The Good Girls
Page 1
Dedication
For all the girls who couldn’t speak up, for the girls who were ignored, denied, and punished for being themselves. I will always believe you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue: The Dead Girl
1. The Loudmouth Slut
2. The Wolves
3. The Cheer Captain
4. Those Left Behind
5. The Overachiever
6. The Skirmish
7. The Scholar
8. The Jock
9. The Party Girl
10. Pretty Vultures
11. The Helper
12. Like Mother, Like Daughter
13. Study Buddies
14. The Unfaithful
15. The Fence
16. The Sister
17. The Delinquent
18. The Liar
19. The Sneak
20. Claaaaaaude
21. The Desperate One
22. The Cheater
23. The Heartbreaker
24. The Secretive
25. The Cornered
26. The Burglar
27. The Runner
28. The Living Girl
29. The Victims
30. The Truth
31. The Little Sister
32. The Ghost
33. The Uncaring Bitch
34. The Self-Serving Rebel
35. The Airhead Cheerleader
The Good Girl
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Books by Claire Eliza Bartlett
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
The Dead Girl
The end of my life starts here.
A rainy, sodden autumn has turned the river below into a roaring monster. Rocks jut out like jagged teeth, jet black against frothy white. My blood sings as the weathered wood sags behind me—someone has followed me onto the tiny bridge over Anna’s Run.
I’ve been running. Running for so long, I forgot what it feels like to stop. My whole body is still poised to flee.
But it’s too late for that now. Legends say Anna’s Run takes one unlucky sacrifice every year. The wind wraps around my neck like a cord.
The figure at the end of the bridge moves closer. I try to turn, but the world around me rushes and I can’t keep up. The water, my blood. Even my vision spins, moving too fast for the rest of me.
And then everything crystallizes to a point: One image, the hand stretched toward my chest. One sound, the crash of water around a body. One feeling: cold that knocks out thought, knocks out even the memory of your own name. Cold that steals the breath from your lungs.
Everything has been stolen from me. My future, my life—and now my body, swallowed whole by the nightmares that make up Anna’s Run. Even my story isn’t mine anymore.
That’s the thing about being dead. You no longer get to say what happens next.
1
The Loudmouth Slut
MUÑEZ: The date is Thursday, December 6, 2018, the time is seven fifty-five. Detective Muñez interviewing Claude Vanderly. Thank you for joining us, Miss Vanderly. You must be wondering why we’ve—
CLAUDE: It’s the dead girl, isn’t it?
Oh, sorry. Emma. But that is why you wanted to talk to me, right? Because I’m the person most likely to know something? Because I’m the person most likely to have something to do with it?
MUÑEZ: We just have a few questions.
CLAUDE: Sure. You randomly selected the girl who gets into the most trouble at Jefferson-Lorne. Well, I wasn’t involved, so let’s start there. I mean I’m, like, a feminist. I don’t go around killing girls. And I can’t give you much help with the investigation either. I didn’t really know Emma. She was a bit of a loner, but she hung out with Avery sometimes. You should ask Avery Cross why Emma would be at Anna’s Run last night. Or what sorts of enemies she might have made.
MUÑEZ: Miss Vanderly, we’re talking to you right now, not Miss Cross.
CLAUDE: I’m just trying not to waste your time. It’s your call. Sadly for you, I have a solid alibi. You know Jamie Schill? Principal Mendoza does, don’t you, sir? Jamie goes here. And we’re friends.
Friends with benefits, actually. So yeah. You can guess what I was doing last night.
MUÑEZ: No accusation is being made toward you. This is simply standard procedure. We’re trying to establish a timeline. And due to the nature of the . . . emerging evidence, most of the student body has been involved now. Can you tell us how, exactly, you first heard about Emma?
CLAUDE: Fine. Okay, so when I first heard . . . It was this morning. At Jamie’s house.
I woke up with Jamie’s nose pressed into my back. Yes, his nose, you perverts. He burrows down in the night when he’s cold, and it’s the closest we get to cuddling. For a moment I thought I’d beat the alarm and I had a few glorious warm moments to myself. Then Jamie’s mom knocked, and he woke with a twitch and a snort. It was 6:45. The alarm went off fifteen minutes ago. Oops.
Mrs. Schill didn’t know I was over. She’s one of those clueless moms who think their son is going to stay a virgin until he’s married. Nothing inspires terror in a boy like trying to keep his friend with benefits a secret from the woman who pushed him out of her vagina, and Jamie went from comatose to panicked and kicking in about a tenth of a second. I thumped onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and comforter. “Hide,” he hissed.
“Good morning to you, too,” I grumbled, which wasn’t entirely fair. We’ve never done that whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. He knows it freaks me out, which is part of why I actually spend time with him outside of parties and school.
“Shut up,” Jamie pleaded, half pushing, half rolling me toward his closet while simultaneously retrieving my jeans, T-shirt, and phone. With his puppy eyes he gave me one last, imploring glance. I gotta give it to him, he has those eyes. They’re brown, with a ring of green in them, and wide, and framed by insane lashes that I would sort of kill for. He stared back at me, obviously distracted from the task at hand. “You’re beautiful,” he sighed, which he always says right before he kisses me.
