She could hear Emerson rifling through Tricia’s desk as she scooted over to the box. She thumbed quickly through the photos. Most of them she’d already seen online. But at the bottom of the box was a stack of shots she’d never seen before. “Look at these,” she said.
Emerson put a binder on Tricia’s desk and crossed the room. She’d just dropped down next to Tenley when both their phones lit up. Tenley’s pulse quickened. What if the darer knew they were here?
Slowly, Tenley reached for her phone. Next to her, Emerson did the same. “A Facebook blast,” Emerson murmured.
Tenley’s shoulders sagged with relief. It wasn’t the darer.
The blast came from Sydney. GOT THE NIGHT-BEFORE-HOMECOMING BLUES? THEN COME TO THE VAULT TONIGHT AT 9 PM FOR A PICK-ME-UP! ALL DRINKS ON ME… HAPPY HOMECOMING!
Tenley cocked an eyebrow as she read it. “Sydney is throwing a party? I would not have pegged her as the homecoming campaigning type.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged her as the fun type,” Emerson added.
Tenley stifled a laugh. “I guess we don’t really know her.” She fell quiet as she returned to Tricia’s photos. They were all of a yacht, mostly close-ups of the interior: everything from the engine to the video monitor. Almost as if they’d been taken so Tricia could study the features.
“Oh my god,” Tenley blurted out. All thoughts of Sydney and the party flew out of her head as she gaped down at the photos. “These must be from Tricia’s boating lessons! She told us about them on the Justice that night. How she’d studied yachting so she would know how to sail us out to the Phantom Rock.”
“That’s sick,” Emerson murmured as Tenley passed her several photos. “But also not really news, right?”
Tenley froze as she reached the very last photo in the pile. “No, it’s not,” she whispered. “But this is.” She held the photo out to Emerson. In it, Tricia stood on the deck of the same boat. The wind was whipping her hair into her face, and the ocean unspooled behind her, a deep, glistening blue. Standing next to her, her arm wrapped firmly around Tricia’s shoulders, was a smiling Abby Wilkins. “I thought Tricia stopped being friends with Abby after she ditched the Purity Club,” Tenley said shakily.
Emerson looked from Tenley to the photo and back again. “So did I.”
“Looks like we were both wrong. Abby must have been taking those boating lessons with Tricia.” Tenley flipped the photo over. A handwritten message was scrawled across the back. Us laughing at Captain Louis and his senior-citizen pickup lines! xoxo, Ab
Tenley sank back against the bed as she realized what this meant. It wasn’t Hunter or Nate or Guinness who Tricia had been spending time with behind Sean’s back. It wasn’t a guy at all.
It was Abby.
Tenley stared openmouthed at Emerson as she connected the dots. Tricia wasn’t trying to hide who she was with from Sean; she was hiding what they were doing. Tricia and Abby had been working together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Friday, 9:56 PM
Sydney sat in her car, clutching the darer’s latest note. Go to the vault friday at 10 PM if you want to dig deeper. Across the street the white limestone building of the Vault loomed, its parking lot already filled to capacity. She looked from its moldings of cherubs to the golden clock face above its doorway. The Vault had once been Echo Bay’s oldest and most opulent bank, until two years ago, when it became the North Shore’s flashiest club. Winslow students loved to party there, mainly because of their lax ID policy. Technically, you had to be eighteen to enter, twenty-one to drink, but from what Sydney had heard, the club rarely ID’d at the bar, and never at the door. Not that she would know firsthand. The only time she’d been inside was for a fund-raiser thrown by her mom’s hospital.
She crumpled up the note and stuffed it into the car’s glove compartment. She didn’t need it anymore; she’d read it so many times she could recite the whole thing by heart. She’d spent hours last night obsessing over its meaning. Was she supposed to learn something about Kyla’s death at the Vault? And if so, why would the darer want that—especially if it was Guinness? Squaring her shoulders, she climbed out of the car. There was only one way to find out.
She had to put all her weight into opening the Vault’s heavy limestone door. Immediately the music accosted her. It vibrated under her feet and thrummed through her body, pounding in her ears like a heartbeat. The smell of beer and sweat and perfume wafted out at her as strobe lights flashed behind a thick velvet curtain. A burly bouncer gave her a brusque nod, saying nothing as she walked past. Apparently, the ID’ing rumors were true. Screwing up her courage, Sydney pushed aside the velvet curtain and stepped into the club.
