Josh studied her for a moment. She was worried he would try to stop her. But he just nodded. “Fine.” He grabbed his keys off the table. “But we’re taking my rental car. It has snow tires.”
“You don’t have to—” she began, but she fell silent when she saw the determined look on his face. Maybe he did have to. Maybe that’s what you did when you loved someone. She lifted onto her toes and kissed the soft stubble on his cheek. “Thank you,” she said instead.
Josh held up a hand. “Don’t thank me yet. I have one condition.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Once we’re in the car, you have to tell me what the hell is going on.”
Emerson hesitated. She thought of Caitlin and Tricia and Delancey, of the darer and the Lost Girls, how it all spiraled backward, year after year, fear breeding lies breeding fear. And suddenly she found herself wanting to talk about it. To tell him. “Everything,” she promised.
The windows at Haleworth Prep were all dark. It made the huge gothic building look menacing, all spike-tipped spires and blackened windows. Snow crept into Emerson’s boots as she and Josh treaded toward the school’s entrance. The grounds were silent around them. Even the birds had stopped chirping. It was as if the whole place had frozen solid.
Josh’s hand found hers. “This is exactly how I pictured our third first date,” he said.
Despite everything, Emerson laughed. “I do know how to have a good time, don’t I?”
She’d told him everything on the car ride over: Caitlin and the dares and Tricia and how they’d thought it had ended, but it had only just begun. The more she talked, the easier it became, and soon the words were spilling out of her, more than she’d told the police, more than she’d ever told anyone. She’d explained how she’d been dragged into the game; how her secrets had been lorded over her, how no place, not even her home, had felt safe anymore. She’d told him how wrong they’d been: about Joey, and Tricia, and Abby, and Delancey. She’d told him about the surveillance shed and Sam Bauer’s panic room, and how, that night, she really thought she might die. And, finally, she’d told him about Jenny, and the uneasy feeling Joey’s story had left her with. When she was done, she felt the way she used to after a tough cheerleading practice, as if she’d sweat out any poison inside her.
Now they both grew quiet as they walked up to the building’s entrance. The door was locked, a large buzzer next to it. Emerson jabbed at the buzzer several times, but nothing happened.
“The power’s out,” Josh murmured. “Maybe we should try the—”
The door swung open before he could finish his sentence. A girl hurried outside, bundled up in a thick ski jacket, a cigarette clutched in her gloved hand. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of Josh and Emerson. “You never saw me here,” she snapped.
Emerson grabbed the door before it could slam shut. “Or you us,” she replied.
Lucky, Josh mouthed as they slipped through the doorway. Inside, the main lights were out, but the building’s emergency lights cast a dim glow over the hallways. Emerson took a quick look around. The floor was empty; everyone was in their rooms.
“Earlier when I asked for Jenny, the operator transferred me to two thirteen,” Emerson whispered. “Her room number, I’m guessing?”
Josh led the way to the stairs. She followed him soundlessly up, her heart knocking loudly against her rib cage. She barely had time to prepare herself before they were standing in front of room 213. The door was shut, but the faint sound of pages turning drifted out from behind it.
Josh squeezed her shoulder. “You up for this?”
No, she wanted to scream. They should be cuddling on Josh’s couch right now. But they’d come this far. “Let’s do it,” she croaked.
Josh rapped on the door.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
“Coming!” It was the same voice that had greeted Emerson on the phone: bubbly, but impatient. The door swung open to reveal a willowy girl with wavy brown hair and wide-set blue eyes. A wrinkle formed between the girl’s eyebrows. “You’re not check-in.”
“Jenny Hearst?” Emerson asked. The girl gave a hesitant nod. Emerson tried to say more, but she found her mouth had stopped working. She and Josh had come up with a game plan during the drive, but now, standing face-to-face with Jenny, her mind went blank.
“I’m Josh,” Josh jumped in. He stuck out his hand. Jenny looked wary as she shook it. “And this is Emerson,” Josh continued. “You spoke on the phone before?”
