Darkness cloaks Mom's room that night. I tiptoe into her room, lit only by the pale light of the moon streaming between her closed blinds. It shines slightly on her bedside table and her left arm. Her phone sits on the table beside her alarm clock, glowing the red numbers two-ten in the morning. I creep toward her phone and ever so quietly ease the charger from the bottom. This time, I wedge the cable under the clock so it doesn't fall to the ground.

Last time, I had an impossible time rooting around for it amongst the white tulle bedskirt. To make matters worse, Mom's hand fell over the side of the bed inches from me. I had to carefully extract myself from being between her bed and the bedside table to avoid my head brushing against her.

I sneak from Mom's room. Light streaming from the side light in the kitchen illuminates the family room enough for me to make my way to the couch. I sit down with the phone and unlock it. Mom's home screen pops up. I start by going to her web browsers and scroll through her history. I scroll far back, even use the date history to target the years when she was part of the criminal investigation force. No such luck. She must've used her laptop, which I don't have the password for. Maybe the next time she's using it, I can look over her shoulder to try to get her password.

Defeated, I'm about to return the phone to Mom's room when I decide to check her emails again. I click on her emails and scroll back to several months ago. The email she received from the police force is still there. A week later, there's another email from the same address. Curious, I click on it.

We're so pleased that you agreed to speak at the conference. Here are any additional files you may need to access since you no longer have access through the officer portal. Let us know if you need any more information.

I click the back arrow, and soon after, there's a third email.

We're sorry to hear about the personal issue that is preventing you from speaking at the conference. We hope it gets resolved.

So Mom did plan to speak at the conference. She even sent an email accepting the invitation. She backed out because of me. Guilt pangs through me, but I hope to make it up to her some day. Maybe some day she can speak at a conference without worrying about how it will affect your mental health.

Not if you're a killer, that voice in my head says.

I want to suppress it, but I fear that doing so is only suppressing the truth. The problem with truth is that no matter how much you run from it, eventually, it catches up to you. You have to accept reality for what it is. And it is infinitely more painful to do so when you've been battling the truth for so many years.

I click on the original email. The interview files are attached. Quickly, I hurry into the kitchen and hide behind the counter. If Mom wakes up, hopefully she won't spot me.

The interviews download to Mom's phone. A minute later, a popup allows me to click on the files, pulling them up on the screen.

For the next few hours, I comb through the interviews with countless suspects. Some names are present, others are not. If only they stated what the children's names were. From what I glean, the kids are both between five and eight years old. I would've been that age in 2012, so we're looking for someone my age. Autumn and her brother fit the age range.

Something appears in both their interviews that catches my attention. Both kids heard him talking on the phone late at night. When the phone call seemed to have ended, the son got up from bed and went downstairs, asking what was wrong. Ronald kissed him on the forehead and sent him back up to bed, saying that he would be right back and was just going around the corner to visit a neighbor.

He never returned.

Another interview is with Mr. Barnes, Ronald's boss.

Officer: what position did Ronald Keiger hold in your company?

Barnes: He was our chief financial manager.

O: And what sorts of duties did that entail?

B: He managed our budgets, did our taxes, and dealt with our investors. Anything related to money, he oversaw.

Ronald must've known about the fraud. I wonder if that was what was being discussed during the heated phone call. Either he found out about it or he was a part of it the whole time and wanted out.

Could that be what caused his death? Could Mr. Barnes have killed Ronald because he was afraid he would tell the police about the fraud?

Questions and hypotheses swirl through my head. Why weren't these things explored during Mom's investigation? Why were so many nuggets of important information left unpursued?

While reading the girl's interview, another line stands out to me.

Officer: How do you know he had a meeting that night?

B: I checked his calendar the next day. He always left it open on his desk, and it said he had a meeting with the board of directors at nine that night.

O: Do you know when the meeting started and ended?

B: It was around nine o'clock on my clock, and it ended after eleven. I'm not quite sure of the time.

O: why did you stay up so late?

B: We were scared, my brother and me. It just seemed so heated, and we were frightened.

This girl has a knack for finding information. She had the brains to check her dad's calendar to see if he had a meeting. She's an observer; she picks up on little details that might be crucial to solving a mystery.

Sounds awfully similar to Autumn. She's a watcher, too. Anything she says has a sarcastic edge. Most of the time though, she fails to comment on anything, preferring to let her indifferent smirk speak for itself.

