Secrets and Lies(6)

“The text made it clear: Tell anyone and our secrets come out,” Sydney said. “I’m pretty sure cops count in that.”

Tenley let out a frustrated grunt. “Listen, I’ve got to go. My mom’s in psycho-mother mode right now. But we’re talking more about this in school tomorrow.”

Sydney hung up and threw her phone angrily onto her bed. Her heart was hammering so loudly she felt like a one-woman marching band. This wasn’t a fluke. There was really a new darer out there. And if Tenley got her way, their secrets could end up as front-page news.

She started pacing again, faster and faster. She felt all jittery, as if she’d just downed three coffees. She tried to shake it off, recognizing the signs. In the past, feeling like this used to drive her to the one thing that could always calm her: matches. An image of flames flickered through her mind: hot and glowing and candy orange. She shoved it away. Fire didn’t have a hold on her anymore—not after Tricia almost killed her with it in the cabin of the Justice.

She grabbed one of her cameras off her dresser. If she stayed in this apartment alone for one minute longer, she was going to explode.

Soon she was steering her car along the winding curves that lead to Great Harbor Beach. She’d avoided the beach earlier tonight, having no desire to set foot near Abby’s party. Winslow parties—any parties, really—were not her scene. She’d choose shooting pictures over hearing the latest hookup gossip any day of the week. But, according to Tenley, the party had ended. Which meant the beach should be empty again.

She knew there were plenty of other beaches she could photograph. Massachusetts’s North Shore was filled with inlets and bays, fingers of sand reaching from town to town. But none of them drew her to them the way Great Harbor Beach did, with an almost magnetic power. Because none of them had the rock.

At one time, the Phantom Rock had been nothing more than a fun Echo Bay landmark: a rock visible only during low tide. But after the deaths of the first three Lost Girls, people swore they saw three ghostly lights flickering over the rock, as if the spirits of the girls had never left. For a long time, Sydney had been dying to catch those ghost lights on film, seal them to paper in a way that no one else had been able to. But then Caitlin Thomas had died in a horrific collision with the Phantom Rock—while Sydney was on the boat with her—and Sydney had learned the hard way that there was no such thing as myth, or spirits, or fate, or, least of all, ghost lights. It was all just a fancy way of refusing to face reality: that people died, and nothing you did or wished for could stop that.

Still, she kept being drawn to Great Harbor Beach. Her RISD scholarship application required her to submit a “unique and awe-inspiring hometown image,” and all she could seem to shoot was that rock. She photographed it during low tide and half tide, during sunlight and moonlight, before school and after school. Again and again and again, until the frames all bled together, worthless and futile, a graveyard of images. She kept hoping for unique and awe-inspiring, but, so far, all she had was dull and duller. With the application due in exactly one week, she was running out of time.

Sydney pulled into the empty beach parking lot and ditched her shoes in the car. The sand was damp against her feet as she walked down to the surf, her camera clutched in her hands. She couldn’t help but glance nervously over her shoulder. But the beach was completely empty, dark sand stretching out for miles. The only remnants of people were a few tiki torches, probably left over from Abby’s joke of a party. Sydney lifted her camera, training it on the Phantom Rock. Soon she was caught up in the rhythm of taking photos, the click of the shutter a sound track to her thoughts.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the new notes. Who could have sent them? And why drag Emerson into it now? Was it just to torture Sydney by throwing the two of them together?

High above the Phantom Rock, a burst of light suddenly shattered the darkness. For a split second everything was painted in light: the jagged tip of the rock and the soaring crests of the waves and the wide expanse of sand, yawning golden around her.

Sydney’s finger automatically pressed the shutter release. Snap.

Then just like that, it was dark again.

For several long minutes Sydney kept her eyes trained on the rock, but the darkness never broke again. Her hands started to shake. Those lights… they’d been exactly like what everyone described. Had she finally done the impossible: caught the ghost lights on camera? She couldn’t imagine a better photograph for her application.

