Burned (10 page)

“Don’t jump to conclusions yet, Spence,” Aria said quickly, though she looked just as sick.

“How do you think A knows about that?” Emily asked.

Hanna shrugged. “If A is Naomi, she could have seen the accident from her house. It is just over the hill from the crash, not that I’d ever made that connection.”

“Or maybe Madison lived, and she saw the girl playing you in
Pretty Little Killer
and figured it out,” Aria piped up.

“No, Madison would’ve had to figure it out before that,” Hanna insisted. “If Naomi is A, she must have known almost immediately—and decided to stalk all of us. That could be how she found out about Gayle and Kelsey.”

Emily nodded, considering this. She had spent time at Gayle’s house that summer, and Gayle had offered to buy Emily’s baby in a café. If Naomi had been following her, it would have been easy for her to figure out what was going on.

Aria ran her hands down the length of her face. “I’m not sure Naomi makes sense as A, though. How could she know about all the other secrets A knows? Like Jamaica—that happened
before
the thing with Madison.”

“Well, it’s easy to explain how she knew about what happened to us in the summer—Naomi lives in Rosewood.” Hanna’s eyes were wide. “She’s friends with Kate—she’s been at my house hundreds of times. She definitely could have dug up tons of dirt on me like
that
.” She snapped her fingers.

Spencer bit her lip. “Actually, Naomi was around a lot when A was threatening me about Kelsey, too. She was one of the witches in
Macbeth
.”

“And she latched onto Klaudia—a lot of my A notes were about her for a while,” Aria added thoughtfully. “And she was at Noel’s when I got a message from A about his family.”

Everyone looked at Emily, waiting for her to contribute her own Naomi story. She just shrugged. “I haven’t had any interaction with her.”

“She was at Gayle’s funeral, remember?” Hanna pointed out. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

Emily stared at the flag flapping on the pole overhead. She wasn’t sure if it was weird or not. “A
lot
of people live in Rosewood, though—someone else could have been watching us. And Jamaica still doesn’t make sense,” she whispered. “Naomi wasn’t there—we would have seen her. How could she know about that?”

“There’s got to be a connection,” Hanna said. “Maybe she was there and we didn’t know it.”

Spencer’s fingers flew on her phone. “Nope, Naomi was in St. Bart’s for spring break—it says so on her Facebook page.”

“Okay, maybe there are
two
As—one who saw what happened in Jamaica, and then Naomi, who’s carrying out all the evil deeds,” Hanna suggested.

Spencer squeezed her eyes shut. “God. My head is going to explode. Now we have to think about who a
second
A could be?”

Emily breathed in. “I think I have an idea.”

Hanna looked at her sharply. “Let me guess. Real Ali?”

“Yeah, Ali,” Emily said in a small voice. If Jordan had snuck aboard so easily and effortlessly, who was to say Real Ali couldn’t have done the same thing?

She glanced over her shoulder, terrified that Real Ali was watching them. A bolt of lightning flickered at sea. Puddles glistened under the lights. The idea of coming face-to-face with Real Ali on a boat terrified her. There were only so many places she could hide.

“Real Ali is dead,” Spencer said dismissively. “It’s got to be someone else.”

Aria cleared her throat. “Something weird happened to me today, too.” She took a deep breath. “You know how I signed up for that scavenger hunt? I got partnered with this guy who’d recently transferred from a school in New Jersey. We talked for a while, and I found out he knew Tabitha.”

“You’re kidding,” Hanna said worriedly.

Aria nodded. “It gets worse, though. He used to be Tabitha’s
boyfriend
.”

“What?” Hanna shrieked.

“Are you serious?” Spencer gasped.

“I know.” Aria looked tormented. “I think the universe is out to get us.”

“Or
A
is out to get us,” Spencer said. “Couldn’t
he
be A? He has a better motive than Naomi—
or
Real Ali. Maybe more of a connection, too—he could have been in Jamaica with Tabitha.”