As much as I want to forward the interviews to my phone, it will leave too many footprints on Mom's phone. Instead, I delete the interview file from her downloads, swipe aside the download notification, and remove the email and web browser from her recent apps. Then I sneak back into Mom's room and plug the phone back in.

When I'm setting the phone down on the table, it makes a soft thud. Mom's hand stirs inches from mine. I freeze, backing away from the phone. Mom rolls over in bed. I crouch down, waiting in the moonlight. My heart hammers in my chest.

What if she finds me? I try to calm myself, come up with a backup plan.

Just say you couldn't sleep.

A minute passes on the clock, but Mom doesn't move again. Slowly, I crawl toward the door. Once I've passed the door, I race up the stairs, my pulse beating against my throat. I leap into bed, pulling the covers over me. Seconds pass. Eventually my heart begins to slow and exhaustion creeps into my bones. I relax into my bed. Drifting off to sleep, the interviews play through my head. There's something there; I can feel it. I'll have to compare notes with Zoe tomorrow at school.

***

I can't miss another school day, but since Mom made a counseling appointment for me during lunch, I miss physical education and the lunch hour, meaning that I don't get to talk to Zoe. I sit in the waiting room, Mom on my left and my backpack on my right. One other adult woman, perhaps in her mid-forties, sits across from us. My legs swing back and forth twice, then pause, finding the ground, then back and forth two more times.

Amber appears in the doorway. I sling my backpack over my shoulder before she can call my name.

"Hello again," she says as she shuts the door. I slump onto the cushioned chair, resting my elbow on the side, my head on my fist.

"It's happened again," I say.

Amber sits across from me. "So I've heard from your mom. Do you have any idea why?"

A dry laugh escapes my throat. "Um, well, it could be because I'm the killer."

"But there could be another explanation."

Yeah. That's what I'm trying to find out.

"What other explanation?" I ask instead.

Amber purses her lips in an apologetic smile. "That's for the police to uncover."

I don't have a tremendous amount of faith in the police at the moment. If the investigation into the Old Oak Bridge Murder is as messed up as it seems, then someone could end up getting framed for the wrong murder.

Wait a second. It clicks into place, the thing that's been bothering since I looked more closely at the old oak bridge murder. Someone framed Lori for her husband's death, someone who knew her well, or at least somewhat well. Who would've been able to organize so many things? When the body was dumped, it avoided all video cameras. In fact, her car wasn't caught on any surveillance footage at all.

If someone could frame Lori at such a high level, then it's conceivable that the same is happening to me. Or, someone other than me could go to prison and I could get off for murder.

I shiver.

"Madelyn?" Amber is watching me, leaning slightly forward.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Just spaced out."

"That's alright. Would you like to talk about what you found?"

I tell her about the third murder, how I was the last person to enter the bathroom before the victim. Since no one else died before that, it had to have been placed inside the sink right before it happened.

"Unless someone put it in the sink before that. Remember, you didn't turn the water on when you entered. It might've already been in the sink."

"Yeah, but that family was the last to enter the bathroom. I doubt it would've been them."

"Perhaps you just didn't see another person slip inside."

I nod, even though it's impossible. At least, according to Zoe. she was watching the whole time, and that family was the last to enter. Unless, of course, she's lying.

Panic washes through me. Oh my gosh, what if Zoe has been lying this whole time?

"Madelyn, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." My nerves are in a jumble now. I have to find out if that's true, that no one else entered the bathroom. But how?

Wait, but Zoe doesn't have any siblings. She looks absolutely nothing like Ronald and Lori. if she did organize all this, it would be completely unrelated to the Old Oak Bridge murder.

"Should we rebook?" Amber asks.

I snap back to reality for the fourth time. "I'm sorry." shaking my head, I try to focus on the present. I talk about sensing him in the bathroom. That's how we knew he died.

"See? Your gift can do a lot of good," Amber says.

"Maybe."

"Perhaps you should try not to fear your power and embrace it. I know it can be scary to have this ability, but it's a part of you. You can't shun your stomach just because it hurts sometimes, nor can you resent your lungs for coughing or burning after a long run."

My mouth twists to the side. Perhaps she's right.

"I know it can be a struggle to deal with this," she says. "This has been a problem for what, ten years now?" I nod. "That's when your enhanced senses first started to develop. Perhaps training them will help."

But I have been training them, I want to scream. That's why I attend Eralyn.

Eralyn. Didn't Amber go there too?

I try a new tactic. Maybe I can get Amber to talk too.

