Naomi leapt up. “God, I’m such a buzzkill! C’mon. Let’s forget about this and have fun.”
They rushed up to the front and grabbed the microphones. But when Hanna opened her mouth to sing, her voice sounded unsteady and thin. She kept picturing Madison in a hospital bed, post-crash, one of those horrible masks on her face breathing for her. She pictured Naomi, Madison’s favorite cousin, sitting by her side, a blubbering mess. Finding out that someone else was to blame would drive anyone to revenge. But how was Naomi able to play it so cool right now?
She glanced over at Naomi now. Her eyes were clear, her tears gone, and she was singing gleefully into the microphone as though she’d put the pain behind her. As the peppy chorus began, a bunch of kids in the audience sang along. Naomi’s voice rose. She turned around and slapped her butt. Hanna couldn’t help but snicker.
Then Hanna threw her head back and sang louder, too. Her voice sounded good blended with Naomi’s. When she opened her eyes, Naomi grabbed her hands and spun her around. She flipped her skirt, and Hanna grabbed two glowsticks from a nearby table, pretending firecrackers were exploding from her boobs. The crowd cheered. When Hanna looked out at their faces, even Graham was smiling.
When the song ended, a bunch of guys sitting along the wall chanted, “En-core! En-core!”
“The public loves us!” Hanna giggled as they stepped off the stage.
“That’s because we’re awesome!” Naomi looped her arm through Hanna’s elbow. “We should perform that at the talent show, don’t you think?”
“Um, sure,” Hanna said, remembering her promise to Spencer and the others to do the hula with them. But it wasn’t like she could say no—not to the girl who was potentially A.
And then, as if on cue, when she got back to her seat, her cell phone light was blinking. There was a new text message.
Naomi’s head had turned and she was talking to Ursula Tippington, paying no attention. Hanna cast a glance at Naomi’s phone on the table beside her. All she had to do was reach over and grab it, but her limbs felt as if they were filled with sand. Swallowing hard, she opened her text.
Hanna Marin got in a crash
Moved a girl to cover her ass
Hanna Marin fled the scene
But someone saw it all—me.
—A
13
PEOPLE WHO FLOAT IN GLASS BOATS SHOULDN’T THROW STONES
“Welcome to Puerto Rico!” Jeremy boomed over the loudspeaker on Thursday morning. He said it with a flamboyant Spanish accent, rolling the rs.
Emily watched as a lot of kids waved scarves at the people on shore. An acoustic, dreamy version of “Over the Rainbow” tinkled over the loudspeakers, and everyone groaned. That same song had played when they’d pulled out of Newark, then the following morning at sea, then to summon them to dinner the night before. It was getting a little old.
She sat down on a bench, inhaling the humid air. Jordan had left her a note on her bedside table earlier, saying she was grabbing coffee but that Emily should meet her. When her phone rang, she expected to see Jordan’s name, but it was Hanna instead.
“I have Spencer and Aria on the phone, too,” Hanna said as soon as Emily answered. “I hung out with Naomi. She doesn’t seem to know that we were involved in Madison’s accident—but someone does. A sent me another note about it.”
“Did you find out if Madison died?” Emily asked, her heart stopping in her chest. Please say she didn’t, she thought. If someone else died because of her, she wasn’t sure how she could go on. But then, finding out that Madison hadn’t been just passed-out drunk, as they’d all thought, was enough of a mind game. How could she have fled the scene, leaving a hurt, innocent girl behind? Emily kept picturing the police reading her charges, the looks on her parents’ faces. Her mother would probably keel over dead—and that would be yet another death Emily was responsible for.
“I don’t know if she died yet,” Hanna admitted. “We were interrupted before I could get to that, and I felt weird pushing it.”
“You have to try to find out what happened, Hanna,” Aria urged. “If she did die, or if she was hurt, that makes a stronger case for Naomi being A.”
“I know, I know.” Hanna sounded distraught. Then she sighed. “But I’m confused. Naomi seems so poised and innocent. Could she be that good of an actress?”
“I got a note from A yesterday, and when I looked up, Naomi was staring right at me,” Aria said. “My note made another reference to Jamaica. We need to figure this out soon and bring A down before A ruins us.”
“You know who I’m not so sure about?” Hanna said. “Tabitha’s ex. He was all alone in the karaoke bar, Aria, and it seemed like he was watching me.”
“He’s not A,” Aria said stubbornly.
“How can you be so sure?” Spencer asked. “He was there when you got the A note yesterday, too, wasn’t he?”
“But how could he know about everything else we did?” Aria said. “He was in South America last summer, remember?”
“So he says.”
There was a tense pause on the line. Finally, Spencer sighed and said she had to go. The other girls hung up, too, but they promised to meet up later to talk about their hula dance. After she hit END, Emily chewed hard on her gum. Though she didn’t believe Naomi was A, she also remembered something from the previous summer—maybe she and Naomi did share a connection. After the accident, when Emily was in Philadelphia, she’d been waddling home from the fish restaurant where she worked, deep in conversation with Derrick, her friend and coworker. They’d been talking about how heartbreaking Real Ali’s return to Rosewood had been for Emily, especially the kiss they’d shared.
“Are you sad she died in the fire?” Derrick had asked.
“Sort of,” Emily said, looking away. It wasn’t like she could tell Derrick that Ali hadn’t died in the fire—that she’d escaped through the door Emily had left open. Ali had died when Aria pushed her off the roof in Jamaica, though.
Then she had stopped short, spying someone across the intersection. There, standing at the window of the BCBG store, was Naomi Zeigler.
“Oh my God,” she’d gasped, pulling Derrick around the corner. She waited until Naomi had walked on, then figured she was safe. But what if Naomi had seen?
Emily’s phone bleated again, bringing her back to the present. Aria, said the Caller ID. “What are you doing today, Em?” she asked. “Do you want to get breakfast?”
Just then, Emily spied Jordan rounding the corner. She was wearing a pair of khaki Bermuda shorts and a sky-blue T-shirt Emily had loaned her. The same silk headband held back her long, dark hair.
“Uh, I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?” Aria sounded worried. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great,” Emily said in a lower voice. “Better than great, actually.” She peeked at Jordan as she strode toward her, a huge smile on her face. “I’ve made an amazing new friend.”
“Oh!” Aria sounded pleased. “That’s nice. At least something good is happening on this trip. Do I get to meet her?”
Emily chewed on the tip of her sunglasses. Aria might not approve of the fact that she was hiding someone in her room. They were in enough trouble as it was.
“Um, I’ll get back to you on that,” she said abruptly, and then hung up.
She dropped her phone in her bag and smiled at Jordan. “What are we up to today?” She nudged her playfully. “It had better be good. I’m skipping bird-watching for this.” Her bird-watching instructor had a beach expedition planned, though if it was anything like yesterday’s watch, Emily would be so bored that she’d almost fall asleep while staring through the binoculars. There was only so much excitement she could muster up for sea terns and pelicans.