Immediately, Jenny’s countenance changed. Her shoulders stiffened. Her expression hardened. “I’m not sure why you’re here,” she said quietly, “but I’ll get school security if you don’t leave now.” She went to close the door, but Emerson reached out to block it.
“Please! Wait! I—I was getting notes,” Emerson blurted. It came out on instinct, a last-ditch attempt.
Jenny froze, her hand on the door. “What—what kind of notes?” she asked slowly.
“Threatening ones.” Emerson forced the words out. Even now, talking about the dares in public felt like writing her own death sentence. But Jenny was paying attention. “They’d show up at my house, or on my phone, demanding I obey, or—or else. Like this horrible game I had no choice but to play.”
Jenny’s face had gone sheet white. “So he’s still doing it.”
Emerson could barely feel her own body anymore. “Who?” she whispered. The voice seemed to come from someone else. “Who did it to you?”
Jenny shook her head mutely. Emerson knew her expression well. She was terrified.
It made Emerson want to stop and walk away, leave this poor girl in peace. But she’d come too far. She had to know.
“Calum.” Emerson was the one to say it: the name that had made Jenny hang up the phone. Now Jenny recoiled as if she’d been slapped. Emerson’s blood ran cold. “Was it Calum who was sending you the notes?”
Jenny gave a single shaky nod.
The dorm room swam in Emerson’s vision, and for a second she thought she might pass out. Josh took her arm, steadying her. “How did you figure out it was him?” she asked.
“We grew up together.” Jenny’s voice was so quiet Emerson had to strain to hear it. “Our dads used to be business partners. One night, I was at his house for dinner. I’d been getting the notes for almost a year at that point. They were destroying me, and I had no idea who was sending them, which only made it worse. I went to borrow a sweatshirt from his room, because the house was freezing, and—and I found one of the notes.” Jenny’s voice wobbled. “It gave me the courage to tell my mom. When she confronted Calum’s dad, he offered to pay for the rest of my schooling if I transferred to Haleworth and kept the whole thing quiet.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat.
“At first, we said no, but then there was this awful shower incident and…” She shook her head. “I just wanted it to stop. I really believed it was just me, though. Some kind of personal vendetta. I didn’t—I never thought he’d do it to someone else.”
Adrenaline surged through Emerson’s veins, clearing away any last remnants of fog. “The notes Calum sent you, were they typed on a typewriter?” She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded when inside she felt like jelly. She inched closer to Josh, leaning against him.
“Yeah.” Something pulsed in Jenny’s neck. “It was his dad’s old one.”
Emerson couldn’t stop the strangled sound that spilled out of her. Josh said something, but she didn’t hear him. There had been holes—she’d known that. But she’d reasoned some away and refused to acknowledge others. But here was the truth, too bright and burning to ignore.
Cassandra Bauer might have been a kidnapper, and Sam Bauer might be a killer, but neither was the darer.
It was their son.
It was Calum.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tuesday, 5 PM
“So that’s everything that happened?” Calum took a long swig from his beer. It was his second since Sydney’s arrival, but judging by the unfocused look in his eyes, it wasn’t just his second of the night. Sydney wished she had gotten there earlier, but between the snow and an accident on the road, the fifteen-minute drive to Neddles Island had taken over an hour.
“That’s it.” Sydney fought to conceal the lie in her voice. It turned out Calum hadn’t been allowed to see his dad yet, so when he asked her to tell him everything she knew about what happened, Sydney had planned to answer openly: the darer truth and all. But then she’d looked at Calum’s bleary red eyes. She’d smelled the alcohol on his breath and seen the glossy sheen of sweat on his skin. And all she’d been able to think about was Guinness: how on his worst days, he wasn’t himself anymore, but a brittle shell. One wrong touch, one cruel word, and he’d shatter to pieces. So Sydney had found herself editing—twisting the story into its most harmless form: Emerson and Tenley had come looking for Calum, and his dad must have snapped when he saw them, and locked them up in the panic room.