"You're right," I say. "You're so adept with dealing with enhanced senses."

Amber smiles. "Comes with the job."

"I know, but you seem to pinpoint exactly where I'm struggling."

"Many people struggle with their enhanced senses."

"Did you struggle?"

There's a beat of silence. Slowly, Amber's face turns from soft and open to taken aback, then guarded. "What? I don't understand."

"Did you struggle with an enhanced sense?" I repeat.

"I, uh, I..." Amber flounders for words. She pauses, breathes, schooling her features. "I... have a lot of clients around here who deal with this issue."

"Why do they pick you?" I ask.

"I think they just need someone to talk to," Amber says. "With the school nearby, this town is almost two-thirds enhanced senses."

"And would you be one of them?" I ask.

Another pause. Amber shifts in her chair. "I think we should either return to your concerns or we should reschedule for another week. We're here to talk about you, not me."

I bite my lip. Okay, I pushed things too far. But she's definitely hiding something. And she hasn't denied the fact that she has an enhanced sense.

"Sorry," I say. I reach for a tissue and feign dabbing at my eyes. "Let's continue."

***

I return to school after my appointment. The rest of the day drags by. All I want to do is talk to Zoe about what I discovered.

What if Zoe set you up?

That little voice in my head returns. Why can't it ever leave me alone? Why is it always fueling my doubts and fears, making me question everything?

While leaving my enhanced sense class, I'm surprised to find Zoe waiting outside for me.

"Hey," she says. "Want to head to your place or mine?"

I shrug. "We may need more files, so maybe my place."

"Okay, great. I just need to talk to our English teacher real quick about an assignment for class."

Mrs. Garfeld, that's right! She's been here longer than even the principal. If anyone would know anything about Amber, she would. She also as the memory of an elephant.

We weave our way past students milling through the halls, past brightly colored backpacks and blue lockers with dull, scratched metal with age. Mrs. Garfeld's room is right across from the library. It's empty, and the lights are dim. She sits in a large leather rolling chair with her nose in a book. I duck my head in embarrassment. It just feels weird to see your teacher reading After.

"Oh, hello Zoe, Madelyn." Mrs. Garfeld places a purple ribbon bookmark inside the paperback and sets it down on the table. "How are you two doing today?"

"Good," we chorus.

"I just had a question about today's book report assignment," Zoe says. She talks with Mrs. Garfeld for a bit. Once it's settled she turns to leave.

"I also have a question," I say.

"Mhmm," Mrs. Garfeld says. She grabs her travel mug and takes a long sip.

"Do you remember there ever being a student here named Amber Anderson?"

"Hmm, let's see. Amber, Amber." she drums her gnarled fingers on the table. "What year would that have been?"

"She graduated in 2006."

"Well, let's see." She turns to her bookcase behind her. She shuffles through tall, thin books until she says, "here it is." she opens the 2006 yearbook across her desk. The pages flip by, a little less glossy and lower picture quality than the one I got last year. She stops on the student page. "Ah here it is." at the top of the page, a younger-looking version of Amber smiles at me. "Yes, I remember Amber. I might not always place the name, but I never forget a face. Especially back then when there was only one English teacher." She waves a singular finger in the air to punctuate her point.

"Do you know what her enhanced sense was?" I ask.

"Yes. It's quite rare actually. There's a portion of her brain which is more enhanced than the rest, enabling her to identify the energies of memories in other people."

"Memories?" I ask.

"Yes, memories."

"And... that's it."

"No, no dear." Mrs. Garfeld adjusts her glasses. "She actually has the ability to send certain memories into dormancy in the brain by manipulating their energy. She can essentially make a person forget memories."

My blood runs cold. "W-what?"

"At least temporarily. This ability is extraordinarily rare though. They had to track down a special person to come in and teach her."

I swallow. My throat has gone dry. Amber can erase memories. What has she erased from my mind and not told me about?

"Is everything alright dear?" Mrs. Garfeld adjusts her cat-eye glasses.

"Yes, of course." I force a smile. "Thanks."

"No problem dear." She shuts the yearbook, glancing over her shoulder at me as she slips it back into place between the other yearbooks. My fingers dig into Zoe's arm, and we leave the room.

"What just happened?" Zoe asks.

I spin to face her. My fingers clutch harder and harder at her until I suddenly realize what I'm doing and release her. "Sorry. It's just... that's my counselor." I swallow, willing the words to come out. "I think some of my memories have been erased."