Julie’s mind went into warp speed. She squatted down next to her and pressed her fingers against Ashley’s throat, searching for a pulse . . . but there was nothing. She held a hand in front of Ashley’s mouth and nose. No breath—not even the faintest rustle.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Julie said, looking around. Had Ashley slipped? But the more she took in the scene, the more it seemed there had been a struggle—there were fingernail marks in the wallpaper, magazines were strewn all over the floor, and, of course, there was the fact that Ashley was lying in the tub instead of on the bathmat.
Had Parker done this?
Don’t think like that, she told herself, but all Julie could think of was Parker’s determined face the other day. Just say the word, she’d said. Only, Julie hadn’t said the word . . . had she? Her thoughts felt muddled suddenly. All she could think of was that crazy dream she’d had, the one where she’d cried out for Parker’s help. She’d been holding her phone when she woke up—had she called Parker while sleeping? Then she thought of Ashley’s Instagram again. What if Parker had seen it and just . . . snapped? What if Parker had done this for her—killed for her?
And then, with a flash, Julie was back in film studies that day in class. Parker had smiled at the group and said, Or Ashley Ferguson. I’d like to see her slip and crack her head open while she’s in the shower washing her copycat hair.
No. It couldn’t be.
Julie snapped back into the present. If Parker had done this, then her fingerprints were probably all over the room—and now so were Julie’s. She couldn’t call the police, because she could never do that to Parker. She knew what she needed to do, and she felt a surge of strength from deep within her that was going to let her do it.
Julie took a few steadying breaths, then got up on her knees and scooted forward. She folded Ashley’s heavy arms across her chest and straightened out her legs. Then she looked around the room for the tools she’d need. Julie was going to get rid of all the evidence—every drop, every fingerprint. Even the body.
That was what you did for best friends.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAC PULLED into the school parking lot and grabbed her phone. She’d been thinking about a certain song the whole drive here—a remix of Rossini and Rihanna, her favorite composer and her favorite guilty pleasure music—and she wanted to watch the YouTube clip again. But when she finally found the email that contained the link, she realized why she might have been thinking about that particular song: Blake had sent it a few weeks before, when they were sort of seeing each other. Thought you’d like this, he’d written, punctuating the email with an XO.
“Stop!” she said to herself aloud, slamming her hands onto the steering wheel for good measure. She had made up her mind that she wouldn’t give Blake another chance, and she had to stick to that. Why was it so freaking hard?
But maybe there were other reasons she was feeling a little shaky this morning. She’d met with Dr. Rose, the psychological profiler, late yesterday afternoon. Twice Mackenzie had to sit on her hands to keep them from shaking, and three times she’d caught herself humming a Dvořák piece, something she did when she was nervous. Dr. Rose had asked a bunch of benign-sounding questions about Mac’s self-esteem, her involvement with Nolan (which she’d totally downplayed), whether she’d liked Granger’s film studies class, and why she’d felt the need to follow her friends into his house the night he was killed. Mac couldn’t even remember what she’d said, she’d been so nervous.
And then, strangely, Dr. Rose had asked her about the other girls. Ava seemed very tightly wound, the doctor commented—did she seem traumatized about her mother’s death? Same with Caitlin—she lost her brother, that sort of thing had to make her angry, right? And Julie had her troubled homelife, and Parker, well . . . “Sounds like you’re involved with some friends who have some serious baggage,” the doctor had concluded. “And you know, people who have . . . issues, well, they can act out in other ways.”
Mac had stared at her. “You mean by killing people?” she’d asked.
The doctor just blinked. “Of course not,” she said. “Unless that’s what you think.”
Mac didn’t know what to think. Should she suspect the others? In some ways, it made sense: They’d all been right there for that conversation in film studies. And if one of them killed Nolan, of course she would kill Granger to shut him up—and involve the other girls as unwitting accomplices. Caitlin hated Nolan more than any of the rest of them. Or what about Ava? Nolan had started those awful rumors about her, and Granger had hit on her. Maybe she had a secret violent side.
