Burned (19 page)

She lowered the towel and dropped it on one of the chaises. Noel, who was dressed in flowered trunks, sucked in a breath. “Whoa.”

“Oh, stop,” Aria said, smiling to herself. She walked to the steps and started into the pool. The water lapped around her toes, then her calves, then her midsection. She ducked her head under and came up sputtering. “
Cold!
”

“You’ll get used to it.” Noel floated up to her. “Come here,” he whispered, grabbing her around the waist and holding her close.

Aria wrapped her legs around him, feeling weightless and free. They kissed for a long time, the chlorine-filled water brushing against their bodies. In the bowels of the ship, the New Age Cirque du Soleil music started to play.

“Let’s see your swim technique,” Noel said when they broke apart.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Aria waded into the deeper end until her feet no longer touched the bottom. Then her legs flailed wildly. Her arms slashed this way and that. After a while, she settled into a swim stroke that Mike called the Aria Paddle.

When she finally made it to the wall, she turned around. Noel looked horrified. “You really
didn’t
ever take swim lessons as a kid.”

Aria shook her head. “Mike did, but my parents never insisted on it. I always took sculpting. Or drama. Or hip-hop dance.”

“We should probably teach you the basics,” Noel said. “Do you know how to do the dead man’s float?”

Aria winced at the name. “Uh, no.”

Noel led her back to the shallow end. “This will help you in case you ever get stranded at sea.”

Aria gave him a crazy look. “Thanks, but I don’t plan on that happening.”

“No one ever does.” Noel put his hands on his hips. “Lie facedown in the water. I’ll hold you up.”

Aria did as she was told. She felt Noel’s hands prop her up under her waist. “Stretch out your arms!” he said. “Now totally relax!” It was weird not to thrash around to stay afloat—she kept thinking she was going to sink. But after a moment, she went with it and opened her eyes underwater. The bottom of the pool had diamond-shaped tiles. She could just make out Noel’s blurry feet.

She turned her head to breathe, then plunged under again. Her limbs felt heavy, but buoyant. It was Zen, like she really
was
dead.

Tabitha’s body floating in the waves flashed in her mind. Then came a voice:
You did that. You’re going to be punished
. Instantly, her focus shattered. She breathed in a mouthful of water and came up sputtering, staring at Noel as if he’d seen into her thoughts.

“What happened!” Noel cried, oblivious. “You were doing great!”

Aria wiped water out of her eyes. “I got scared,” she muttered. It wasn’t a lie.

Over the next hour, Aria learned how to tread water with the flutter and frog kicks. She struggled with sculling, but had a pretty decent first try at the elementary backstroke. By the time the sun came out again and a few kids appeared on the pool deck, Aria felt exhausted but almost successful. She and Noel retreated to the hot tub and shared a pitcher of lemonade.

“You do make a pretty good teacher,” she told Noel, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s romantic, too. Both of us almost naked, you holding me up …”

“Want to make it a regular thing?” Noel sipped his drink. “If you knew how to swim, we could surf together. You’d love it. It’s addictive.”

“I don’t think I should surf quite yet,” Aria said, shutting her eyes and letting the hot tub jets massage her legs. “But sure. We can do more lessons.”

“How about later? I could take a day off surfing.”

Aria opened her eyes. There was such a tender look on Noel’s face that she hated to let him down. “I can’t,” she said regretfully. “I have to meet Graham.”

“Oh.” Noel looked disappointed. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry.” Aria felt genuinely bad—Noel looked so upset. “We’re just friends.”

“I know, I know. He likes you, though. A dude can tell.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Aria said quickly. “He’s
this close
to making a date with Tori. They ran into each other at dinner last night, and she invited him to sit at her table, but we’re not really counting
that
as a date because it wasn’t planned.”

Noel snickered. “You really like playing Cupid, don’t you?”

“Definitely,” Aria said. “It makes me feel good.” She meant that in more ways than one.

Someone turned on a radio, and a Shakira song played. Caterers began to set out a buffet, and a few kids got in line. Noel lifted the locket that hung around Aria’s neck. “I’m glad you’re still wearing this.”

“It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” Aria murmured.

Noel dropped the necklace back to her chest, and she stared at it again. There was something so familiar about it, something she couldn’t place.

Something next to her towel caught her eye. Her cell phone screen had lit up. She climbed out of the hot tub and looked at the screen.
One new text
.

She turned her back so Noel couldn’t see. After she read it through, she pressed
DELETE
and, luckily, the note vanished. But she wouldn’t forget the message for a long time.

An hour later, Emily stood with Aria and Spencer in a secluded corner near the shuffleboard deck, grass skirts around their waists. She listened to the beginning bars of the Hawaiian hula sound they’d chosen for the talent show swell through the portable iPod speakers. After a moment, she counted off. “Five, six, seven, eight …”

They all waved their hands gracefully and started wiggling their hips. About thirty seconds in, Aria stopped and stared at the others. “We’re all making our hands go in different directions for that part,” she said. “We all need to swish to the right first,
then
the left.”

“I’m doing the best I can, considering the fact that my ankle is killing me.” Spencer held up her left foot, which had an Ace bandage wrapped around it. She said she’d slipped in baby oil earlier.

“And we talked about adding that waddling-like-a-duck move,” Aria said as she paused the song. “Does anyone remember exactly how to do it? Ali was definitely the best at it.”

“I’m so
sick
of Ali,” Emily mumbled angrily under her breath.

Spencer and Aria’s heads snapped up. “What was that, Em?” Aria asked.

“Nothing,” Emily said stiffly, smoothing down the grass skirt. One of the blades pierced her thigh, and she winced. “Does anyone else think these skirts suck?” she snapped.

