“Don’t,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears, her lips trembling. “Don’t, don’t, don’t. Please don’t do this.”
I say nothing. There’s nothing left to say. She can see it in my eyes, just like I can see it in hers.
She knows it’s done.
She knows she’s done.
I’m so tired of being pushed aside. I’m over it.
Over.
It.
Chapter
Fourteen
I’m getting ready for school when there’s a frantic knock on my bedroom door, just before my mother bursts inside, her face flushed and her eyes wide. She’s still in her robe and her dark blond hair is a wild tangle about her head.
“I’m almost ready, okay? I’m not going to be late to school, so stop freaking out,” I tell her before resuming my morning makeup ritual in front of the lighted mirror that sits on my vanity. We battle at least three mornings a week, Mom riding my ass, nagging at me that I’m going to miss the first bell, until I finally leave. It’s like she enjoys getting all stressed out.
Mom and Dad both wanted all three of us to be perfect, Mom especially. Her demands can be exhausting. Sometimes I want to chill, you know? What’s wrong with being late to first period? Not that I’ve ever skipped a class or been late, ever. Mom would lose her mind. So would Dad.
“Those detectives are here,” she says, sounding breathless. “Spalding and Hughes, the ones who interviewed you right after Gretchen died. They want to talk to you again. Right now. Supposedly another dead body has been found this morning—at the school.”
I drop my eyeliner on the table and swivel around to stare at her. “What did you just say?”
Mom nods, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Someone else has been murdered. Another student, I think. I saw it on the news. On the ticker tape thing they run on the bottom of the screen? ‘Dead body found in the football stands at Cape Bonita Prep,’ it said.”
Rising to my feet, I go to her on shaky legs. “Who was it? Did they say?”
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head and then reaches for me, drawing me into her arms. I cling to her, my face pressed against her shoulder, breathing in her familiar smell. A hug from Mom always comforts me, but not now.
Instead my mind races, and I can’t seem to catch my breath. It happened again? Someone else is dead? “But why are the cops here for me? What do I have to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” she repeats, grabbing hold of my shoulders and pulling away from me so she can stare into my eyes. “Let’s go talk to them.”
When we enter the living room, Spalding and Hughes are waiting for me, pacing in front of the giant window that faces the street, both of them clearly agitated. Their suits are even more rumpled than the last time I saw them, and the exhaustion is plain on their wan faces.
“Miss Malone,” Detective Spalding says, keeping up the polite facade. “I hope you don’t mind if we talk to you for a few minutes.”
“What’s going on?” My voice is shaky and I settle heavily into the overstuffed chair Mom directed me to.
“Another body was found. This time at the high school,” Hughes says gruffly. His body practically vibrates with frustration. “Early this morning, by a jogger who likes to run the track.”
My mouth drops open. Even though Mom already told me, I still can’t believe it. My entire body is numb and I feel like my heart is beating so hard it’s going to burst out of my chest.
“Is it someone from school?” Mom asks.
Spalding nods, his expression grim. “Someone your daughter knows,” he tells my mother, though his gaze is locked on me.
“Who is it? Who? Who?” I sound like a stupid owl, but I can’t help myself.
He hesitates for a moment before he finally admits, “Alexis Nguyen.”
I slump against the chair, my head spinning. “I was just with her yesterday,” I tell them. “She can’t be dead.”
“She is.” Spalding sits on the couch across from my chair and leans forward, his expression earnest. Probing. “Tell us exactly when you saw her yesterday and what you two talked about.”
I recap everything. Cheer practice. How Lex and I talked about the murder and how it’s set everyone on edge. Though I don’t mention Lex’s suspicions about Courtney. That was pure speculation. “She seemed fine. Like her usual Lex self.”
“What time was practice over?”
“Four thirty.”
“And you didn’t have a Larks meeting afterward?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You didn’t leave with her? See her leave with someone else?”
“No. I saw her get into her car alone.”
Spalding scratches something down on his notepad. “You two were close?”
“Not particularly,” I admit.
Hughes seems to jump on this statement. “Why not? You didn’t like her? She didn’t like you? You two were sharing the same boyfriend or something ridiculous like that?”
“Hey,” Spalding chastises, sending Hughes a stern look.
I pause, wondering how I should approach this or how much I should reveal. No way can I bring up that Lex is—was my enemy. My nemesis. That sounds crazy. That makes me sound…
Guilty.
“We were…friends, but we weren’t as close as I am with Courtney and Danielle,” I tell them.
Hughes says, “Alexis Nguyen was a Lark.”
I nod.
“So was Gretchen.”
“Yes, she was. They both were,” I whisper. “So?”
“You do understand that you’re connected to both of these deaths.” Hughes sends me a pointed look.
“I’m not the only one,” I point out.
“But it sounds like you disliked both Gretchen and Alexis.” Hughes hesitates, his gaze sharp as he glares at me. “A lot.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Mom barrels in front of me, blocking my view. “That’ll be enough, gentlemen. If you have any more questions for my daughter, you’ll need to do so through our attorney. Now I’d like to ask you to please leave my house.”
