Kiss and Tell(6)

She pulled out her phone yet again. Still no callback from RISD. She had one new e-mail, though. When she saw who it was from, she nearly dropped her phone in surprise. Joey Bakersfield.

When they were younger, Joey and Sydney had been close friends. They’d grown apart over the years, but then the darer had pulled Joey into this twisted game: first forcing Sydney to kiss him, then framing Joey for everything. Until Tricia came forward claiming to be the darer, Sydney had actually believed Joey was responsible. She and Tenley had gone so far as to report it to the police. They’d dropped the charges after Tricia revealed herself, but the damage had already been done. Joey had left Winslow and enrolled at Danford, a fancy boarding school an hour away in Boston. Sydney had sent Joey two e-mails apologizing for everything, but she’d never heard back. Until now.


Sydney,

I know this e-mail comes late. To be honest, I hadn’t planned on responding at all. Not because of the accusation; that I could get over. It was what happened before that… and how horrified you seemed after. For a second, I thought something was happening between us. But then you’d acted like I’d done something wrong.



Sydney gnawed on her lower lip. She knew he was talking about the kiss. After Tricia had dared her to kiss Joey, Sydney had gone through with it in a haze of emotion: anger and confusion and, worst of all, terror. Joey clearly hadn’t known what hit him. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to keep reading.


But then today I heard about what happened with Delancey Crane. It must have been awful to witness a suicide like that. I know what the Winslow clones can be like: dead set on acting like the whole town is perfect, like nothing is wrong even when something so clearly is. I used to feel like such a freak for refusing to drink the Echo Bay Kool-Aid. But coming to Danford helped me see everything more clearly. Before I left, Echo Bay felt so haunted with memories. I can only imagine how it feels for you now. I just wanted you to know that there IS a nonbrainwashed Echo Bay-er out there, if you ever need one to talk to.

~Joey





Sydney stared at the e-mail for a long time after reading it. She couldn’t believe how different Joey sounded. At Winslow, he’d always been so quiet and miserable. But in this e-mail he actually sounded happy. And sweet, too. Maybe Winslow had been what was poisoning him all along.

A second e-mail popped up in her in-box from Joey. PS. Did you hear about this? He’d included a link. It took Sydney to a page on RISD’s website. Prospective Students Fair, the page read. Sydney scanned it over.


WHEN: Friday, 4–6 PM

WHERE: The Covington Building, Boston

WHY: Meet RISD’s top professors and admissions officers!

*All early-admissions applicants strongly encouraged to attend!*



Sydney jumped to her feet. She had to be at that fair on Friday. Which meant she had to somehow redo and resubmit her entire scholarship application before then. Maybe then RISD would still consider her. It was a long shot… but it was her only shot. She took off through the lower-school entrance, hurrying out to her car. She’d earned a day off from school.

Ten minutes later she made a quick stop inside her apartment building to get the mail, something her mom was always forgetting to do. As she scooped up the pile of junk and bills, she noticed a large white envelope sticking out from amid the smaller ones. She gasped when she saw the handwriting on the front of it. When had Guinness sent her a package?

Guinness, her ex-more-than-friend-but-not-quite-boyfriend, and also Tenley’s stepbrother, had been found passed out from an overdose on Friday. He’d been rushed to the hospital and then straight to rehab. But not before Sydney learned the truth. The darer had set Guinness up—laced his weed and tried to kill him. All because he “knew too much.” About what, Sydney wasn’t sure.

She glanced at the postmark on the envelope as she hurried up to her apartment. Friday. Guinness must have mailed this the day he accidentally ODed. The thought gave her the strangest feeling, as if she were about to come face-to-face with a ghost.

She waited until she was safely locked inside her apartment to open the envelope. A stack of papers was shoved inside. She felt jittery as she pulled it out. On top was a note, scribbled in Guinness’s messy handwriting.


Blue—

I need you to see this, but I don’t think it’s safe for us to talk right now. I’m being watched, followed… I can feel it. Remember how you were asking me about Kyla Kern? I wasn’t completely honest. I do know something more. I think Kyla was being harassed before her death. Proof is in this envelope. Promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t let anyone see you. I’ve been getting notes—threats—and I don’t want them to start for you, too.

