Suspicion

  "Is there more of this bread?" I asked, lifting the crusty bit I had left.

  Noelle got up to cut me some more and brought back a cluster of grapes and a few slices of cheese with it. Someone had decided that bland was the way to go, but I would have pretty much killed for a chili cheeseburger. Or a pepperoni pizza. Or a huge pile of jelly donuts.

  "So all this time it was Mrs. Ryan?" Noelle said as she placed the food in front of me on the glass-topped table and sat down again. "Why? Was she doing it for Paige?"

  174

  Sawyer and I looked at one another. If Noelle thought Mrs. Ryan's guilt was unbelievable, she was never going to be able to swallow her motive. I opened my mouth to respond, but a loud shout stopped me short.

  "What the hell is going on here? Where's my father? You can't just drag her away like this! No! Get the hell off of me!"

  It was Daniel Ryan. In one of his rages, it seemed. I heard scuffling footsteps. A crash. The clack of high heels. Suddenly Daniel and Paige came barreling into the kitchen, followed by Dash and Kiran. Daniel's otherwise handsome face was red with rage, his tuxedo tie still knotted tightly around his neck. Paige's auburn hair had come loose from its updo. The tail of her light green gown swished behind her as they stormed into the room.

  "What kind of lies are you telling now?" Daniel shouted, getting right up in my face.

  I instinctively skittered backward on my chair and ended up half in Noelle's lap, half suspended over the floor. He looked a lot like his mother did when she was getting all psychotic.

  "First Poppy and now my mother? Who the hell do you think you are?"

  "Your mother tried to kill Reed!" Sawyer shouted, getting up and shoving Daniel away from me with both hands.

  Everyone fell silent. It was the first time I had ever heard Sawyer raise his voice. The first time he'd gotten directly involved in a conversation of his own volition, let alone a fight. We were all stunned. But it was Paige who recovered first.

  175

  "You're lying," she said, her voice quaking. "Why would my mother want to kill anyone, let alone her?" She gave me a look like I wasn't even worthy of her attention, let alone anyone's ire.

  Just then a female police officer stepped into the room, a blue windbreaker over the standard uniform of polo shirt and shorts. Her short black hair was pulled back in a tiny, tight ponytail and she was looking at a small pad as she entered. After a moment she flipped the pad shut and glanced around at us.

  "Paige and Daniel Ryan?" she asked.

  "Yes," Daniel said, stepping forward with his sister.

  "You're going to want to come down to the station to meet up with your father," the woman said. "Your mother has just confessed to attempted murder."

  "What?" Daniel shrieked.

  Paige clutched her purse in front of her with both hands. "I don't understand. She has no motive. She wouldn't hurt a fly. She-"

  The woman sighed and flipped open her pad again to read. "Apparently she had some sort of sexual relationship with this girl's boyfriend .. . one Upton Giles?"

  "Omigod." Paige turned around, and without so much as a breath, puked into the stainless steel sink. My stomach heaved. It was barely ready for food, let alone seeing someone else's come backup. I turned away and stared out the window toward the ocean.

  "What?" Daniel blurted again. "No. That's not possible."

  "That's what your mother says." The woman was behind me, but I

  176

  saw her shrug, thanks to her reflection in the window. She looked at Paige and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "She didn't even need to be asked twice. It was almost like she was proud of it."

  Kiran snorted a laugh and earned an admonishing look from the rest of us. "Sorry, it's just... I've done a few things in my life, but I've never shared a guy with my mom," she said, glancing at Paige's still heaving back.

  Paige stood up straight, hand over her mouth, and ran out of the room in tears.

  "She confessed?" Daniel said, staring at the officer. "To all of it?"

  "Hiring the kidnappers, spooking the horse, rigging the Jet Ski," the woman said. "She does, however, maintain that this Marquis person is guilty of the incident at sea, but it seems like an open-and-shut case to me."