Aria rocked from foot to foot. “I don’t know about Jamaica, but I doubt it. And Graham said he was in Chile last summer—how could he have witnessed our secrets, or stolen that money from Gayle’s mailbox? I could probably get him to prove it somehow the next time I see him.”

Spencer’s eyes boggled. “You can’t see him again! What if you slip and say something?” Then she blinked hard. “And does this mean that
more
people who knew Tabitha are on the boat, too? She could have tons of friends here—they could
all
be A, together!”

Aria shook her head. “No, no, Graham
transferred
from Tabitha’s school to a school in Philly. None of her friends are here.”

“Still I agree with Spencer,” Hanna said. “Stay away from that guy. It sounds like a situation you don’t need right now.”

Aria looked annoyed. “I can’t just
drop
him. I’d feel terrible.”

“Why?” Spencer demanded.

Aria stared at her fingers. “Do you guys really think we’re going to get away with this in the end? This might be my last chance to make things right with someone who cared about her before I go to jail.”

Spencer looked at her crazily. “Are you going to
tell
him?”

“No. But I feel I owe him something. I want to make his life better somehow.”

“You don’t owe him anything!” Spencer roared. “The only reason you feel that way is because A is screwing with your mind!”

“Well, that’s a good reason, isn’t it?” Aria shrugged helplessly. “A totally has us cornered! I don’t know what else to do!”

Everyone shut their eyes. A huge rush of dread swept through Emily. A
did
have them cornered. What if A turned them in for everything? They’d done so much, especially if Madison had died. And A seemed to know absolutely everything.

Spencer cleared her throat. “Look. If we figure out who A is, we can nail Gayle’s murder to him or her and protect ourselves.” She looked at Hanna. “You’re Naomi’s roommate. Search through her stuff. See if she has a second phone, like Mona did. Or break into her e-mail and see if any of the A notes are in her sent box.”

Hanna bit a fingernail. “You really want me to get that close to A’s stuff? Haven’t you forgotten the
other
things A has done? Like with Gayle? Or what about how she laced your brownies with LSD?”

“But—” Spencer protested, then froze. A footstep on a loose plank squeaked across the deck. Spencer grabbed Emily’s arm. Emily squinted hard through the shadows, terrified of what might be there. The scent of fruity perfume wafted through the air toward her, then vanished. For a few moments, all she could hear was her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Hanna’s phone chimed, and everyone jumped. “It’s just Mike,” Hanna said, checking the screen. “He’s sneaking me into his room for the night.”

“You’re staying with Mike?” Aria looked worried. “You guys could both get in trouble.”

“I’d rather get in trouble than get killed,” Hanna said, then hurried away, looking back and forth into the shadows before descending the stairs.

After a moment, Spencer peered at the others, let out a despairing moan, then walked off, too. Only Aria and Emily remained. They stepped out from under the awning and exchanged a terrified glance.

“Tell me this isn’t happening,” Emily whispered.

Aria wiped raindrops out of her eyes. “I can’t live like this much longer, Em.”

“I know. Neither can I.”

Another bolt of lightning snapped at sea. Emily stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Aria’s shoulders. Aria squeezed back, and the two of them remained that way for a few seconds, shielding each other from the elements.

And maybe from A, too.

On Wednesday morning, Spencer stood on the docks of St. Martin. The cruise ship, which had pulled into the island at sunrise, sat in the harbor among much smaller speedboats and ferries, looking a little like an eighteen-year-old in a classroom of first-graders. The sky was a pinkish-gray, the air smelled like sun-baked pavement, and shopkeepers lifted the metal grates of their jewelry stores and placed plaques in the windows that read
DIAMOND SALE!
and
BEST PRICES ON THE ISLAND!

About twenty or so kids from the diving class were on the dock, too, struggling into rash guards and picking through the rented diving equipment. Kirsten slathered sunscreen on her arms, then offered the tube to Spencer. “Are you really thinking of diving away from the group?”

Spencer opened her mouth to say that she was, but then hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to dive alone—not with A around.

