The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions Book 1)

I WALK INTO THE MIDDLE OF an argument downstairs. The news at high volume in the background, Goose glued to it. Sophie’s face is tearstained; Daniel looks nauseated. Jamie is circling the flat, trying to disguise his pacing. “Who is doing this though?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter who,” Daniel says. “We should be trying to work out why.”

Sophie’s eyes are drawn to mine, mid-stair. “Well, whatever motive’s behind this, it’s the same one that apparently aligned with destroying Noah’s dad’s research.”

“It wasn’t his father’s research,” Daniel says. “It was research his father paid for, to save Noah’s life.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“That was how he justified it to himself, and you weren’t there, Sophie.”

“And as I understand it, you were unconscious.”

“Stop it,” Mara says, standing at the foot of the stairs. It’s not just Sophie and Daniel who are silenced—it’s everyone.

“My brother’s right,” she says. “It doesn’t matter who’s doing this to Stella, at this point—she knows she isn’t dead yet, but she thinks she’s in the slaughtering pen.”

“And that you’re the butcher,” Leo says to her.

“That’s what she thinks,” Mara acknowledges. “I’m not. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is why she’s doing it. She doesn’t want to die, right?” Mara looks at me first and then at Leo.

“Not that she’s ever said.” He looks surprised to have even been asked. “I don’t understand why she’s doing this.”

“Because she wants some control back,” Mara says, looking to me for affirmation. “She knows it’s just a matter of time before whoever is doing this makes her kill herself. You heard her in the video.”

“She thinks it’s inevitable,” Jamie cuts in. “Like telling someone they’ve got a degenerative brain disease so they might as well sacrifice themselves to a volcano to save a nation of people.”

Goose looks at him, then at me. “And here I thought I had no idea what was going on before.”

“Never mind,” Jamie says. “I’m just saying Mara’s right. Stella’s still in control right now—to some extent. Something made her drive to Vermont to buy a gun and put it in her mouth,” Jamie says. “I don’t think she’d do that, even as a joke.”

“The police, everyone’s going to be looking for the same things we are,” Mara says. “Anything that identifies . . . anything . . . from where that video was taken. It looked like a cell phone—that’s probably where they’ll start?”

“We’ve been over that already, while you were doing whatever. This is New York,” Leo says. “And she has an iPhone. Can cell towers place you that specifically? Enough to find where she took the video?”

“She left her phone there,” I speak up, and everyone looks to me. “That’s what I’d do, if I wanted to lead people in the wrong direction.”

“But why the wrong direction?” Leo asks, his voice nearly pleading. “She said—you said—that you knew they didn’t want to die.”

I try and edit myself before I speak. Take a leaf from his book. “Because for her, she’s made a decision. She intends to honour it.”

“What if no one’s looking for her?” Sophie asks. “What if they think she’s just some crazy girl on the Internet—”Owned by NôvelDrama.Org.

“They’re questioning her mental health and trying to identify her, definitely,” Daniel says. “Find out who she is and whether she’s still alive.”

“Not just that,” I say. “She mentioned Felicity by name in her video. And the number of missed calls on my mobile about confirms that people know about the fire—”

“Explosion,” Goose corrects. “They called it an explosion on the news.”

“Right, the journos’ve picked it up. She’s now a person of interest in whatever investigation’ll go on about that.”

“By that right, so are you, mate.”

That was what Daniel had been trying to say, before, why he’d thought of my phone.

Jamie’s the one who speaks up, though. “We should get out of here before they come looking for you, Noah. I mean, I can hand-wave a lot, but it’ll be easier if—”

“They’re not going to arrest me,” I say.

“They can hold you for less than twenty-four hours for whatever they want,” Mara says. “Without arresting you.”

“ ’Murica,” Jamie mutters.

“Felicity was murdered in a property you own,” Daniel says.

“She committed suicide,” I say. “And with my father’s lawyers—they wouldn’t dare.” I glance at Mara, only just beginning to fully grasp the extent and reach of the privilege I’ve enjoyed.