But then Mac shook off the thought. These were her friends. They weren’t killers. Her only hope was that they could get through the interviews without raising more suspicions and questions about their involvement. The last thing she wanted was for Juilliard to find out she was being questioned or for her parents to worry any more than they had to.
Sighing, she got out of the car and started across the parking lot and looked at the other texts on her phone. There was one from Oliver, a simple Are you okay? She winced, not knowing how to respond, and decided not to respond at all.
As she made her way toward her locker, Mac noticed small clusters of kids gathering in the hall. They were whispering to one another, then breaking apart to form new groups and whisper some more. The air was filled with an electric charge. What was going on? Then Mac noticed Alex Cohen at his locker, his head down. Maybe that was the reason for all the murmuring—Alex had been accused of murder and spent this week in prison, and now he was back. Even though Mac believed Alex wasn’t guilty and was glad, for Ava’s sake, that he’d been cleared, she still felt wary of him. He had called the cops on them.
She opened her locker and began sorting through her books. Nyssa Frankel opened her locker a few feet away as she exchanged rapid-fire sentences with Hannah Broughton. “She’s just gone,” Mac heard her whispering. “That’s what her mom told the police.”
Mac’s ears perked up. Who was gone? Julie? Mac knew Nyssa and Julie were friends. What if Julie was overwhelmed from talking to Dr. Rose yesterday and just . . . took off?
Hannah placed her hands on her hips. “Do you think she was kidnapped? I heard her room was, like, totally spotless. Which was really weird—apparently she’s a total slob.”
Mac set her mouth in a line. Julie definitely wasn’t a slob. . . .
Nyssa shut her locker with a loud click. “Do you think she ran away?”
Hanna shook her head firmly. “If Ashley was running away, wouldn’t she have at least taken her phone? You know she can’t live without it.”
Mac’s eyes widened. Ashley?
She turned away from the girls, pulled out her phone, and called up the local news site. Sure enough, the top story was Local Teen Missing from Home. The story explained how Ashley Ferguson’s parents had found her missing when they came home from work. Her car was in the driveway and her phone in her room, charging. They’d waited a few hours, thinking she’d just gone for a run, before finally calling the police around 10 PM.
A creeping sense of horror flooded through Mac until her hair practically stood on end. Ashley had been on the list.
Slamming her locker shut, she turned down the hall and saw Caitlin and Ava talking in a huddle in the corner. Mac broke into their circle. “Okay, what the hell?” she whispered.
“I guess you heard?” Ava asked, her gaze darting back and forth.
Mac nodded. As she brought her hand to her face, she realized her fingers were shaking. “We shouldn’t talk about this here,” she said, looking around the busy hall. “There are so many people—”
“But, you guys,” Caitlin interrupted, her voice shrill. “What’s going on?”
Mac picked at a loose string on her sweatshirt cuff. “We shouldn’t assume the worst,” she said in a low voice. “It could be completely unrelated, okay? Or Ashley could have run away. I mean, we said she’d . . . you know . . .
in the shower, right? And that isn’t what happened. She’s just disappeared.”
But as they looked at one another, it seemed clear that wasn’t what anyone thought. Caitlin started to shake. “This is our fault,” she whispered. “We said those names. And now everyone’s dying.”
“Stop.” Ava caught her arm. “We really, really can’t talk about this here.”
“Maybe we should just turn ourselves in,” Caitlin said frantically, her voice rising. It was clear she had to talk about this right then—there was no waiting. “Before anyone else is killed. Before anything else happens. What do you think?”
“And what good would that do?” Ava hissed. “You really think whoever’s doing this will stop once we’re in prison?”
“Maybe!” Caitlin cried, her voice turning a few heads.
“Shh,” Mac warned her, hoping that the passing students assumed they were talking about an upcoming history exam. She leaned closer to the girls. “Do you hear yourself?” she said to Caitlin. “You want to throw your life away for some stupid conversation we had? Like we’re the first people ever who talk about people we want dead. Come on, Caitlin.”