~G



The page wobbled in Sydney’s grip. Kyla Kern, along with Meryl Bauer and Nicole Mayor, were Echo Bay’s original Lost Girls: three beautiful local girls who, over the years, had each died in the ocean during Echo Bay’s historic Fall Festival. Meryl Bauer—Calum’s older sister—was the very first Lost Girl. She died in a boating accident ten years ago. Nicole Mayor’s death had come during the Fall Festival four years later, and Kyla Kern’s the year after that.

With their deaths arrived the ghost lights—three lights flickering mysteriously over the Phantom Rock—as well as talk of a curse. The Fall Festival was banned. But five years later, it was back. This fall, Echo Bay had once again celebrated. On the last day of the festival, Tricia had taken them all out on the yacht, and both she and Caitlin had died. Many in town believed the curse was alive once more, but Sydney knew it was something else—something far worse—at work.

Last week Sydney had tracked down a photo that had been missing from Kyla Kern’s accident report. The report named an electrical fire as the cause of Kyla’s death, but the missing photo showed a crater in the float that could never have been made by fire. Instead, it looked as if someone had thrown an explosive at Kyla’s float—and then hidden the photo to cover it up.

Was Guinness’s package further proof that her hunch was right, that Kyla’s death was no accident? Sydney sank down on the couch, flipping through the first few pages of the packet. They were phone records that belonged to a local number, labeled Kyla Kern. The same unlisted number appeared in them over and over again. Guinness had highlighted their call times. He’d scribbled in the margin: 2 seconds. 1 second. 3 seconds. Hang-ups? Then: STALKER???

Sydney shuffled to the next page. Behind the phone records were two folded slips of paper. The first was old and worn, crumpled around the edges. A Post-it was affixed to the front of it. Found in Kyla’s belongings, Guinness had written on it. Gingerly, she unfolded it.

Glaring up at her was an all-too-familiar typewriter font.


Some secrets are never safe.



The paper dropped soundlessly onto her lap as realizations slammed into her, one after another. Kyla had a stalker. Kyla had received notes in a typewriter font. The darer had been after Kyla. Five years ago.

It only solidified the awful suspicion that she, Tenley, and Emerson shared: The same person had been haunting Echo Bay all these years.

Sydney’s heart was pounding as she turned to the next note. This one was newer, crisper. Guinness had scribbled two lines on the Post-it on the front: Left on my car. Same person??? Sydney opened the paper to find a line of identical typewriter font.


You know what happens when you keep digging? You fall down a hole.



Kyla was what Guinness had known too much about. Kyla was what had almost gotten him killed. She’d wondered it before, but seeing the proof right in front of her… She stood up, pacing restlessly through the apartment.

This was a lead. A solid one. The darer clearly wanted to keep the truth about Kyla’s death buried. Maybe if she found out what really happened to Kyla, it would be enough to force their stalker out of the shadows.





CHAPTER FIVE


Tuesday, 2:30 PM


Pulling into the parking lot of the Echo Bay police station made Tenley’s stomach hurt. She’d hoped her next trip to the station would be to see the darer in handcuffs. Instead, she was the one being questioned.

“Ten Ten!” Her mom was already there, leaning against her huge SUV. The wind ruffled the bottom of her very short, very pink skirt.

“You didn’t want to go with pants?” Tenley eyed the thin white sweater and shiny stiletto booties that accompanied her mom’s barely-there skirt. “Maybe a suit?” She herself had worn the drabbest outfit she could find in her closet. A black skirt that nearly reached her knees, black tights, and a striped blazer.

Her mom tossed her expertly curled hair. “Someone has to win over our cop! Just doing my motherly duty to keep my little girl out of jail.”

Tenley fought the urge to roll her eyes. When the police had called the night before to tell her she was needed at the station after school the next day for questioning about the video, Tenley had asked if she could go alone. But in true Trudy fashion, her mom had ignored the request. “You’re still a minor, Tenley!” she’d trilled. “You need your mommy!”

“Tell me the story again, Ten Ten,” her mom ordered now.

“To the best of my knowledge, it was a caffeine pill,” Tenley recited. Lanson, Tenley’s CEO stepfather, had a whole team of lawyers on retainer. After the call came from the police, he assigned every one of them to the “Tenley situation” until they could concoct an acceptable legal explanation for her very illegal behavior. “I was just trying to help Jessie out,” Tenley continued. “It was something I did for my best friend, Caitlin, sometimes.”