Deadly Little Secret

  Copyright © 2008 by Laurie Faria Stolarz All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion Books for Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  First Edition

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Reinforced binding

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

  ISBN 978-1-4231-1144-3

  Visit www.hyperionteens.com

  Table of Contents

  Other Books By This Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Acknowledgments

  Deadly Little Lies

  About The Author

  Also by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Project 17

  Bleed

  Blue Is for Nightmares

  White Is for Magic

  Silver Is for Secrets

  Red Is for Remembrance

  For my mother,

  who gave me the creativity to write,

  and for MaryKay,

  who showed me I could

  1

  I could have died three months ago.

  Ever since, things haven’t quite been the same for me.

  It happened on the last day of school. I was walking across the parking lot by the gym when my earring slipped off—a hammered sterling-silver hoop with a clasp that never seemed to fit quite right. But the pair was my favorite, given to me by my mother just months before, on my sixteenth birthday.

  I squatted down to search the pavement. Everything that happened next sped by in what felt like a three-second blur: Gloria Beckham’s car peeling across the parking lot in my direction. Me, sort of frozen there, on hands and knees, assuming the car would come to a sudden halt when she saw me.

  It didn’t.

  It kept racing toward me, toward the two hockey nets that Todd McCaffrey had left in the middle of the lot while he went in to fetch more equipment. At some point, I heard Todd’s voice yell out, “Stop!” Then the car plowed into the hockey nets at a speed high enough to crush them beneath the grill.

  And it didn’t stop there. The car continued toward me without missing a beat.

  I imagine that my heart sped up, that my adrenaline did that hormonal-pumping thing it does when it’s trying to brace you for what happens next. But what happened next I could never have prepared myself for.

  Being shoved out of the way.

  My shoulders slamming against the curb with enough force to cover my back in bruises and scabs for the next several weeks.

  The burning of my skin as my shirt lifted up and the small of my back scraped against the pavement, tearing off two layers of skin.

  And the peculiar way he touched me.

  “Are you okay?” the mystery boy asked.

  I opened my mouth to say something—to ask him what happened, to see about Gloria, to find out who he was.

  But then: “Shhh . . . don’t try and talk,” he whispered.

  The truth is I couldn’t talk. It felt like my chest had broken open, like someone had cracked me in two and stolen my breath.

  “Blink once if you’re okay,” he continued, “twice if you need to go to the hospital.”

  I blinked once, but I honestly didn’t want to. I didn’t want to stop looking at him for even one solitary moment—the sharp angles of his face; his dark gray eyes, flecked with gold; and those pale pink lips pressed together with concern—despite how inappropriate the moment was for gawking.

  He glanced over his shoulder in search of Todd, who had gone to help Gloria.

  “I called nine-one-one!” Todd shouted out.

  The boy, probably a year or two older than I was, turned his focus back to me. His shoulders, broad and strong under his navy blue T-shirt, hovered right above my chest. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” His face was so close I could smell his skin—a mixture of sugar and sweat.

  I nodded and let out a breath, relieved that my lungs were still working. “How’s Gloria?” I mouthed; no sound came out.

  He looked toward her car again. It had finally come to a stop halfway up the grassy hill that ran along the side of the school.

  The boy, noticing our closeness maybe, sat back on his heels then and ran his fingers through his perfectly rumpled dark hair.

  And then he touched me.

  His hand rested on my stomach, almost by accident I think, because the gesture seemed to startle him even more than it startled me. He stared at me with new intensity, his eyes wide and urgent, his lips slightly parted.

  “What is it?” I asked, noticing the scar on his forearm—a narrow gash that branched off in two directions, like a broken tree limb.

  Instead of answering, he pressed his palm harder against me and closed his eyes. His wrist grazed the bare skin right above my navel, where my sweater was still pulled up.

  It nearly made me lose my breath all over again.

  A moment later an ambulance came zooming into the lot, the siren blaring, the lights flashing bright red and white, and the boy backed away, just like that.

  He crawled free of me, darted over to his motorcycle. Hopped on. Revved up the engine. And then sped away.

  Before I could even ask him his name.

  Before I could thank him for saving my life.

  2

  The first time I saw her I knew—long and twisty caramel-blond hair, curvy hips, and lips the color of fire.

  She was talking that first time—in a group of faceless girls. I was there, too— standing a good distance back. Watching her.

  I wondered what she was all about—if her cheeks were naturally seashell pink, or if she was embarrassed or maybe wearing makeup.

  I watched her lips as they pouted, then stretched wide when she laughed. It made me laugh, too. I couldn’t stop watching her, imagining the way her mouth would move when she said my name, or told me she loved me, or came at me with a kiss.