The first thing she saw was the crowd. The room was jam-packed, people spilling off the dance floor and lined up by the bar, and all of them, every single one, went to Winslow. Before Sydney could even begin to process that, she noticed the posters. They were plastered on every surface, the strobe lights painting them highlighter colors: yellow, green, pink. Her eyes bounced from one to another, the same photograph staring back at her from every one. It was a photo Guinness had taken of her during a winter day in Boston. Snowflakes coated her hair, and her eyes looked impossibly blue against the pink of her cheeks. At the top of each poster was a bold headline. VOTE THE PARTY QUEEN 4 HOMECOMING QUEEN! “What. The. Hell?” Sydney murmured.
“There she is!” Sadie Miller’s voice grabbed Sydney’s attention. “This party’s amazing,” she yelled over the music. “You’ve got my vote tomorrow, Sydney!”
“Mine, too!” Lauren Allon raised a glass in the air, making its amber-colored contents slosh over the sides. Above her, the lights flashed and winked, sending spirals of color skittering across the marble floors.
“It’s the party queen!” Sean Hale came up behind her and clapped her on the shoulder. He smelled strongly of liquor, and there was a slight slur to his words. Sydney tensed. She knew Emerson and Tenley had written Sean off as a suspect, but she wasn’t as sure. “Your Facebook blast was genius, Sydney,” Sean continued. “And the open bar was even more genius. Exactly what I needed tonight.”
“Facebook blast?” Sydney whispered. Her limbs were suddenly paralyzed.
“Genius,” Sean repeated. He opened up Facebook on his phone and passed it to her. A message had been posted on his wall in all caps. GOT THE NIGHT-BEFORE-HOMECOMING BLUES? THEN COME TO THE VAULT TONIGHT AT 9 PM FOR A PICK-ME-UP! ALL DRINKS ON ME… HAPPY HOMECOMING! Next to it was Sydney’s name, along with the same snow-laced photo from the posters. “I can’t believe you got this out to every single person in our grade,” Sean went on. “I didn’t even know you were on Facebook.”
Because I’m not, Sydney thought. She took a step backward, her heart pumping so loud she could hear it over the music. Whoever had created that profile, whoever had sent out those messages… it hadn’t been her. Which left only one person: the darer.
“Are you all right?” Sean asked. “You look a little green.”
She wasn’t in the vicinity of all right. She wasn’t even in same world as all right. “Just the lights,” she croaked.
“Sean!” Marta Lazarus approached and threaded an arm through Sean’s. She was wearing a bright pink top that showed off her curves, and huge dangly earrings. “Come on, let’s go dance—oh, hey, Sydney.” Sydney started at the sound of her actual name coming out of Marta’s mouth. She’d gone to school with Marta for twelve years now, and up until that moment, she’d called her Cindy or Celia every time they spoke. “Nice party!” Marta continued. She shouted out each word, making it sound like a drunken cheer. “Especially the cocktail waitresses! They don’t care at all about IDs.”
Sydney glanced around the room. For the first time, she noticed the waitresses weaving through the crowd in silver-sequined dresses. They were all model-tall and carrying trays of test tubes filled with pink liquid. “Fun,” Sydney said weakly.
“It is! I haven’t had this much fun since…” Marta trailed off as, next to her, Sean’s face clouded over. “A long time,” she finished hastily. She cleared her throat, giving Sean’s arm a quick squeeze.
Madalyn Hershey and Alana Cohen walked past, lifting their glasses in Sydney’s direction. Ayden Doyle was with them, his curly brown hair bobbing as he nodded along to the music. “This party rocks!” Madalyn called out.
Sydney managed a half smile in return. Behind them, several members of Winslow’s audiovisual club swarmed one of the waitresses, snatching all the test tubes off her tray. Test tubes they thought she was paying for. Was that what the darer wanted? To bankrupt her? Sydney swallowed hard. “Where’s Tenley?” she asked Marta.
“She and Emerson are on their way. I don’t know what’s taking them so long.” Marta pouted. “They’re going to run out of test tubes soon!”
Sydney’s mouth went dry as she took another scan of the room. Marta was right. The test tubes were flying off the waitresses’ trays faster than candy on Halloween. She had to do something to stop this. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, pushing past Marta and Sean. Sean said something in response, but she was too busy fighting her way through the crowd to catch it. She lowered her head like a bull, ignoring the voices swirling around her. She didn’t stop until she reached the long marble bar.