Reluctantly, and with some grumbling, the two men finally stand up to leave, Hughes calling out, “We’ll be in touch, Penelope!” but Mom closes the door before he can say anything else to intimidate me. She turns the lock with a firm click and returns to the living room, rushing to the overstuffed chair where I’m sitting so we can be together, wrapping her arms around me.
The second she hugs me, I can’t stop the tears from falling. I cried a little bit over Gretchen’s death, but now that Lex is gone, too? Two girls who are very close to me, who were Larks, who I’ve known forever…I can’t believe this is happening. This doesn’t feel random.
Their deaths feel planned. Almost like these girls were targeted.
Oh God.
What if I’m next?
“I’m so sorry, darling. I can’t believe it. First Gretchen, now Alexis is gone,” Mom murmurs against my hair, stroking my back. “This is all so terrifying. I don’t know what to say.”
I sniff against her robe. “Are you really going to call your lawyer and have him represent me? Or will Daddy be my lawyer?”
“Your father isn’t in criminal law, but he knows plenty of qualified attorneys who can help us. Don’t worry about it. They’ll know exactly what to do and what to say. You’re still a minor, even though they’ll try to tell us you’re close enough to being an adult, since you’re seventeen, so they’ll try to talk to you alone. And we can’t allow those detectives to question you by yourself. They’ll badger you for hours, breaking you down until you finally confess that you did it,” Mom explains.
I lift away from her, my entire body shaking. “I would never do that. Because I didn’t do it!”
“I’m not saying you would, darling.” She pats my back. “But there are too many documented cases out there of innocent teenagers confessing to something they didn’t do because of stubborn detectives who interrogated them
for hours until they finally cracked.”
God. How awful. I can’t imagine what that would be like. “I didn’t kill Gretchen, Mom. I didn’t kill Lex, either. I promise I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t. I never thought you did.” She runs a hand over my hair, trying to smile. “But do you know anything, anything at all? Did you see something happen? Hear rumors at school or from your friends? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I think of Cass Vincenti and what he told me. I haven’t talked to him since we met Saturday morning. He hasn’t texted me, either. We pass each other in the halls at school but don’t make eye contact. And he ignores me in physics while I do the same to him. It’s best we leave this alone—or so I thought until Lex.
But maybe I should go find him. Get his opinion on all of this.
“Penelope? Talk to me,” Mom says, interrupting my thoughts. “Your father and I are worried. And now with another one of your friends murdered…” Her voice drifts and a visible shiver moves through her. “It’s not safe at school. It can’t be.”
“You can’t keep me from going to school—” I start but she cuts me off with a look.
“We can do whatever we want if it keeps you safe,” Mom says firmly. “What exactly is the school doing in order to ensure the students’ safety, hmm? Because so far, they’re doing a terrible job.”
“Gretchen wasn’t killed at school, and it looks like Lex w-was k-killed last n-night.” I’m stumbling over my words because the tears are coming now. I collapse against my mother, burying my face against her shoulder as I cry in earnest.
She offers me comfort, running her hand up and down my back, whispering into my hair, asking yet again if I remember anything. If I saw anything. My mind drifts, and I remember what Lex said to me just yesterday and how she suspected Court. But who wouldn’t, with her irrational behavior?
I lift away from Mom’s shoulder and meet her concerned gaze. She wipes the tears away from my face with her fingers, a gentle smile curving her lips. “Were you going to say something?” she asks.
“Um, well. People are saying things about—” I falter, trying to contain the sob that wants to leave me. “About Courtney.”
Shock washes over Mom’s face, but then she blinks and it’s gone. “Courtney? Really? Don’t tell me you think she’s involved.”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. There are always arguments between us, but would Courtney go so far as to try to kill someone?” No freaking way. It seems impossible. “She was mad at both Gretchen and Lex, though. Well, everyone’s always irritated with Lex.” And Gretchen, if I’m being truthful.
“You should tell the police that,” Mom says softly.
“I don’t want to be the one who gets Courtney in trouble,” I whisper.
“Darling, if she’s involved, she’s already gotten herself in trouble, right?” Mom tries to smile but it looks more like a grimace.
I nod and duck my head, diving back into her embrace. I can’t take this. Two girls dead. Two Larks. There is no coincidence here. I think the cops realize it, too.
I just hope they figure out who the killer is before another girl—another Lark—is murdered.
Chapter
Fifteen
Soon after the detectives left my house, a mass text was sent out from the school, saying classes were canceled. The entire campus is being treated as a crime scene, and both the local police and outside investigators—that’s how they were described in the text—were there.
Within minutes of the notice going out, I started getting texts, pretty much from every Lark member. I asked my mom and then invited them all over, figuring we were better together as a hive mind than stuck at our homes and freaked out all by ourselves.
This is how, by eleven on a Tuesday morning, the Larks are in my bedroom. Dani and Courtney sit on my bed with me. The juniors are sprawled across my floor, and every single one of them looks scared out of their mind.
“Do you think we’re being targeted?” asks Grace, the quietest Lark of the bunch. She gives off a shy boho vibe during the weekend when she doesn’t have to wear the school uniform, with her flowing sweaters and flower headbands, and how she always smells like incense. Her parents run a gift shop called Spellbound, and it’s full of candles, handmade potpourri, crystals, and—you guessed it—incense. “The Larks?”
