Paradise Lost

  Poppy took a step backward, heartbreak written all over her face. A few girls nearby laughed behind their hands. Poppy looked at them, confused. Clearly she was not accustomed to being the object of laughter. I glanced over at Noelle and the others, and every last one of them looked like they wanted to flee. Like they'd rather be doing anything other than witnessing this. Which I supposed I understood. It was even hard for me to watch, and they actually were friends with Poppy. No one liked to see their friend get dissed.

  "Is this because of her?" Poppy asked.

  "Not entirely, no, "Upton said, putting his hands in his pockets. "I just don't feel that way about you. I'm sorry."

  Paige and Sienna stepped forward, but Poppy whirled around, searching the club for someone.

  Oh, crap. Me.

  The girl crossed the few feet between us in about half a second, knocking over an oblivious partier in the process, sending her margarita flying. Poppy got so up in my face that I could count the pores on her nose. My heart pounded with trepidation, and I could only hope it didn't show on my face.

  Never let your rival see you sweat.

  "I've been meaning to ask you. How does it feel to be a one-person natural disaster?" Poppy spat. Literally spat. Her saliva pelted me just below my left eye.

  "What are you talking about?" I replied, quickly wiping away the spittle.

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  "You! Hurricane Reed. You leave a wake of destruction everywhere you go," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Broken relationships, crushed hearts . . . death."

  Tears stung my eyes as I stared back at her. I so wanted to be unruffled by her attack, but how could anyone remain unaffected in the face of that sort of characterization? Was this actually what people were saying about me? Was this really what people thought? Every inch of my skin burned with anger, humiliation, and hurt.

  "Don't think I don't know what happened to Thomas, to that girl in your dorm," she went on. "People talk--and somehow, they always talk about you. You're dangerous."

  I was so stunned, I didn't know how to respond.

  "Poppy. That's enough," Upton said, coming up behind her.

  "Screw you," she said, whirling on him. "Screw the both of you. Good luck trying to survive the storm."

  Then she turned and ran out of the club. Daniel tried to follow, but she was too quick. She hopped in her white BMW and peeled away so fast that she almost spun out and crashed into a sand dune. Everyone in the place gasped, but she managed to backup and race off. Hertail-lights disappeared around a bend, and the crowd slowly returned to its partying. I simply stood there, staring after her. No one had ever said anything that cruel outright to me. I couldn't keep her words from repeating themselves in my mind.

  Wake of destruction . . . one-person natural disaster . . . crushed hearts . . . death . . . Part of me felt the truth of it all. I was a huge sucking funnel cloud of bad luck, bringing misery to everyone I knew.

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  Thomas, Cheyenne, Ivy, Josh, Dash, Noelle. Even Taylor and Kiran still would be enrolled at Easton if I had never shown up there. No one was safe from Hurricane Reed.

  "Well, that was fairly intense," Upton said, reaching for my hand. "Are you all right?"

  "No. Not really," I replied, my voice trembling.

  "Hey. Don't listen to her," Upton said, tipping up my face with his finger. "That's just Poppy. When she's upset, she feels the need to tear down everyone around her. And she's always been quite skilled at it."

  A breeze caught my hair, and I shivered violently. I could only imagine how Poppy was going to treat me for the rest of our vacation. At the very least I was sure I was in for a lot of glares and behind -my-back whispers. But if she was anything like the rest of her friends, I also could look forward to a lot more childish pranks like the shower fiasco--probably worse. Was anyone, even Upton, worth all that?

  And did he really want to stand directly in the storm path of Hurricane Reed?

  "She's right, though," I said, pulling away from him and hugging myself. "You should stay away from me. Every time anyone gets close to me ... something bad happens."

  Upton smirked. "Well, that's a risk I'm just going to have to take," he said, stepping closer and reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear. He let his fingers linger on my cheekbone as he looked into my eyes. "You still don't get it, do you? You've done something to me, Reed Brennan. I can't seem to stop thinking about you. "He took a deep breath and gazed out at the ocean. "It's bloody annoying, actually."

