My eyes move to the top. There’s no “dear” anybody, only a date. And only days before the camp. And the lined paper is ragged at the side as though it’s been torn from something. Some sick asshole has been sending Jasper excerpts from Cassie’s diary? There’s so many of them, too. Jasper has been getting bits and pieces of Cassie’s journal ever since we got back from Maine, probably convincing himself more and more that he was the reason she got mixed up with Quentin in the first place. No wonder he’s been getting worse.

Then I see one more envelope, this one on the floor. Dropped there or maybe it slid from the stack. I pick it up. Postmarked yesterday. I slide the page out.

I’m not saying that it’s Jasper’s fault that I’m spending time with Quentin. It’s more complicated than that. But I do think that Jasper being so perfect made me want to get even more messed up. I wanted to prove to him that not everyone is worth saving.

I swallow hard. Poor Jasper. The thing he was most afraid of—that he drove Cassie to Quentin and drinking and all of it—written right there, in Cassie’s own words.

I COME BACK out into the foyer, holding the stack of envelopes.

“I didn’t say you could take anything.” Jasper’s mom glances at me.

“Do you have any idea where Jasper might have gone?” I press on. “I think he might be really upset.”

“I have no goddamn idea where he is!” She shouts, so loud I flinch. But then she hangs her head and bites down on her lip hard—guilt and sadness. That’s all. The anger is just easier. I wonder what I would think if I couldn’t read her so well, if I were Jasper. “I don’t know why you’re here or what you want with my son. But Jasper is not in any condition to be anyone’s boyfriend.”

“I’m a friend, that’s all,” I say. “A friend who’s worried about him.” Though for the first time, that feels like a lot less than the truth.

“Maybe he went for a walk,” she says, motioning toward the door. Her voice is quiet now, unsteady. “He does that these days. A lot. He likes to go to the Bernham Bridge to watch for canoes. We used to do that when he was little.”

Bridge. Bridge. Bridge. It’s the most awful alarm ringing in my brain. A bridge you can jump from? I do not want it to stick in my head the way it does, but it already has. My heart is racing as I clutch Cassie’s letters tight in my hand and head for the door.

“I’ll go look for him,” I say. “But I also think you should call the police.”