that the face on my laptop looks an awful lot like Sarah. The head shape, facial features are right. Hair color is off, but I’ve had a fair amount of experience dyeing my hair. The other thing that strikes me is the amount of makeup. Where Sarah favored the no-makeup look, Ellie is a true believer in heavy application. No light touch for her. Her eyelids are pink and gold hues with glitter, and her lashes are blue and long enough to leave mascara trailings on the face of her phone when taking a selfie.

It could be her.

Her aunt would know better than I do, I think. Or maybe the tragic loss of her sister hurt Laurna to such a grave degree that she’s looking for a reason, or someone, to blame.

My pulse quickens a little as I read a post Ellie Burbank made last year.

My parents are so phony. Everyone thinks that they are good people. They go to church and act all perfect. If one of their friends knew the truth, they’d never talk to them again. I feel like a dumbass for ever looking up to them.

I scroll through others, more benign in content. Posts about her dreams or her crushes, mostly Bieber and Drake and a couple about Halsey. I scroll more and see rants about being homeschooled and how she’s so lonely being stuck studying in the kitchen with only one hour a day internet time.

I look at the timestamp on the posts. They were all uploaded between seven and eight p.m.

At least they let me do this without their eyes all over me. I know they have a net nanny or something like that on my laptop. I know how to empty my history, leaving just a few things that won’t tip off my feelings for them. They won’t let me have a smartphone. Ha ha.

Two things cross my mind. I wonder how it was so easy for me to get into Ellie’s Facebook page if she was so smart about keeping her parents out? Had she changed her privacy settings? And when?

I also wonder about someone who posts as “Tyra Whitcomb”. She’s the most active of Ellie’s friends, always commenting some sycophantic message of support. There are photos of the two of them, in RL, as they tend to say. She’s a pleasant-looking girl, a little heavier than her best friend, but with the same affinity for a theatrical flair with her cosmetics.

I click on her profile, though it’s set to private.