“They won’t send a SWAT team here,” she says. “Probably just a couple of detectives.”

“Are you actually worried about yourself when Stella just announced to the world that she’s going to commit suicide imminently?” Leo asks me. Rage simmers beneath his placid, amphibious expression. Where was all this feeling when she went missing?

“I’m concerned that if I’m detained, I won’t be able to help in any way.” I don’t even give him the satisfaction of meeting his gaze. Instead, I pocket my mobile and my keys, one of which belongs to a car I’ve never driven and didn’t ask for but was bought for me anyway, by the assistant. No time like the present. “Shall we drive?”

“Drive . . . where?” Sophie asks.

“Anywhere but here, until we figure out where she is,” I say.

Daniel meets my steps to the door. “Works for me,” he says. Then, lower, “I was the last one in the archives. The police are going to want to talk to me.”

“No, they won’t. We left together.”

“I went back.”

It takes effort to appear as though he hasn’t said anything.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. “You had my permission. And as Jamie said, he can hand-wave any questions—”

“Where do you think she is?” Mara asks me. She’s slipping into a jacket just as Sophie and Leo join us.

“We have to try to think the way she’s thinking.”

“But she’s not thinking, is the point,” Leo cuts in. “If she were thinking, she wouldn’t be doing this.”

“She is thinking,” I insist. “She’s just thinking the way—the way someone who’s given up hope would think.” A pattern I’m familiar with.

“How can we predict that?” Sophie turns to me, then Leo. “How am I supposed to find her before . . .” Her voice trails off before she finishes her sentence, but she doesn’t have to.

“People who think about dying think about what they’ll miss about this world, if they’re to leave it. So what does Stella love most?” I ask Leo.

“Um, I thought . . . I mean . . . I think . . . she loves me?” he finally says.

Nice try, mate. “No, what does she love?”

“Her friends, family,” Sophie says.

I avoid looking at Jamie and Mara—seeing their scepticism won’t help.

“You’re not listening. Other than the standard shit people say on dating profiles,” I say to Leo.

“How would you know what people say on dating profiles?” Goose asks.

Mara twists around. “Really?”

“Just asking.”

“If you were to take away something from Stella,” I say, searching for the right words, “what thing that if you took it away, you’d be taking part of her away too?”

Leo and Sophie look at each other. The silence is worse than uncomfortable. No one in this room seems to have known Stella at all.

“She loved the water,” Jamie says suddenly. “Loves,” he corrects himself. “She loves the water.”

“She was on the swim team in high school,” Mara says to me. “I remember her saying something about that at . . .”

Horizons.

“What did she say in her video?” I ask Jamie. “Let me see your phone; play it back.”

“The whole thing?”

“Just the last bit.” He hands me his phone. It’s especially eerie now, hearing her voice, knowing what she’s planning to do.

I want all of you to see me do it . . . .

I want your own eyes looking at my eyes when she kills me . . . .

“It’ll be public, like the others,” I say. “Though not exactly the same.” Not a hanging, not jumping in front of the train. Whatever part of Stella still has autonomy is aware of the others. She wants her choice to stand out.

“The river?” Jamie looks at Mara, then Daniel.

“Which one?”

“Mates,” Goose says, “I think it might be too late for us to get out of here. I just saw two helicopters . . . .”

But I’m already moving through the flat toward the east clock face, to the glass that separates us from the Manhattan Bridge. It rises out of the East River like a prehistoric beast, its pylons rusty with age, almost appearing to ripple with muscle. The main span is like a spine, the suspension cables, ribs. It stands between islands, stretching its neck, its tail, carrying thousands of people, even now. And I know that Stella is one of them.

. . . your own eyes looking at my eyes when she kills me

She doesn’t just want an audience; she wants our audience. My audience. She wants me to witness. She would choose to end her life in a way I can’t help but see, from almost every direction.

I press my palm to the glass. “She’s on the bridge.”