Spencer leaned against the railing, looking worried. “Are you okay?”

Emily sighed. “I just don’t feel in the mood to do this anymore. I mean, what’s the point?” She shoved her flip-flops back on her feet, keeping her eyes averted from her friends. “We’re being tortured by A. We’re practically wanted by the police. Don’t you think doing a talent show routine is a little ridiculous? How are we going to ride a Vespa in jail?”

“It’s a nice diversion,” Spencer said quietly.

“Did something happen, Em?” Aria pressed. “Something with A? Something with that girl you saw on TV yesterday? Is she really on the ship?”

Emily looked away, biting her lip. She regretted that her friends had been there to witness her CNN Preppy Thief meltdown. She didn’t want to drag them into the scandal. “She got off the boat yesterday,” she lied—although, for all she knew, it was true. There had been no trace of Jordan when Emily got back to her room the day before, and she hadn’t heard from her since. “And let’s never talk about it again, okay?”

There was a long, awkward pause. “Okay,” Spencer said, concern in her voice.

“Good,” Emily said perfunctorily. But when she shut her eyes, all she could think about was that news broadcast.
The Preppy Thief
. Jordan being led to jail in an orange jumpsuit.

Google had provided a hundred links with all the awful details. Jordan—or Katherine DeLong, or whatever her name was—didn’t come from a poor family, as she’d told Emily, but a very wealthy one from outside New York City. There were pictures of her at society events in Manhattan and debutante parties in the Hamptons. She’d been stealing boats, cars, planes—basically, anything she could get her hands on—for two years now, jet-setting across the world to attempt bigger and more daring heists. She had finally been arrested and thrown in jail near Philly a few months earlier, when she was caught driving her father’s law partner’s Ferrari. Now the FBI was after her.

The articles described her as a “con woman,” capable of convincing people of anything and everything just to get her way. Other reporters called her a “sociopath,” a “girl Houdini,” and “a miscreant with no respect for private property.” Apparently, Jordan didn’t steal the vehicles because she had any use for them—it was all for the thrill.

It was crushing. Emily had felt reborn with Jordan. For a few blissful hours, there had been something good in her world again. But how could she have fallen for another liar? Did Jordan even like her at all, or was she exploiting Emily’s kindness and generosity to keep a low profile? What if Emily got in trouble just for associating with her? A knew about it, too—what if A told?

Sighing, she grabbed her bag from the ledge where she’d left it. “I’m going back to my room for a while. I’ll be ready for the performance tomorrow, though. I promise.”

She padded toward the elevator, glancing over her shoulder just once. Aria and Spencer were whispering, probably trying to decide whether or not to follow her. She was glad when they didn’t.

There was no one in the elevator for her ride to her floor, and the hallway to her room was empty. But when she saw a figure sitting at her door, she froze, her heart suddenly beating fast. It was Jordan.

Jordan glanced up at the same time. Her lips parted, and she started to stand. “Emily!”

Emily turned around and walked the other way, the grass skirt scratching against her legs.

“Emily!” Jordan called again, running after her. “Wait!”

Emily kept going, saying nothing. “I know you’re mad,” Jordan blurted. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I tried, a few times, but … I just didn’t know how.”

“Well, now it’s all out in the open, isn’t it?” Emily said brusquely, pulling open the heavy door to the stairs. She had no idea where she was going. She just knew she had to go
somewhere
.

“So that’s it?” Jordan’s voice cracked. “You’re just going to walk away from us?”

Emily pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and climbed the first set of stairs, the grass skirt swishing loudly against her legs.

“Emily, please,” Jordan said. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

Emily paused mid-step. When she turned, Jordan’s face was stained with tears. Her pert nose was red-rimmed from crying, and her hands were worrying the hem of her T-shirt. A T-shirt, incidentally, she had borrowed from Emily’s closet—because Emily was so frickin’ nice and naive. The image of Jordan on TV flared in her mind.
Walk away
, a wounded voice inside her said.

But she also knew what Jordan meant. Something amazing had happened between them.

She swallowed hard. “You lied to me. I don’t know anything about you. I didn’t even know your real name!”

“I know. And I feel terrible about it. But it wasn’t because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to
protect
you.”

Emily ran her fingers over a crack on the wall. “Did you really escape from jail?”

“Yes,” Jordan said in a quiet voice.

“Why weren’t you wearing that orange jumpsuit when I first saw you?”

“I was in my regular clothes in the holding cell.”

“And why did you pick the name Jordan?”

“It’s my middle name.” Jordan stared at her feet. “And Richards is my mom’s maiden name. I’ve always liked them both better.”

“Why did you steal planes? Cars?”

Jordan lowered her eyes. “It was something my best friend dared me to do. We were in it together.”

Emily scoffed. “Your best friend made you steal a
plane
?”

“It was that girl Mackenzie I started talking about. She dared me to steal bigger things, do more dangerous stuff, basically because she loved the power over me. She promised she’d love me back if I did, but it didn’t work that way.”

Emily curled her toes. The story was awfully familiar—Ali had treated her like that, too.

“Mackenzie was the one who turned me in, actually,” Jordan went on. “I told her I didn’t want to steal things anymore, that it was getting too crazy. So she called the cops on me.”

Emily gasped. “Did she get in trouble?”

Jordan shook her head. “Nope.”

“Why not? Didn’t she steal stuff, too?”

Jordan’s lips twitched. “I didn’t tell the cops that.” She peeked at Emily sheepishly. “Really lame, right?”

Emily stared at the big number
6
painted on the wall next to the stairs. She’d covered for Ali, too. Hell, she’d even let her out of the Poconos house. “It’s not lame. But your relationship with your friend isn’t love. It’s not even
friendship
.”