And she tells herself over and over again that it’s okay. A lot of girls do it to get through school. “L” did it, too.

No one will ever know.

I have to force myself to read those days—the days when Celine has to sneak a few shots of hard liquor in the client’s hotel bathroom before she returns to the bedroom, or the times that she will do the coke or Oxy offered to her, because it all makes the night easier to get through and, later, forget.

Especially if it involves strange and perverted requests, things she usually complied with because they meant extra cash.

I grit my teeth as I read every last one of those entries, looking for some bit of valuable information.

It’s in one dated mid-July that I think I’ve found something.

July 16, 2015

New York City is big but this industry is intimate. That’s what L said when she warned me that this day would come. That I would find myself in a horrible predicament, face-to-face with someone I know. I was hoping I’d be out of this racket long before that might happen. I guess not . . . Of all the people to find waiting for me on the other side of a hotel room door.

And I just spoke with him at the office earlier today.

What if he tells someone what I’ve been doing to make money? I need that job! I can’t handle doing this full-time. Plus, I don’t want anyone knowing about this!

I’m still not entirely sure that I didn’t do the wrong thing by going along with it. He introduced himself to me as Jay and asked if I was Maggie (M would strangle me if she knew I used her name with clients). I was afraid not to go along with it. Afraid that if I refused, he’d tell people what I was doing.

He must have known how nervous I was, my hand shaking when he handed me that glass of vodka and watched me down it in one gulp. He even laughed and promised that this would be just between us and told me to relax, as he opened his wallet and pulled out a stack of bills, fanning it out on the coffee table so I could easily count it.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he were an old pro at hiring escorts, the way he settled into the couch, loosening his tie with a casual tug, calling me by my fake name, that disarming smile of his aimed at me, reaching a hand out to me.

Beckoning me.

It worked because I felt my body relaxing and reacting and believing that I might actually enjoy this.

We did it right there on the couch, with all the lights shining down on us. And it was the best I’ve ever had, client or otherwise. For a while after, when he just stared up at me, it even felt “real.”

The extra $250 in cash that he handed to me at the end put a small damper on that, but then I did the math in my head and my spirits lifted again. L expects a cut when the tip is over 20 percent but I need this money more than she does. She’ll get her cut off the grand and we’ll be square.

Did he really mean what he said when he kissed me goodnight and asked if I’d like to do this again sometime soon, “Maggie”? He winked at me when he used that name.

My heart is racing by the end of this entry. The guy paying for an escort has to be Jace Everett. He works in her building; he knows enough to recognize that she was using a fake name. My name. It sounds like he had this all planned out.

Which means Jace lied to me about knowing Celine. Maybe because he doesn’t want anyone knowing that he has sex with escorts.

But this entry was from July, and it’s the last one in this journal. Did they ever connect again?

I flip through the first page of every diary scattered around me to see that I’ve already read through them all. I search the crates, behind the crates. I squeeze my body between the wall and mattress and press my cheek to the floor to check beneath the bed once again, using my phone as a flashlight.

There are no more diaries to be found.

The diary that contains the last four months of Celine’s life—and any proof of what may have led to her death—is gone.

CHAPTER 12

Maggie

My boot catches the corner of a planter and I stumble, catching myself seconds before going face-first into the asphalt. “Fuck!” I hiss, yanking my blanket, caught on something. I hear a loud rip before it breaks free, sending me on another three-step tumble before I regain my balance.

No twinkling Christmas lights illuminate Grady’s rooftop oasis, nor would I expect them to at four a.m. I wonder what he’d say about me invading his private space. The light coating of snow on the ground will expose my tracks. Hopefully the snowflakes still falling—large, fluffy white flakes that melt when they land on my skin—will cover up the evidence soon enough.

I make quick work of the tidy pile of logs that sit beside the fire pit, warming my hands in front of flames within minutes. That’s a definite benefit to living in the developing world for the last five years; I’ve learned how to start a fire, and fast.

With that going, I locate the main power source, and soon I’m cocooned within my blanket and lying in Grady’s hammock, my side warmed by the flames, thinking about my best friend.

Celine wrote something every single day of her life for the last fifteen years, and on the rare occasion that she missed a day, she’d make specific mention of it in the next entry. It was clearly an obsessive practice. People don’t just quit obsessive practices cold turkey, for no reason.

But there are no more diaries anywhere in Celine’s apartment. I spent the last two hours searching. Not in her desk, not in her dresser, not even tucked in with the other books on the shelves. I have to believe that she kept the current one in her bedroom. Maybe on top of that crate of boxes, where she could easily reach over to grab it, already changed into her pajamas and curled within her sheets, ready to fill the page with her curly purple-inked scrawl. It was likely the very last thing she did before switching off her lamp.

There must be a diary somewhere that will tell me what happened between July 16 and the night in November that Celine died. Specifically, what happened with “Jay.”

And, if it’s not in her apartment, then it must be because someone stole it.

Perhaps because something in it would incriminate them.

A soft creak sounds from behind the gate, making the hairs on the back of my neck spike. It’s the door into the building. At four in the morning, I can’t see why anyone would be coming up to the roof. Anyone other than me, that is.

The padlock clicks and the wooden door swings open. Grady strolls through in a pair of flannel pants and a jacket and slippers, his wool blanket tucked under his arm, not stopping until he’s standing over me. Judging by the sleepy look in his eyes, he just woke up.