  And so, I made a silent vow to myself that day. I would find out about her cheeks, and the way her kisses would taste. I would find out everything, because I simply had to know. I had to have her. I still do. And o
ne day, very soon, I will.

  3

  It’s been three months since the accident, and while my burns, blisters, and bruises have all healed, there’s a piece that still feels broken. And, no, it’s not my heart or anything sentimental like that. I’m not one of those overly emotional damsels in distress, eagerly awaiting her prince to come and save her. A little closure, please, is all I ask—the opportunity to see that boy just one more time—to tell him “thank you,” to ask him what he was doing there in the first place.

  And to find out why he touched me like that.

  “A little frustrated, are we?” Kimmie asks, noticing the oomph with which I wedge out my clay.

  It’s C-Block pottery class, and I’m working the air pockets from my mound of sticky redness by thwacking, plopping, and kneading it against the table.

  “Personally, I’m surprised you haven’t cracked completely,” she continues.

  “Don’t you have some clay to wedge?” I ask her.

  “Don’t you have some life to get?”

  I ignore her comment and proceed to remind her that unwedged clay means a sculpture that’s bound to be blown to bits in the kiln.

  “Maybe I like bits.”

  “Do you like slime? Because that’s what your piece is starting to look like.” I pass her a sponge for the excess water.

  “Honestly, Camelia, your control-freakish ways are starting to get a little old. You really should get out more.”

  Kimmie and I have been friends since kindergarten— through who-can-blow-the-bigger-Hubba-Bubba-bubblegum contests to the time in the eighth grade when Jim Konarski spun the bottle and I had to kiss him. For the record, I still get crap about missing his lips entirely and accidentally tonguing his left nostril.

  “I’m fine,” I assure her.

  She takes a moment to look me over—from my unruly dirty-blond locks and giraffe-like neck to my self-declared lack of style. Today: a long-sleeved T, dark-washed jeans, and a pair of black ballet flats—exactly what the mannequin at the Gap was wearing.

  “Fine?” she says, working her mound of clay into what appears to be an anatomically correct man: pecs, package, and all. “Miss I Spend My Saturday Nights Playing Makeover with My Nine-Year-Old Neighbor?”

  “For your information, that only happened once, and her mom was having a Mary Kay party.”

  “Whatever,” she says, lowering her voice.

  Pottery may well be a fairly laid-back class, rulewise, but Ms. Mazur still insists on our speaking in hushed tones, for the sake of artistic concentration.

  “Quick, one to ten, John Kenneally,” she whispers.

  “I refuse to play this game with you.”

  “Come on,” she prods. “It’s a brand-new year, we’re juniors now, and word is he’s available. Personally, I’d give him at least an eight-point-five for style, a seven for looks, and a nine for personality. The boy’s a freakin’ riot.”

  “Sorry to break this to you, but I’m not interested in John Kenneally.”

  “Then who, Snow White?”

  I shake my head, still thinking about the boy from the parking lot—that sugary smell, those dark gray eyes.

  And the way he touched me.

  After the accident, after Gloria Beckham’s full recovery—turns out she went into diabetic shock (hence her confusing the accelerator for the brake and whipping through the parking lot at a speed high enough to score her jail time in some states)—I scoured the school yearbooks, searching for the boy’s identity.

  Without any luck.

  I pause a moment in my clay-wedging and reach down to touch the area below my navel, somehow still able to feel his fingers there.

  “Okay, that’s it!” Kimmie declares. “You really need to get yourself a man.”

  “Oh, please,” I say, pretending just to be straightening out the front of my apron. I run my fingers over a seam. “I wasn’t doing anything scandalous.”

  “That’s probably more hand action than you’ve gotten all year, isn’t it? Forget it; I don’t want to know. Here,” she says, thrusting her verging-on-obscene clay man in front of me. “Say hello to Seymour. He’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do on such short notice.”

  4

  At lunch, Kimmie and I claim a much coveted spot on the upperclassmen side of the cafeteria—only two tables from the soda machines and just a sandwich crust’s throw from the exit doors. A total score for midlisters like us—and one we intend to keep for the entire year.

  Sitting with us is our friend Wes. We kind of adopted him during our freshman year, when the poor boy showed up at a Halloween dance dressed as a six-foot-long wiener. A couple of the lacrosse players thought it’d be funny to swipe his bun, making him look borderline offensive. Wes squawked to the chaperones. The lacrosse players got detentions. And that was how our good friend Wes earned the nickname of Wesley, the Oscar Mayer Whiner.

  “Nice hair,” Wes smirks, eyeing Kimmie’s new pixie cut. She recently dyed it jet black and had more than sixteen inches hacked off for Locks of Love.