She gazed up and down the docks, feeling a nervous pull in her stomach.
A is on the boat with us
. On one hand, it seemed impossible. But on the other, it made perfect sense—A was everywhere. Of
course
A was on the boat. A could be watching her that very second.

“Morning, Spencer.”

Reefer stood behind her, wearing plaid swim trunks that showed off his muscled legs and holding a pair of neon-green swim fins.

“Isn’t it a lovely day?” Naomi, who was standing next to him, added with a smirk. Instead of wearing a rash guard, like a sensible scuba diver, she had on a skimpy, metallic string bikini that showed off her ample cleavage. When she noticed Spencer looking her up and down, she moved a little closer to Reefer, practically stepping on his foot.

“Hi,” Spencer said woodenly, then turned her back on them. Ever since scuba class, Reefer hadn’t had any time for her. She’d received a sweet text from him at dinner the night before, saying he’d look for her, but then he’d sent another a few minutes later, saying, “Sorry, Naomi needs to talk, let’s catch up soon.” After dinner, when she and Aria were wandering around the arcade, she’d noticed Reefer sitting with Naomi in a corner, their heads angled together intimately.

She bent down and grabbed a dive tank in her arms. When she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the chrome, she winced. Her skin looked sallow in her bright-yellow Body Glove rash guard. And she’d been so tired last night, she hadn’t bothered to take a shower, so her hair hung in dirty, salty clumps. How could she compare with Naomi?

And what about what Hanna had said about Naomi? Was it possible that she could be A? Even if she wasn’t, she had a lot of reasons to be angry at them—especially if A told her what they’d done to her cousin. Last night, after Hanna had gotten that message, Spencer had lain in bed, thinking about the car accident on Reeds Lane. She couldn’t believe she’d nearly
forgotten
about it.

As they’d driven away from that horrible scene, she’d turned to Hanna nervously. “What if the girl wakes up and realizes who you are?”

“Well, I told her my name was Olivia and that I was from Yarmouth,” Hanna mumbled.

“But what if she sees a picture of you in an old
People
?”

Hanna turned her head sharply and stared out the window. “Well, let’s hope she doesn’t.”

Judging by the fact that no cops had knocked on Spencer’s door, asking questions, or that the news didn’t even
report
on the story, Madison
didn’t
seem to remember. Spencer had hoped it was because Madison had been too drunk, but there had always been a little voice inside her, whispering that it could have been because of something else. The first rule of lifesaving class said never to move someone who’d been in an accident. And then there had been that horrible
crack
of bone when Spencer had dropped Madison, a sound that now rang in Spencer’s ears as though on autorepeat. She was the worst person in the world.

She felt Naomi’s eyes on her and shuddered. Then she felt Reefer staring at her, too. She rolled back her shoulders and started toward the drive truck. Reefer broke away from Naomi and followed behind. “I looked for you by the aquarium this morning,” he said.

“Um-hmm,” Spencer murmured, biting down hard on the inside of her lip.

“I thought that was going to be our regular meeting spot.”

“I decided to get an early start,” she said in a clipped voice, not making eye contact.

“Spencer.” Reefer caught her arm, but Spencer wrenched it away and kept going, not bothering to stop for a swim mask that slipped from her fingers and rolled across the pavement. Reefer scooped it up and ran after her. “
Spencer
. Stop.”

Spencer rolled her eyes and paused. Reefer stared at her plaintively. “Are you mad about something?”

Of course I’m mad!
Spencer wanted to scream. But she plucked the dive mask from Reefer’s fingers and smiled tightly. “Nope.”

Reefer glanced over his shoulder at Naomi, who was now talking to Tim. “We’re just buddies, you know. We met at a Princeton party. She was touring the campus.”

Spencer frowned. Naomi wanted to go to Princeton? She hadn’t known that.

“She sort of hijacked me last night,” Reefer whispered. “I wanted to have dinner with you, but she dragged me to the arcade and talked about some family stuff she was going through.”