“We’re the first people whose people we want dead actually end up dead!” Caitlin whispered, the blood pumping at her temples.
“Let’s think about this logically,” Mac said, her voice low. “Maybe we can figure this out ourselves. We should question some of the girls Granger was fooling around with. I mean, they had motive to kill Granger, right?”
Ava nodded. “Alex said he saw a girl go into Granger’s house some time that night, after we left. It could have been one of them.”
“That covers Granger,” Caitlin agreed. “But what about Ashley? Parker’s dad? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Is there someone who does make sense?” Ava snapped.
Mac couldn’t help it—her eyes darted toward Ava suspiciously. She thought about her own conversation with Dr. Rose. It was hard not to have some hypotheses. She barely knew these girls.
Ava stiffened. “I didn’t hurt Granger,” she said defensively, as if reading Mac’s mind. “And I didn’t do anything to Ashley.”
“Neither did I!” Caitlin said quickly. She looked at Mac with sudden mistrust. “Where were you yesterday?”
Mac’s mouth dropped open. “Why would I hurt Ashley?” she asked, astonished. “I don’t even know her!”
Ava shrugged. “Why would any of us? Maybe you knew that Ashley overheard our conversation in film studies. Maybe you had to stop her before she broke the news, the same way she spread that rumor about Julie. You have a lot to lose, Mackenzie. You just got into Juilliard. You need to protect your future, don’t you?”
“Are you insane?” Mac cried. It was one thing for her to suspect the others, but how could they suspect her? She pointed at Ava. “I could just as easily say the same thing about you. And what about your boyfriend? He’s got a history of violence!”
Ava’s eyes flashed. “There’s more to that story than you know. Alex beat up that guy because he raped someone.”
“Yeah, but Granger hit on you,” Caitlin pointed out, barely hearing Ava’s explanation. “You make the most sense to want him dead.”
“I’m sorry, have we forgotten that Nolan drove your brother to suicide?” Ava hissed, her lips curling. “You make the most sense for that. Got any cyanide on you, Caitlin?”
Caitlin’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you!” She was about to lunge at Ava, but Mac caught her arm.
“Just hold on a minute!” Mac felt herself snap into a more rational frame of mind. “Everybody take a breath, okay? It’s clear that all the stuff the cops said to us is messing with our heads. But does it actually make sense?” Then she looked around. Ava and Caitlin were frowning. They didn’t do it, she told herself. She wanted so badly to believe that.
“What about Julie?” Caitlin said softly. “Does anyone know where she is?”
“I tried to call her this morning, when I heard the news about Ashley.” Ava’s throat bobbed. “She didn’t answer. And I’m sure she’s not in school after what Ashley did yesterday.”
Mac pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. “Maybe we should ask her where she was yesterday, after our meeting at the police station. That’s about the time Ashley . . . you know.”
Ava widened her eyes. “You’re not saying—”
“Of course not,” Mac interrupted. “Or . . . I don’t know. Ashley was ruining her life.”
“And did you see that Instagram?” Caitlin whispered. “Ashley called Animal Control on Julie’s mom. They took away all the cats. It was on the news.”
Ava put her hands on her hips. “You two are awfully quick to point fingers.”
“So are you,” Caitlin snapped.
The bell rang, and they all flinched. Ava slung her Chanel bag over her shoulder. “We’ll talk later,” she said tightly to Caitlin.
“Unless we’re in jail,” Caitlin mumbled under her breath.
The two of them didn’t even look at Mac, which gave her a pang of regret. She’d screwed up. She shouldn’t have let on that she was even considering either of them as a suspect—it had only pulled them apart. They needed to stick together right now, not be fighting in the hallways.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and started down the hall, still fuming. As she turned into the orchestra room, she caught sight of Claire lingering by the bulletin board, reading an announcement about rehearsals. A horrible realization stopped her in her tracks as the film studies conversation rushed back into her mind. First Nolan, then Parker’s dad, then Ashley . . .