  “For your information, it goes with my style.”

  “Oh, yeah, and what’s that? Goth girl gone wrong?”

  “Vintage vamp,” she explains, gesturing to her outfit: a polka-dot dress circa 1960, combat boots, and a frilly red scarf. Thick black rings of Maybelline outline her pale blue eyes. “Laugh now, but it won’t be so funny when I’m a rich and famous fashion designer with my own makeover show.”

  “Wait, will that makeover be for you?” Wes asks, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

  “Back off,” I say, threatening him with a forkful of mac ’n’ cheese, aimed and ready to launch at his mousse-infested brown hair.

  “You’ll never do it,” he dares. “Just think about the mess that could leave on the table.”

  “The big, fat, hairy mess,” Kimmie says, stifling a laugh.

  “Especially when I retaliate with my meat loaf surprise.” He smiles.

  I drop my fork to my plate, avoiding a possible food fight.

  “I take it we’re feeling a little hostile today, Camelia Chameleon?” he asks.

  “Very funny,” I say, hating the sound of my name—and his incessant need to attach a reptile to it.

  “And speaking of hostile,” he continues, “did either of you hear about the new kid? Word is he’s a killer.”

  “Killer hottie, I hope,” Kimmie says, slipping a spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth.

  “Killer as in one who kills,” he explains. “Rumor has it, he nixed his girlfriend . . . pushed her off a cliff. The girl ended up landing against a rock and splattering to her bloody death.”

  “Sounds like someone’s been watching too much CSI,” Kimmie says.

  “It’s never too much,” he snaps in his own defense.

  “Wait,” I say, pushing my mac ’n’ cheese nastiness to the side. “What makes you think this rumor is true?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Kimmie grins. “Camelia doesn’t believe in rumors . . . ever since they made that one up about her.”

  Wes laughs, knowing just what she’s talking about. Freshman year, Jessica Peet, all pissy because I wouldn’t let her cheat off my history test, decided to get me back by saying I made a habit out of peeing in the locker room shower rather than making the trip to the bathroom. For one whole quarter, I had people avoiding whatever shower stall I used.

  Before I can defend myself, Matt comes and drops his books at the end of our table. “Hey, ladies,” he says. “And Whiner.” He nods at Wes.

  “Who’s laughing now?” I shoot Wes an evil smirk.

  Matt and I used to date, but now we’re just friends. People (like Kimmie) insist that he and I should give it another whirl, but honestly, we probably never should have whirled in the first place. It totally punctured a hole in our otherwise perfectly platonic friendship. And ever since, things haven’t quite been the same between us.

  “Aren’t we looking spiffy this year?” Kimmie t
akes an oh-so-seductive bite of her peanut butter, slowly stripping Matt of the layers of Abercrombie he’s sporting today.

  Not so surprisingly, Matt doesn’t take her visual molestation as a compliment. Instead, he ignores her and zeroes in on me. “Are we still on for study group this year? I could use some help in French.”

  “I guess,” I say. “Let me check my schedule and see when I’m free.”

  Matt nods and leaves, and Kimmie gives me a kick under the table. “Have you gone mad?” she asks. “That boy’s been working out. He’s a total nine on a one-to-ten scale.”

  “If you like tall, blond, and chiseled, maybe,” Wes says, nonchalantly pinching his itty-bitty bicep. “Personally, I think some girls prefer charm and personality.”

  “Too bad you fall short there, too, huh?” Kimmie says, giving Wes a wink.

  “Matt and I are just friends,” I remind her.

  “Friends, schmends,” she says. “What you need is a man.”

  I look up at the clock, suddenly eager for the bell to ring. And that’s when I see him.

  The boy from the parking lot.

  I feel myself stand. I feel my heart jump up into my throat.

  He sees me, too. I know he does.

  “Um, Camelia, are you okay?” Kimmie asks, following my gaze.

  “Check it out,” Wes pipes up. “That’s him—the guy who nixed his girlfriend.”

  The boy pauses, looking at me for just a second before turning away and walking out the door.

  5

  His name is Ben Carter.

  I know because everybody at school is all abuzz about him. By fifth block of the day, not even three full hours after I first spotted him in the cafeteria, the story has grown into something you might see on a made-for-TV movie. People are saying Ben strangled his girlfriend before he pushed her over the cliff that day; that when the police searched his backpack they discovered a roll of duct tape, a ten-inch knife, and a list of other girls he’d wanted to attack.

  It’s last block of the day, a free block for Kimmie and me, and having snuck out of the library a few minutes early, we’re standing just two classrooms away from Ben’s locker, waiting for the bell to ring.