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“I just mean… I want to know. Please,” I said, trying to turn my head over my shoulder to get a proper look at him. “I’m curious, and it looks like this path goes on for another few minutes, so we might as well do something to fill the time.”
“I suppose it’s better than awkward silence,” he said in a grudging tone. “All right. Here’s the deal. I’ll answer anything you ask until we get up to that promontory over there. You see it?”
I squinted into the misty distance. “Yes.”
“So what do you want to know?”
I swallowed hard. “I want to know what happened that night with Cerina. All of it.”
“The night she died?”
“Yes. Obviously.”
“All right.” Mr. Blythe paused for a beat to clear his throat. “You already know this, but Nora and Ted were the ones who actually did it. They stabbed her.”
“But you facilitated the whole thing,” I cut in.
“Not just me. Others too. But yes, I did a lot of the heavy lifting,” he replied. “Somewhere around eight, I started texting Cerina from a burner phone pretending to be you. At the same time, I was also texting you pretending to be Cerina. That way we could lure you both outside at the right moment.”
“How did you manage to make the texts to Cerina sound like they were actually from me?” I asked. “The cops really used that against me, you know. They said the texting styles from my phone and the burner phone matched perfectly.”
“I know. That was all part of the plan to frame you,” Mr. Blythe replied. “Remember, that was the initial idea—we were just going to frame you. Nothing more.”
“So how did you do it?”
“Do you remember losing your phone a few days before the dance?” he asked.
I frowned. “No.”
“You thought you left it at your friend Erin’s house during a study session. She returned it to you the next day.”
“Oh.” My eyes widened. “Yes. I remember that.”
“Her parents, Jessica and Todd, are part of the PTO. So they were in on the whole scheme,” he said. “Jessica stole your phone while you and Erin were distracted with your books. Then she gave it to Nick.”
“Nick?”
“Nick Barron. The junior physics teacher. You’ve met him, remember?” Mr. Blythe replied. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, he’s our go-to tech guy.”
“Right,” I muttered.
“Anyway, he cloned your phone onto another device. That way we had a copy of your messaging history. I studied it so I could replicate your voice as much as possible in the messages I sent to Cerina,” he went on. “Once your phone was cloned, Jessica gave it to Erin and said she found it lying around the house. Erin was none the wiser. She thought you must’ve accidentally left it behind, and she returned it to you the next day. Neither of you had the faintest idea what really happened.”
“God,” I said, shaking my head. “So much effort just to fake a few texts.”
“Well, we were trying to set you up to take the fall for a murder, Kinsey. It required a lot of planning and effort.”
“Right. So what happened next?”
“You and Cerina both fell for the texts I sent at the dance. When I knew you were about to go outside to meet her, I drugged your drink.”
“When you and Ms. Vaughn were checking everyone for alcohol?”
“Yes.” A smug tone crept into Mr. Blythe’s voice. “I thought we played that one quite well. You and Jax didn’t notice a thing. You just handed your cups right over to us.”
“Well, we weren’t expecting our teachers to be psychopathic drink-spikers,” I said in an acid tone. “We trusted you.”
“Sorry about that.” He didn’t sound even remotely sorry. “Anyway, after that, you went outside to meet Cerina. I alerted Ted and Nora, and they went to meet the two of you.”