And then . . . Claire?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE REST OF THE SCHOOL day was a blur as Caitlin tried—and failed—to focus on classes and soccer practice. In chemistry, she kept watching the door, sure someone was going to burst in and announce that Ashley Ferguson was dead. At soccer, she kept her phone on her—much to Coach Leah’s chagrin—waiting for a call that the police wanted to see her again. Or, even worse, a text that said that someone else on their list was dead. She kept one eye on Ursula Winters, too, wondering if Ursula was behind all this. She was in their film studies class. Had she heard their conversation that day? Was that why Ursula was snickering as she took a long pull from her Gatorade bottle? Were those scratches on Ursula’s arms from a struggle with Ashley Ferguson in her house?
But why?
Caitlin avoided her new friends, too, freaked out by the conversation with Ava and Mac that morning. Not that they wanted to talk to her anyway. When Ava saw her at the end of the hall between fourth and fifth periods, she turned and walked in the opposite direction. When she and Mac were next to each other in the cafeteria line, Mac shifted to the salad line to avoid speaking with her. And on top of everything, Jeremy was also avoiding her. Although maybe she was avoiding him, too. They’d had a few stilted conversations after their botched date on Satuday, but Caitlin could tell he was still upset . . . and maybe she was still upset, too. She’d left him message after message the night of the concert, trying to apologize and reason with him. He was seeing this as so black and white.
On top of all that, her appointment with Dr. Rose was this afternoon. She walked into the police station so on edge that she felt like even her eyelids were trembling. She felt guilty—for everything. Which didn’t even make sense. Just because she’d been part of a conversation where a bunch of girls named people they wouldn’t mind seeing dead—and said enemies then died—didn’t make her a murderer. It wasn’t like her words were magic or they were God. But what was happening? Who was doing this?
Could it be one of them?
“Sit down, Caitlin,” Dr. Rose said, gesturing to a chair across from her. Caitlin sat stiffly, her hands in her lap. The clock ticked noisily in the corner. Caitlin stared at the spines on the books in the corner. They were all technical psychological journals that would probably put her to sleep.
“So.” Dr. Rose tapped her nails on her clipboard. “I he
ard a girl went missing at school today.”
Caitlin’s head whipped up. She hadn’t expected Dr. Rose to talk about that. “Uh, yeah,” she said as casually as she could. “Ashley Ferguson.”
“Do you know her?”
Caitlin shook her head. “Not really. She was in a few of my classes, that’s all.”
“Film studies, right?”
A chill went up Caitlin’s spine. What did Dr. Rose know? “Uh, yeah,” she said vaguely.
“The man who taught that class recently died, didn’t he?”
Her heard pounded fast. “Yeah.”
Dr. Rose made a note. Caitlin was almost positive it had something to do with the Granger–breaking into his house–film studies–Ashley connection. God, this all looked so bad for her. “So did Ashley ever give you any trouble? I heard she was a bit of a bully.”
Caitlin shook her head with an honest no. “I barely knew her.”
“But she was giving someone trouble, wasn’t she? Someone you know?”
Caitlin felt a pull in her chest. “Well, maybe,” she said in a small voice.
“You can tell me who it is.” Dr. Rose leaned forward. “Everything you tell me here is confidential.”
It was weird: At school when they were talking, Caitlin had felt like she couldn’t trust the other girls anymore, that it was every man for himself at this point. But now, faced with a cop—well, kind of a cop, anyway—she couldn’t bring herself to tell on Julie. It felt like a huge betrayal. Julie was nice and sweet. She didn’t deserve the way Ashley had treated her, and she couldn’t be capable of murder.
“Ashley sent that email to the whole school about Julie’s mom being a hoarder, didn’t she?” Dr. Rose said smoothly.
Caitlin blinked. So Dr. Rose already knew. “Something like that.”
“Then she put kitty litter in Julie’s locker, and she posted a picture on Instagram. Is that right?”