The Sister-in-Law by Pamela Crane (great books for teens txt) 📗

well-off, middle-aged man who was murdered, not a woman or child. I’d bet most people assumed he had it coming.

As Facebook sprang to life, the first thing I noticed when I opened my account was the countless notifications, all comments about a post I apparently had made. But I hadn’t posted anything. I clicked on my profile as thousands of pixels drifted into place, forming words that made me swell with horror. Shock soaked into every part of me.

‘What the hell?’

Time-stamped this afternoon, an appalling post from Harper Paris, from my very own account:

Living my best life husband free!

#deadandgone #blackwidow

The backlash went on for over two hundred comments and a thousand angry-faced emojis, the post shared dozens of times. Complete strangers from all over the globe told me what a murdering waste of space I was, questioned the state of my soul, insisted that I should rot in jail – wait, no, apparently I deserved the electric chair for what I’d done. And eternal hellfire. Some commenters with extra time on their hands to look me up even mentioned the baby:

First she killed her child, now her husband. Child services needs to get her other kids safely away before they’re next.

I heard her two-year-old died last year. Think she killed that child too?

This woman needs to be behind bars before someone else turns up dead.

Get this #babykiller and #husbandmurderer off the streets!

The child died under suspicious circumstances. Then her husband turns up murdered. How have the police not arrested her already?

There’s nothing more dangerous than a black widow who has everyone fooled.

Comment after comment attacking my character, charging me with murder, bringing up the baby. Maybe they weren’t wrong. The two events were connected, after all. I was a killer in denial. Were my own children no longer safe with me as their mother?

The phone slipped from my fingers, landing soundlessly on the mattress. I stifled a sob, but I couldn’t hold it back. The whole world hated me, despised me, called me a murderer. I could only imagine what the cops would think when they saw this. Because most certainly they would. And it would raise a whole slew of questions I couldn’t answer. About Ben. About the baby’s death – and the details of what had actually happened. I could never let that get out.

I inhaled a steadying breath. Smell a flower, blow out a candle.

Calm yourself. Don’t panic. Just think.

Maybe I could fix this. They were just strangers, after all. Who cared what they thought of me? And yet I suddenly understood why teens were attempting suicide over social media bullying.

Smell a flower, blow out a candle.

I grabbed the phone and reopened the app, finding the post at the top of my feed. I clicked the corner icon to delete it, expecting the action to erase the hurt as well. A refresh later and it was gone – whoosh – into cyberspace. But the hurt was still there. No, it wasn’t hurt. It was anger that burned into my skin. Hatred for the person who did this. I’d already lost so much. Where my heart once lived was now an empty cavity, as if you could reach inside me and feel nothing but cool, damp air. Who would want to break what was already broken?

No one came to mind, no one who hated me this much to pose as me and write something so evil. Had some anonymous scammer hacked into my account for fun, or was it personal, done by someone with access to my phone? I knew one thing – yes, this was personal. And that left only one person who could have done it. Who would have done it.

Candace. She had motive and means.

The motive: She hated me, for one. I was the thorn in her side, and the feeling was mutual.

The means: I never kept track of my phone. I always left it sitting around, or sometimes even let Elise play Angry Birds or Escape Room on it. Candace could have easily grabbed it and posted to my account since I didn’t password protect my phone. Ben had often warned me about that. What if your phone gets stolen? he’d said a dozen times. I hadn’t listened to Ben back then, and now I regretted shrugging him off. Never again would he warn me about the dangers of not password protecting my phone. Never again would I get the chance to tell him he worried too much, or anticipated the worst in people.

When would every thought stop leading back to Ben?

Focus.

The post was made sometime around my shopping trip with Candace. I couldn’t be sure about the exact time we left, but it was close enough. My phone had definitely been with me in the car and at the mall, in my purse the whole time. And Candace had a secret ability, a superhuman power to commit wrongs without guilt. I first noticed it when I caught her wearing a ring she had stolen. She didn’t think I had seen, or maybe deniability was a game for her. Whatever the case, she proudly wore that ring with a bold lack of remorse. If she could effortlessly pilfer jewelry, how much easier was it to borrow my phone and post something terrible? And just when we were starting to get along …

I couldn’t imagine why Candace would want to hurt me to this extent. Sure, she came across a bit cold and aloof. But this was sociopathic. I needed to confront her about it, but I didn’t know how to outsmart her and catch her in a lie. Without proof, I had nothing but my word against hers.

Sneaking down the hall toward Candace’s bedroom. I stood by the door, which was cracked open, and listened. It was quiet inside, nothing but the occasional ruffle of pages. As I knocked, the door swung in, giving me full view of Candace eating chips in bed, a copy of Us Weekly magazine