I say “no” at the same time Courtney says “yes” and I shoot her a warning look before I address the younger girls. There’s no need to get everyone riled up. We’re already on edge, not that Courtney cares.
“I don’t want to set you all off in a panic. As of this time, I don’t think our group is being specifically targeted, and the police don’t think so, either.” I have no idea if that’s true. “I will say, though, that it’s strange, how Gretchen and Alexis have been…murdered. And they’re both Larks. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence, but I don’t know…”
Kayla is Grace’s best friend, the straight arrow to Grace’s peace and love vibe. She’s sitting up so straight it looks painful, and she’s the only one out of all of us who is wearing her school uniform. Plus, she’s an organizational freak. She puts me to absolute shame, which makes me think she might be a good presidential candidate for the Larks, too. “If there’s a pattern, then I think the killer is going after the seniors first.”
“Way to reassure us, K,” Courtney says with a laugh.
Dani is openly crying, the poor thing. I want to hug her, but I need to keep it together. Be the example everyone else needs right now. “Why would you say something like that, Kayla?” she asks, her voice shaky. “I would never say that to you. Now you make me feel like I’m going to be next! Or maybe Courtney will be. Or Penelope! And we can’t lose Penelope!” Danielle sounds like she’s borderline hysterical.
“You’re not next,” I reassure her with a gentle arm rub. I send a subtle glare in Kayla’s direction but she just blinks at me in return, then flips her long, thick black hair over her shoulder with a loud sigh. “None of us are next. Not if we stick with one another and stay safe,” I tell them all.
“And how do you propose we do that?” asks Maggie, throwing her hands up in the air. “Stay safe? We can’t be together twenty-four-seven, so what do we do when we go home? Or participate in extracurricular activities and have to stay late after school?”
All the juniors nod and murmur among themselves, sending me the occasional furtive glance before they hurriedly look away. There’s a divide happening. The juniors against the seniors, and I know what they’re thinking.
At least all the juniors are still alive. They’re not the initial target.
Us seniors are.
I withhold the sigh that wants to escape. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have them over. I thought I could act like some sort of den mother and reassure them all that we were safe. That I would take care of my Lark babies still left in the nest. Yes, we’ve lost two, and we shall mourn them properly, but I was going to vow we weren’t losing any more, no matter what.
But that’s a promise I can’t keep. I didn’t count on seven anxious, paranoid girls looking at me like I need to solve their problems with a snap of my fingers, girls who can’t be consoled. And that’s what I’ve got, all of them sitting in my room and staring at me like I have life’s answers.
Wish Mom would hurry up and finish making those brownies. Chocolate cures all ailments, and these girls need as much chocolate as they can get. So do I, really.
“Maybe…” Alyssa’s voice sounds clear and strong, and the other girls shut up when she starts speaking. “Maybe we should temporarily disband. We’re paranoid and scared, and what if this killer really is targeting the Larks? If we break apart, we could become less of a target.”
She sounds like such a leader, even when she has to deliver bad news.
“But if we break apart, even temporarily, then we’re doing exactly what they want us to,” Maggie cries. “They want to split us apart, so why should we give them that sa
tisfaction? It makes no sense. Now is the time for us to stay strong and stay together.”
“We’re stronger together than we are apart,” Dani agrees with a little hiccup, just before she grabs a Kleenex and blows her nose.
“According to who?” Courtney asks, her voice tinged with amusement. She even has a smile on her face, like this entire situation is one big joke. “Seriously, there is no way all the Larks are being targeted. Who gives a shit about you girls anyway?” She waves her hand at the junior Larks on the floor, causing all of them to gasp indignantly. “No offense, but you guys are nothing with us here blocking your path. For all we know, it’s one of you trying to off us so you can take charge. Like you, little Miss Type A with the stick up your ass.” She’s pointing at Kayla, whose mouth is hanging wide open. “You’re just dying to take over Penelope’s spot, aren’t you?”
It’s difficult enough to become a member of the Larks, since only a chosen few are selected. The organization has been a part of Cape Bonita Prep for years, and many of the girls who are former Larks members have gone on to some of the top colleges in the country, including my sister Peyton, who’s at Stanford. I’ve heard stories about the juniors practically destroying each other with vicious rumors just to become president.
Me? Considering my older sister was president her senior year, it was practically a given that I would be, too. Not that Courtney, Gretchen, and Lex didn’t all fight hard for the position. The only one who didn’t try for it was Dani. And I think that’s because she was too afraid of the rest of us to make an attempt.
We’re a fairly intimidating bunch, if you haven’t already figured that out. Not that I like to group myself with the mean girls. This last year I’ve tried to distance myself, only because I was tired of their attitudes. Time to grow up and move on, you know?
“She’s probably the only one capable of the position next year,” Grace says, earning dirty looks from the rest of the juniors—except Kayla. “She’s the perfect one to step into Penelope’s shoes.”
“Hey, let me get through my year first,” I joke, though my voice is a little shaky. “We still have a long way to go.”
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