Suddenly it hit her. There hadn’t been three lights; there had been five. Two new lights for two new Lost Girls.

Her hands shook harder at the thought, and as she jabbed clumsily at the display button to see the photo, the camera slipped right out of her grip. She gasped as it tumbled to the ground.

The camera landed with a muffled thud, making the memory card pop out of its slot. “Noooo,” Sydney moaned as the memory card skidded into a wet pile of sand. She grabbed for it desperately, but it was too late. It was coated with sand. She brushed it off, but when she put it back in her camera, the screen stayed black. Sydney blew out a frustrated sigh. Even if she had caught the lights on camera, the photo was gone now.

She extracted the memory card and dropped it into her purse. She’d try to dry it out later, but she knew it was probably a lost cause. This wasn’t her first camera casualty at the beach. Wet sand usually meant a one-way ticket to the trash.

Disappointment trickled through her, but she shook her head. She was being ridiculous. The ghost lights weren’t real. Just like the Lost Girls superstition wasn’t real. What she’d seen must have been some kind of reflection off the water. That was all.

Several yards down the beach, something caught her attention. It was a guy walking slowly along, his head turned toward the waves. Sydney broke into a smile. After a summer working together at the Echo Bay Golf & Country Club, she would know that awkward gait and mass of curls anywhere. “Calum!” She lifted her hand and waved.

Calum’s head jerked in her direction. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite photographer,” he called.

It was too dark to make out his expression as he jogged toward her, but Sydney could imagine his trademark lopsided grin. It made her own smile widen. It had been over a month now since she’d ended things with Guinness, and, still, she felt such a hole inside her. So many times she’d reached for the phone, excited about a new photographer or a funny conversation she’d overheard at Bean Encounters, just to realize she had no one to call. Over the summer Calum’s dorky jokes had often cheered her up, but ever since school started, she’d barely seen him.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked when he reached her. He was wearing a Calum-tastic sweatshirt: stained at the cuffs and stamped with the phrase: I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C: WEIRD. Sydney stifled a laugh. She had never met a guy with more shirts featuring superheroes and corny mottos.

“You know me. I can never resist a good party. Especially when Abby Wilkins decrees I have to be there,” he added with a smirk. “I swear that girl is more slave driver than president. But she does know how to throw a shindig; I’ll give her that. Unfortunately, you’re a little late to partake in the festivities. I just stayed to do some cleaning up.”

“One, did you really just channel my grandmother and say shindig? And two, I’m definitely not here for the party. You know I don’t do Winslow social events.” Sydney pretended to gag. “I just came to shoot some photos. I need the perfect ‘hometown image’ by next Monday. And I actually just saw the weirdest thing.” She twisted her ring. “Five lights, flashing over the ocean… They almost looked like ghost lights.” She let out a sheepish laugh. “Probably just a reflection or something,” she added quickly. “You didn’t see it, did you?”

Calum shook his head. “I was preoccupied with my trash hunt. But”—he gave her a sly look—“I’ll have you know that you are statistically more likely to see the nearly extinct Daggernose shark than any ghost lights.” His voice was light, but his expression clouded over a little. Of course it did. Sydney looked down, feeling terrible. First a Lost Girls party and now talk of ghost lights. Calum probably couldn’t help but think about his sister, Meryl.

Meryl Bauer, Calum’s older sister, was the town’s original Lost Girl. She’d died in a boating accident off Great Harbor Beach ten years ago—just as Nicole Mayor had four years later, and Kyla Kern a year after that. Sydney could only imagine what kind of memories all the recent Lost Girls talk must be bringing back for Calum. She considered asking him about it, but their messed-up families was the one topic she and Calum never broached. “I’m glad I ran into you,” she said instead, changing the subject. “I’ve seen you so little at school lately that I’d started to worry you’d been abducted into some mystical genius land.”

“Well, I have been busy programming a new computer game I designed,” Calum said excitedly. “But you’re right; it’s been much too long since I’ve witnessed you consuming inhuman levels of sugar and caffeine.”