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  He cracked a smile and I couldn't help it. I smiled back. Okay, so maybe he was worth it. There was something about being with Upton that made it difficult to stay in a negative frame of mind. Jealousy, apprehension, sadness, self-pity--they all seemed to flit away when he was near. When it came down to it, it seemed that he was exactly what I needed. The light and happy yang to my seriously depressing yin.

  "Sorry. I hate to be an annoyance," I joked in return.

  He pulled me into a hug, the warmth of his arms instantly chasing away the chill, and rested his chin atop my head.

  "I will only consider you an annoyance if you refuse to dance with me right now," he replied as the DJ switched over to a slow tune.

  "I suppose I could oblige," I said with a grin.

  Upton tugged on my fingers, and I followed him back onto the dance floor. I could still feel Paige, Sienna, and the others watching us, but I concentrated on Upton, making sure I didn't give any of them the satisfaction of catching their eyes. Wrapped safely in Upton's arms, I shut out all the angry, curious, jealous stares. As we swayed back and forth to the music, I let it all go, simply listening to his breathing and feeling the rise and fall of his chest.

  Despite everything else that had happened, that moment, at least, was perfect.

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  CHAPTER 18 FACE-TO-FACE

  In the end, Upton did not spend every single second of the night pinned to my side. After all, sometimes a guy has to pee. It was at one such solo moment that the encounter I had been dreading finally happened. I was standing at the bar, waiting for a glass of ice water, when I saw a familiar hand next to mine. Just seeing those fingers brought back flashes of memories I didn't want to recall. Bare skin, zippers undone...

  Hands ... everywhere.

  "Dash."

  "Hey, Reed."

  My heart was in my throat as the bartender placed my glass in front of me. I picked it up and tried to turn the other way. Away from him. But he touched my forearm lightly.

  "Don't. Please."

  Damn. Damn him and his politeness.

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  I took a deep breath and held it for strength, then turned and forced myself to look at him. To really look into his warm brown eyes. They were totally miserable.

  "Sorry," he said, releasing me and shoving his hands into the pockets of his pressed chinos. Over them, he wore a white T-shirt and a blue-and-yellow Canterbury rugby sweater. The uberpreppy look so worked for Dash. Worked so well that every other girl in our vicinity was eyeing him hungrily as they sipped their drinks. Not that he would ever notice. "Sorry. I just. . . how are you?" he said.

  "Fine," I replied.

  "I heard about everything. What happened the night of Kiran's party. ..," he said. "I was .. . worried."

  "Look, Dash, I really don't think we should be talking to each other," I said, glancing around warily. Noelle may have been pretending to be over Dash, but I knew she was anything but. And I also knew what images would be conjured if she saw the two of us together.

  "I don't care about that right now," he said firmly. "There's something I have to say to you. It's been way too long."

  I took another breath. Where was this going? Please don't let him be about to profess his undying love, because I really don't think I can deal with that just now. Although it would have been flattering. He was, after all, Dash McCafferty.

  "Did you ever get that e-mail?" he asked, running his fingers along the edge of the black lacque
r bar top.

  I blinked. For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought back, back to all the drama, all the conversations and un-answered

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  questions, and a light-bulb suddenly went off in my mind. The e-mail. He'd sent it to me after the Legacy incident, and I'd been about to read it when I'd noticed there were hundreds of e-mails from Cheyenne's ghost in my in-box. Well, from Sabine, really. But at the time, I hadn't known that. Freaked, I had shut down my computer.

  "No. I never read it," I told him.

  Dash blew out a sigh. "I guess it's better face-to-face anyway." He looked at me and put his hand, palm up, on the bar. "I just wanted to apologize," he said. "For that night. For what happened at the Legacy. I was totally out of line. I had already decided to get back together with Noelle, but when I got that note from you--"

  "Wait. You got a note from me?" I blurted.