  No one said a word. We all stared at the floor. Was Marquis really guilty, or had Mrs. Ryan hung him out to dry for some reason? I had no idea, and not enough energy to think about it for very long.

  "This can't be happening," Daniel said.

  As much as I disliked Daniel, I actually felt bad for him at that moment. It couldn't be easy to find out your mother was an attempted murderer. Not to mention a pedophile who'd had sex with one of your friends and was now obsessed with him.

  "Are you coming along?" the woman asked him.

  "I'll go get my sister," he said. Without another word, he ducked his head and walked out.

  177

  "Is there anything we can do foryou, miss?" the woman asked me.

  My brain was still fuzzy. I wanted to tell her she could put Marshall and Gravois in front of a firing squad, but somehow that didn't seem like the right thing to say.

  "Where's Upton?" I asked.

  "Sorry. I don't know," the officer replied.

  "We'll take care of her," Noelle said. She moved as if to touch my back, but then thought better of it and placed her hand on the back of my chair instead. "She'll be fine."

  The officer left and for a long moment there was no sound inside the kitchen aside from that of my own chewing.

  "Upton's probably still downtown," Noelle said. "I'm sure he'll be back soon."

  "So someone really was trying to kill you all this time," Kiran said finally. She tucked the skirt of her slim red gown beneath her as she lowered herself onto a chair in one elegant motion.

  "Yep," I said.

  "Reed, I'm so sorry we didn't believe you," Noelle said.

  "Whatever," I replied. "Is there any more cheese?"

  Dash rushed to get me some.

  "Thanks," I said, shoving an entire slice into my mouth.

  I could feel them all looking at one another with concern, eyeing me warily.

  "Do you think she has post-traumatic stress disorder or something?" Kiran asked.

  "You guys, I'm fine. I'm just starving. And I really want to take

  178

  a bath and then slather myself in aloe," I said. "And then I want to sleep. For about two days."

  "I think we can make that happen," Sawyer said.

  "Dash, getyour car," Noelle demanded, standing up with her hand on my back. "Let's get Reed home."

  179

  ADORABLE

  I never saw the inside of the hospital. Mr. Lange hired a private nurse named Caroline and flew her in from the States. A big, comfy-looking woman, she was already at the house when we got back from the Ryans'. She got me cleaned up, aloed, and into bed in record time. Then she put in the call to my parents and handed me the phone so that we could all weep in relief together and make plans to see each other the second I was healthy enough to make the trip back to the States. All night long Caroline took my vitals and made me sip water here and there before I drifted back to sleep. She also had this carrot-scented balm that she applied to my entire body every hour on the hour. It felt amazing and it was actually healing my sunburn. I was still red, but it didn't hurt as much and it looked a lot less awful. Which was nice, since people kept dropping by to visit and I didn't like the idea of everyone seeing me looking like that horrifying dead girl from The Ring.

  180

  Caroline was also big on sleep. No one could stay for more than a few minutes, which was nice, because I definitely needed my z's. I was in such a deep sleep when Upton arrived the afternoon after Mrs. Ryan's arrest, I didn't even hear him come in, didn't know he was there, until Caroline woke me up trying to get rid of him. When I peeled my tired eyes open, she had one sturdy hand on his chest and was shoving him backward toward the door of my room.

  "It's okay," I
said, pushing myself up on my pillows. "Please. Let him in."

  Caroline looked at me and tsked under her breath. "Mr. Lange said to give you whatever you wanted . . . but I'm coming back in fifteen minutes." She looked at Upton in a scolding way and lifted one chubby finger. "She needs her rest."

  "Of course," Upton replied.

  He had a glass vase full of lilies, which he placed on the table at my bedside. Then he took a step back as if afraid to get too close, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He had shaved since I'd seen him last, but he still looked tired. Almost as tired as I felt.

  "Are you sure this is all right?" he asked, his brow knitting.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Me being here," he said, his voice grave. "I'm sure you hate me, and with good reason. That's why I've stayed away. I assumed you didn't want to see me."

