“Mind if I take the bathroom first?” Naomi asked, her hand on the doorknob.
“Go for it,” Hanna said, flopping down on the bed.
Naomi shut the door, and water started to run. Hanna rubbed her feet on the soft, silky sheets, feeling satisfyingly exhausted.
Ping.
She opened her eyes. Her phone, which was sitting on the nightstand, wasn’t blinking. Her gaze fell on the open laptop on Naomi’s bed. A message in the corner of the screen said New e-mail from Madison Strickland.
She looked away. Who cared if Naomi had received an e-mail from Madison? Cousins contacted one another all the time.
But one little peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?
Hanna cocked her ear toward the bathroom. The shower was still running. Slowly, she eased her legs off the bed and tiptoed over to the laptop. The bedsprings squeaked as she sat on Naomi’s mattress. On the right-hand side of the desktop were two folders labeled School Papers and Princeton Application. Hanna scanned them, then exited. Next she waved the mouse over a Gmail icon. Taking a deep breath, she double-clicked on it. The program opened and launched right into her inbox. The new e-mail from Madison appeared. It was part of a thread titled That night. Hanna drew in a breath. The first e-mail in the thread was from early July of last summer.
Hanna scrolled back to the beginning of the conversation, dated July 1. Are you still trying to figure out the name of the driver? Naomi had written to her cousin. Yes, Madison wrote back that same day. I think I’m getting close. And then, on July 3, Madison wrote another e-maiclass="underline" We need to talk in person. I think I know who did this to me. Naomi replied on July 5: They’re going down. I’ll make sure they get what they deserve. There was a long stretch of no replies, but today, Madison had written: I’m so proud of you for doing this for me.
Hanna signed out of Naomi’s e-mail and looked up, catching sight of her all-too-sober expression in the mirror over the bureau. They. Madison must have not only figured out that Hanna was the driver but also that Aria, Spencer, and Emily had helped her escape. If she’d shared this with Naomi in early July, Naomi would have had ample time to stalk all of the girls and dig up their secrets. And I’m so proud of you for doing this for me? What did Madison mean by that?
Her heart pounded in her chest. She had been wrong. Again. Naomi was A. This proved it.
“What are you doing?”
Naomi stood in the bathroom doorway in a bathrobe. Hanna stepped away from Naomi’s bed. “H-hey!”
“Hey,” Naomi said slowly. Her gaze flicked from Hanna to the laptop, then back to Hanna again. “Everything okay?”
“Uh, I was just looking for my sleep mask,” Hanna said, fumbling on Naomi’s bed, then on the floor. She was sure Naomi could hear her pounding heart all the way across the room.
Naomi walked to the bed and sat down. She gave Hanna a long look but didn’t say anything. For a moment, her face was illuminated by the moonlight, and when she smiled, her teeth looked long and garish, almost wolflike. “The bathroom’s yours if you want it,” she said finally.
“I’m cool,” Hanna said. “I’m just going to go to bed.” If only she could text Mike and beg to stay with him another night. But then Naomi would be on to her for sure.
“Okay, then.” Naomi shifted her laptop to the floor and pulled the covers over her. “Nighty-night, bestie!”
“Night,” Hanna croaked, huddling under the duvet and knowing she wouldn’t sleep a wink.
18
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Saturday morning, Spencer rushed into the empty arcade where her friends were waiting. Emily paced nervously past the unoccupied video consoles for Modern Warfare and Dance Dance Revolution. Aria tapped her nails on top of a change machine. Hanna picked at a loose thread on her jean shorts, the lights from a pinball machine flashing across her face. Her hair was matted, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She’d texted them that morning saying she needed to talk, pronto.
“I don’t have much time,” Spencer said, checking her watch. She was due to meet Reefer in the sauna at 10—and it was 9:45.
“I found something last night.” Hanna’s voice was high and tweaky, like she’d drunk too many cups of coffee. “I looked on Naomi’s e-mail, just like you told me to do. There was an e-mail thread with Madison Strickland about the accident. I’m pretty sure they know it was us.”
“Wait.” Aria looked startled. “So Madison is alive?”
“Naomi said she was alive, but badly injured,” Hanna said. “The thing is, Naomi also said that she was, in a weird way, happy that Madison had gotten in the accident. There’s no way that’s true—not with what these e-mails said.”
Spencer shut her eyes and let out a breath. Once again, that crack of bone resounded through her mind. She had done that. She could empathize with Aria now for how she felt about Tabitha—it seemed different, somehow, when you were the one who’d pushed or dropped someone. “Did the e-mails name us specifically?”
“Not specifically, but one said They’re going down. They. Naomi must know we were all involved. She wrote the e-mail on July 5, too—before we gave that money back to Gayle, before the Spencer-and-Kelsey thing happened, before everything last summer. And then there was a new e-mail from Madison that said I’m so proud of you for doing this for me.”
Emily ran her hand across her forehead. “Okay, so now we think Naomi is A. Or one of the As.”
“It looks like it.” Hanna looked pained just saying the words. “It seemed like she didn’t know a thing, but I guess she’s just a really, really good actress.”
“If Naomi is A—or even working with another A—then Naomi knows everything.” Aria pulled out her phone and showed it to the girls. “Look what A sent me.”
Everyone studied the blurry image of the face of The Cliffs resort that had popped up on the screen. At the top of the frame were five girls on the roof deck. A blond girl stood precariously near the edge; a brunette of Aria’s height and build had her arms outstretched, ready to push. If you knew what you were looking for, it sealed their life-in-prison sentence.
“You need to erase that!” Spencer grabbed Aria’s phone and hit various buttons.
“Go ahead and try.” Aria crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s something wrong with my software—I can’t delete anything. If anyone sees it—Graham, the teachers on this trip, the cops—we’re done.”
Hanna’s head whipped up. “You’re still speaking to Graham?”
Aria squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s not A, okay?”
“But what if Naomi tells him what we did?” Spencer whispered. “She could have been the one who sent you those photos, Aria—whoever she’s working with could have taken them and shared them with her. What if she mentions the picture on your phone, and what if he, like, goes crazy with revenge and hurts you?”
Aria flicked the coin return slot on the change machine. “He really doesn’t seem like that kind of person.”