  Dash blinked. "Um. .. yeah." He said it like, "Urn .. . dull!"

  "Omigod," I said, closing my eyes and resting my glass on the bar. I had to take a deep breath. Sabine's plan had been even more intricate than I'd realized.

  "Anyway, I was so curious," Dash continued. "And then when I saw you ... I don't know what happened. I mean, it's not that I wasn't attracted to you ... we both know I was . . . but I--" He stopped, frustrated by his own lack of focus. "It's just, that was so not me. I don't cheat. Ever."

  I stared at him for a long moment. He didn't know. No one had told him. I had figured that Gage or someone would have relayed everything Sabine had said the night of the shooting. All of her confessions. But clearly they hadn't thought it was important enough. Guys. When it came to dissemination of gossip, they were sorely lacking.

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  "Dash, I know it wasn't you," I said. "It was Sabine. She did all of it."

  Dash's brow creased. "What do you mean?"

  "She sent us the notes. She laced our drinks with ecstasy. She basically orchestrated the whole thing," I told him. "She confessed to all of it the night she shot Ivy."

  Dash sort of froze. He looked like a cardboard cutout of himself, eternally posed in an expression of shock. Then, finally, he bent at the waist and sat down on the vacant barstool behind him.

  "Oh my God. I was drugged?" he said.

  I nodded. "We both were," I confirmed. "It wasn't our faults."

  Then I blushed, thinking back to our almost-kiss in Martha's Vineyard last summer, all the flirtatious e-mails we'd written, the moment we shared at the Driscoll Hotel last fall. All the things that had led up to that night.

  "Well, not entirely our faults," I amended, bringing a blush to Dash's cheeks as well.

  "I knew it. I knew something was off that night." He turned toward the bar and brought his hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail for a moment. "And Noelle knows all this?"

  "She does," I said.

  Dash's jaw clenched. I could practically feel him trying to contain his emotions. "Then I guess she really is done with me," he said. "If she knows all this and she's still with West."

  I somehow managed to contain a laugh. He couldn't actually think she was with West in any real way. He couldn't be that clueless. But

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  then, he was a guy in love. I suppose that could account for a tiny slip in the IQ. I didn't want to tell him about my firmly held belief that Noelle was only smooching West to make Dash jealous. Noelle was, after all, my friend. But I had to say something, if only to wipe that pathetic look off of his normally confident face. Besides, I was sure that Dash was the person Noelle wanted to be with. If I could facilitate their reunion and get things back to normal, all of us would be a lot happier.

  Except "West. But you can't please everyone.

  "I don't think they're serious," I hedged.

  "No?" he asked hopefully, his shoulders straightening.

  "Nah. Probably just an island fling," I said. "Don't give up yet."

  Dash chuckled. "Thanks, Reed." He spun on the bar stool to face me, and then stood up. "So ... friends?"

  Friends. It was what we always had been. How we should have remained all along.

  "Friends," I replied with a nod.

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  CHAPTER 19 MISSING

  The next morning I awoke to the song of my feisty island bird. I opened my eyes and there he was, hopping around on the windowsill. I smiled, let out a yawn, and stretched.

  "You're back," I said quietly.

  He jumped around in a circle as he sang. Like, What? You thought I was going to desert you?

  I rolled onto my back and smiled, listening to his song and recalling all the perfect moments from the night before. After my talk with Dash, Upton and I had taken a walk along the beach, kicking water at each other and trying to tackle each other into the waves. He had driven me home and had walked me to the front door for a goodnight kiss.

  My heart fluttered at the memory. I scooted down in my bed, pulling the soft white sheets up over my head and letting out a little squeal. I hadn't entertained many expectations coming into this trip.

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  I figured I'd read a few books on the beach, maybe get a tan, do the club thing with Noelle. But I hadn't thought beyond that, and I certainly never expected this. I never expected to meet someone and to feel this way. Like I was falling in--

  My rogue thought was cut off by the sound of frantic pounding. The bird took off with a startled jolt, and I sat up straight, tossing off my sheets. Someone was at the front door of the house. I heard Noelle's father say something to one of the servants, and another door in the house slammed.