Early-morning makeouts are fine with me. I had his nightshirt in my fist and was leaning forward when the knock came again. “Bear? Are you all right in there?” Jamie’s mom has this cutesy voice that makes me want to vomit in my mouth.
We froze. “I’m just getting dressed.” Jamie uses that trick a lot when I’m around. It usually works.
This morning was anything but usual. “I need to talk to you.”
Jamie looked like he wanted to vomit in his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered, then disentangled my hand from his shirt and slammed the closet door in my face. I was in the dark, half giddy and half asleep. My eyes felt packed with sand; I must’ve forgotten to take my contacts out in the night. My knees were jammed up against the door. And then I noticed the smell. Most boys’ rooms smell like a cold gym. Jamie’s smelled like his deodorant, clean and fresh and soft somehow.
Since I couldn’t get dressed without kicking open the door and saying a not-so-nice good morning to Mrs. Schill, I unlocked my phone.
That was when I started to realize: this was going to be a weird day.
First off, I had like a gazillion messages from my mom. Mom isn’t like the Mrs. Schills of the world. She doesn’t give a shit if I’m sleeping over with a guy. She doesn’t text me every five minutes if I’m nearing curfew. She doesn’t even give me a curfew. But the messages were piled on top of one another, a mountain of worry. The thought of climbing it made me want to flop back onto the ground—but that would have resulted in the aforementi
oned door kicking, and baring my goods to Jamie’s mom. So I took a deep breath, steeled myself for the worst, and clicked.
Just checking in to see if u r ok? Mssg back pls xxx
Hon I know I don’t normally do this but pls text
Please call.
Something happened at Anna’s Run.
“. . . Anna’s Run,” Mrs. Schill said at the same time. I fumbled the phone as it slipped in my hands.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Jamie said. “What’s going on?”
“I have to get to work. There’ll probably be a lot of rumors going around school today. Just remember, don’t believe everything you hear.” I stifled my snort against my knee. I bet Mrs. Schill believes everything she hears about me. “And if you need to call us, call us. Okay?”
“Okay,” came Jamie’s voice, muffled by what was undoubtedly a bear hug. She looks like a strong wind would snap her in half, but that woman could break bones if she wanted to.
Jamie waited ages before deciding it was okay to let me out of the closet. By that time my legs had woken up and gone back to sleep. I wobbled to my feet, using his closet wall as support. “Mom’s on her way out, so we should be in the clear. I gotta shower. Then we’ll go.”
“What about my shower?”
The side of his mouth cocked up. “You don’t need one. You smell good.”
“Liar,” I accused, but smiled back. As Jamie went to shower I took an experimental sniff under my arm. Thank the Universe for spray deodorant.
His shower, at least, gave me time to call mom. She picked up on the first ring. “Claude?”
“No, Darth Vader.”
“That’s not funny,” she snapped, but I could sense her relief. Some of the tension seemed to unwind from her voice as she said, “Are you all right? Where are you?”
Like I said, Mom never asks me that sort of thing. “I stayed over at Jamie’s. I’m fine, everything’s fine. What’s going on?”
Mom took a steeling breath. “Someone’s been calling around. There was an incident at Anna’s Run last night.”
An Incident. Sounds ominous, but honestly? Jefferson-Lorne is the sort of town that invents drama for shits and giggles. And Jefferson-Lorne is rife with rumors. I should know, I’m at the center of practically every rumor I hear.
“Don’t panic,” I told her. “It was probably a prank. People do stupid shit all the time.”
“People also die at Anna’s Run all the time,” Mom said.
Anna’s Run is our resident one-stop shop for urban legends. The little bend in the river seems harmless, even picturesque—but the calm drift of the water hides a wicked current that carved out the bank below. If you go in, you get sucked under and pushed downstream before you even realize that things have gone wrong. The pressure of the water makes it impossible to break free—that’s what the legends say. I mean, they also say that the river sprang from nowhere after the hanging of Anna’s witch coven, and that the current feels like dead girls’ fingers pulling you down. If you’re not from around here, you don’t realize. Anna’s like a god in this town. A god of nature who has to be appeased. Everyone else in Colorado is worried about blizzards and pine beetles and forest fires, but for us it’s the river. And people mess around with it. They think they can control it, or themselves, be safe next to a natural phenomenon that could kill you in thirty seconds. I mean, I’d never fuck with that place, or its reputation. But people lack general intelligence. Another nugget of wisdom brought to you by My Experience in High School.
MUÑEZ: So you’re familiar with Anna’s Run?
CLAUDE: Everyone’s familiar with Anna’s Run. I started going there when I was ten. Back then my friends and I dared each other to call out for the ghost—you know, the ghost of Anna? She steals silver, like forks and spoons and shit, and ties it to the trees around the run. People climb the trees to get it back, and they fall into the water and don’t come out again. Anna drags them down, holds them under so that they can’t swim up and out. I took a bottle of wine once and threw it in the river. It came up downstream, empty. