I DIDN’T KNOW what to expect the next day at school. A few people smiled, as if to show that they were happy for me. Others turned and whispered to their friends, just as they had during the first few days of this nightmare. But most didn’t react one way or the other, almost as if the story had never existed in the first place.

I was on my way to gym when Ashley Walsh came through the crowd in the hall and blocked my path. “I … have to talk to you,” she said with a quaver in her voice as she tilted her head toward the girls’ room. “In private.”

I felt a shiver of unease. What could she possibly want to say? But then I recalled that the last time we’d spoken, I’d had the feeling I’d asked the wrong questions.

Inside the girls’ room we primped at the mirror until the bell rang and the other girls cleared out for their classes. If there was one class I knew I could be a little late for, it was gym. As soon as the last girl left, I glanced at Ashley and was shocked to see tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I owe you an apology.” She sniffed.

“Why?”

“The reason Tara gives you such a hard time? It’s because of me.”

It’s so strange when you have absolutely no idea what someone is talking about. All I could do was ask “Why?” again.

Her lower lip quivered, and mascara-streaked tears left dark trails down her cheeks. “Because … he used me.”

I felt my insides go into deep freeze.

“I mean, he … he took advantage of me,” Ashley said, just to be clear.

I felt a shudder, followed by the most profound feelings of sadness and regret. “Oh God.” I put my arms around my old friend while she sobbed and trembled. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. I should be apologizing to you. I’m so sorry, Ashley. I’m so ashamed. I know what my father’s done, but I still can’t believe it.”

She looked up at me with surprised red eyes. “You know?”

“Not about you until just now, but two days ago, I found out … you’re not the only one. I don’t know how many there were. It’s so horrible. I’m so embarrassed to have a father like that.” Now I felt my own tears well up and spill out of my eyes. It was bad enough to know he’d done something to girls I didn’t know, but to find out he’d done it to someone right here at school—someone I’d been friends with and grown up with—was too much.

Ashley rubbed some tears from her face. “So you understand about the e-mails?”

I took a step back. E-mails? She couldn’t mean … “Not the ones from vengeance at gmail?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you know about them?” I blurted out.

Ashley averted her eyes and stared down at the floor. “I … sent them.”

Whatever sympathy I’d been feeling for her instantly vanished. “Are you serious?”

She looked up, a mixture of shame and pleading in her expression. “You understand, don’t you?”

“How can you expect me to understand?” I asked incredulously, feeling the blender of my emotions go into reverse, from sympathy to fury.

Ashley stared at me with her red, blotchy eyes. “But you just said—”

I cut her short. “How am I supposed to understand someone who threatens to kill me?”

Her eyes widened, and she frowned sharply. “I never …”

“How can you say that?” I asked. “You said I was the last one you’d kill.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I took out my BlackBerry, scrolled to the e-mail, and showed it to her. “You didn’t send this?”

Ashley squinted. “No way.”

“It’s from vengeance@gmail.com,” I said.

She was still staring at the e-mail. “I swear I never sent this.”

“You’re saying someone else got into your Gmail account and sent it?” I asked doubtfully.

Ashley was still studying the e-mail. “Do you still have the others? The ones I did send?”

“Yes.”

“Could you show me one?”

It made no sense, but I scrolled to one of the other e-mails, wondering what fantastic explanation she could come up with. But instead of giving me any kind of explanation, she asked me to go back to the e-mail that threatened murder.

“They’re from different accounts,” she said. “Look at the address. All of mine are from vengeance one three seven seven three two eight eight. The one threatening to kill you is from vengeance one three seven seven two three eight eight. Someone reversed the three and the two.”

Now it was my turn to flip back and forth from e-mail to e-mail.

She was right. Not only were the addresses different, but the writing styles, too. Ashley’s e-mails were all written in texting style, with abbreviations like “2” for “to” and “U” for “you.” The e-mail from the other vengeance wasn’t.

Someone else … someone pretending to be Ashley … had threatened to kill me.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry,” I gasped, my jumbled emotions making my eyes grow watery again.

“No, it’s okay.” Ashley touched my arm. “We all make mistakes. Mine were way worse than yours.”

That may have been true, but I still felt miserable and confused. Here was this sweet girl who’d been taken advantage of by my father. The old question gnawed at me: Why? Why would he do something so awful? Were all men like that? Or just my dad? But as painful as that question was, I knew it was less pressing and less immediate than the new question that had formed in my thoughts: if Ashley hadn’t sent the e-mail threatening to kill me, then who had?