  I blinked. "Why would I hate you?"

  "Because this is all my fault," Upton replied, clearly distressed. "All of it. She was after you because of me."

  181

  I chuckled and pushed my hair back from my face with both hands. "Upton, it's not your fault she's crazy."

  "But it is! You said it yourself the day after you got out of the hospital," he said, throwing out a hand and pacing away. "You said you weren't going to wait around for one of my jilted girlfriends to kill you and you were right. It just happened to be a girlfriend you didn't know about."

  "Upton," I said calmly.

  "I'm going to make this up to you, Reed. I swear it," he said. "If there's anything I can do--"

  "Upton!"

  "What?" He finally stopped moving, stopped rambling.

  "Caroline's going to be back in thirteen minutes," I said. "Are you going to kiss me or what?"

  Upton's entire face relaxed. He sat down on the bed next to me, touched my scorched cheek delicately with his palm, and kissed my cracked, blistered lips. It would have been romantic if it hadn't been so agonizing. I winced and pulled away.

  "Okay, ow," I said.

  "Sorry," he replied, biting his lip.

  "Maybe just cuddling would be a better idea," I said.

  "Sounds good to me." He leaned back against the headboard and pulled me toward his side, wrapping his arms around me. I nestled against him until my head was perfectly cradled in the crook of his arm, and took a deep, calming breath.

  "So tell me, what's going on out there in the world? " I asked.

  182

  "Well, they let Poppy go," he said. "Apparently Calis--Mrs. Ryan-planted that cell phone in her bag."

  "What about Red Beard and Stilted English?" I asked, fiddling with a fold in my sheet.

  "Who?" he said.

  "Marshall and Gravois," I clarified.

  "Both alive. Though Marshall barely," he replied. "And both going to jail for a very long time."

  "Good," I replied.

  Upton lightly kissed the top of my head and sighed. "I just don't get it. That night, after she found us in her stateroom, we had this long conversation and I thought she was okay," Upton said. "She actually wished us every happiness and I believed her. And then, apparently, she turned around and shoved you off the back of the boat."

  I shuddered and Upton held me a bit tighter. "Sorry," he said.

  "It's okay," I replied. "I guess people do crazy things for love."

  Upton laughed. "She never loved me. She was just obsessed."

  "Oh, Upton. You're so adorable," I said, tilting my head up to look at him.

  "Am I?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

  "Haven't you figured it out yet?" I said. "Everyone loves you."

  Upton pulled back a bit to see me better. "Evenyou?"

  I sighed, my heart full. "Yes. Even me."

  He smiled. "Oh, bollocks."

  "What?" I asked.

  "I'd really like to kiss you," he said.

  183

  I grinned and lifted my right arm. There was a wide band of white skin that had been protected by my blindfold most of my days on the island. "You can kiss me there."

  He tilted his head, brought my wrist to his lips, and kissed the spot on the inside, right near the heel of my hand. A shiver of delight raced up my arm.

  "Good?" he asked.

  "Perfect," I replied.

  So he kissed it again. And again and again and again. Until I dissolved in a fit of giggles and forgot all about the island, the kidnappers, the sunburn, and everything bad in the world.

  184

  ROOMIES

  I rinsed the two-hundred-dollar-an-ounce moisturizing masque from my face and blotted my sensitive skin with a towel. When I looked into the mirror, Kiran was staring at me from over my shoulder, a red silk robe cinched around her waist. It was her product, after all, so she had a vested interest in making sure it had done the trick. Unfortunately, her disappointment was written all over her face.

  "Well, at least we got your hair looking normal," she said in a resigned way.

  "Shut up!" I said, whipping the towel at her.

  "I'm just kidding!" she replied, her arms crossed in front of her face to protect herself. "You look a thousand percent better."

  "Really?" I glanced at my reflection. After two days my face was almost entirely healed, except for my nose, which was red and peeling. My lips were still cracked and they stung 24/7, but the blisters were gone, which made eating a lot easier. And kissing. Which

  185

  Upton and I had tested out earlier that evening while Caroline was on a break.