  Should I go check out the commotion, or should I let the family deal with it? This was their house, their island, their friends. Maybe I would just be interfering. I hesitated behind my closed bedroom door until my curiosity got the better of me. Then I tiptoed down the hall to the open foyer, thinking I could sneak back to my room if I didn't want to get involved.

  Noelle was meeting her father at the door. He was already dressed in creased khakis and a button-down shirt. She was wearing a black silk robe over a black silk nightgown. I looked down at my boxer shorts and rumpled gray Penn State T-shirt. Maybe it was time to invest in some grown-up night clothes.

  I also couldn't help but notice that a fat Christmas tree had appeared in the middle of the great room, as if from nowhere, decorated from top to bottom with silver and white balls, bells, and thick silver ribbon for garland. Evergreen swags hung on the walls, centered by silver bows, and silver-and-white fur stockings were tacked along the breakfast bar. There even was one with my name sewn into

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  it. None of this had been there when we went to bed the night before. Did the Langes have a fleet of Caribbean elves working for them?

  "I've got it," Mr. Lange said to Noelle, reaching for the door.

  Paige and Sienna stood on the doorstep in casual gear: shorts and tank tops, with matching oversized Chanel quilted bags-Paige's green, Sienna's red. They both froze at the sight of Noelle's father.

  "Girls?" he said.

  Paige pushed up her huge sunglasses on top of her head. "We're so sorry to bother you, Mr. Lange, it's just. .. Poppy is missing."

  "What?" Noelle and her father said in unison. He took a step back. "Please, come in."

  They walked into the foyer, but no one made a move toward the living room. Paige spotted me, and instantly her expression turned disgusted, as if she'd just sucked on a lemon. I stepped into the room. There would be no sneaking away now.

  "What do you mean, missing?" Noelle demanded, retying the belt on her robe.

  "I went over there this morning to bring her the standard post-breakup, you-can-do-better-than-him breakfast, and she wasn't in her room," Paige began. She gave me another loathing look, as if to remind me of my role in last night's dumping.

  "Her bed hadn't been slept in," Sienna added in her thick accent, hitching her purse higher on her shoulder.

  "So she never came back to the suite last night?" Noell
e asked Sienna.

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  "No. But the suite is so huge ... I hear nothing from her side of the room when she is there," Sienna replied.

  "So we were walking around the hotel grounds looking for her, when one of the workers came running into the lobby all freaking out," Paige continued. "They found Poppy's car down by the family's private dock with the driver's side door open--and there was blood on the ground."

  "Oh my God," I heard myself say. My hand automatically flew to my mouth.

  "The Simons' thirty-footer is gone," Sienna added. She had yet to even look at me or in any way acknowledge that I was there. "We tried to find her parents, but the hotel people told us they're visiting friends in Antigua for the next two days."

  "And their cell phones went straight to voice mail," Paige added.

  My hands were slick with sweat. Missing? Blood? We had come to St. Barths to put a situation like this one behind us. Poppy's words from the night before suddenly started to echo in my mind.

  Path of destruction... crushed hearts... death ....

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it really was me. Maybe I brought misery everywhere I went.

  "What should we do?" Paige asked, looking at Mr. Lange. "What if someone kidnapped her and stole the boat, and she's out on the open sea with some psycho?"

  Noelle snorted a laugh, and Paige looked at her like she had just thrown up on her Jimmy Choos.

  "This isn't funny," she snapped.

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  "Now, girls. You don't know that something bad has happened to her," Mr. Lange said in a comforting tone.

  "Exactly," Noelle added, throwing out her hands. "This is Poppy we're talking about. The girl who once disappeared from her boarding school for an entire semester to go hot air ballooning over Austria and didn't bother to tell anyone."