  "Really," Noelle said, appearing in the bathroom doorway. "By the time we get back to Easton you'll be almost recognizable."

  Easton. A little shiver went through me at the thought of seeing Josh again. Had he heard about what had happened? I had a feeling that none of the girls had called him, and guys, as a rule, were less reliable gossips. I had to believe that if Dash, Gage, or "West had reached him with the news he would have called me. Or at least e-mailed. But there was nothing. Over two weeks since I'd seen him and not one word.

  Not that it mattered. I had Upton. And Upton was there for me every day.

  "Come on. Taylor's mixed a special color for you and she won't shut up about it," Noelle said. She gathered her hair up atop her head and shoved a hair pick into it to hold it there. Which it miraculously did.

  I followed her and Kiran back into my room, where Taylor, Tiffany, and Amberly were hanging out, flipping through magazines as Noelle's iPod blasted music from the dock on my dresser. Noelle had pulled in a few of the chairs from the dining room, and Taylor had set up a foot spa in front of one of them. Laid out on the floor was her professional manicure/pedicure kit with dozens of tools perfectly lined up and ready to go.

  "I never understood why you learned to give pedicures," I said as I took a seat in the chair. The muscles in my feet let out an almost

  186

  audible sigh as the warm, bubbly water closed around them. "Don't you guys all go to salons to get them done?"

  "My mother has this woman Charlotte come in and do her nails every week, and when I was a kid I was kinda fascinated by it, so she taught me," Taylor said with a shrug. Her blond curls were held back with a skinny black headband, and she wore a black spaghetti-strap nightgown with eyelet cutouts at the hem. She grabbed the bottle of polish she had mixed for me and shook it up, inspecting it closely as the polishes incorporated.

  "It came in handy at Billings when there was too much snow to go out and nothing else to do," Kiran said, dropping onto my bed and reaching for a chocolate from one of the many open boxes we had tossed there.

  "Ah, Billings. I can't wait to get home," Tiffany said, tilting her head back as Amberly filed her fingernails.

  Kiran and Taylor exchanged a look. They had left Billings last year, never to return. I wondered if, all protestations aside, they actually missed it. I'd only been kicked out for a month, and I definitely had.

  "I've been thinking about it, and Reed, I think you should move in with me," Noelle said. She
dropped onto the bed near the pillows, sending the boxes of chocolates--and Kiran--bouncing.

  "What?" we all blurted in unison.

  "You're going to give up your single?" Tiffany demanded, sitting up so fast Amberly dropped the emery board.

  Noelle rolled her eyes like it was no big deal. "I can't make her and Amberly live together. They'll kill each other."

  187

  There was an uncomfortable silence, filled only by the sound of the bubbling foot spa. My last roommate had, after all, tried to kill me. At this point there could be a club--a small, very exclusive club--of people who'd tried to off Reed Brennan. I wondered what the meetings would be like--Ariana, Sabine, and Mrs. Ryan all gathered in the same room comparing notes. The very idea made me shudder.

  "Bad choice of words," Noelle said. "But you know what I mean. We'll just move Astrid in with Amberly and get those girls out of that horrid triple, and Reed can live with me."

  "Areyou sure?" I asked.

  "Clearly someone has to be looking out for you at all times," Noelle said, flipping open a copy of Vanity Fair on the comforter in front of her. "Who else is going to do it? Besides, if it wasn't for me convincing you to stay after the whole near-drowning episode, you wouldn't have even been here to get kidnapped. I think that makes you my responsibility."

  She said this all very cavalierly, like it wasn't the biggest deal, but I knew her. I knew she never would have said a word about it if she didn't feel horribly guilty. Of course, it wasn't her fault. Not really. I made my own decisions. I was the one who had decided to stay. But I didn't say it. Dwelling on it would probably just piss her off.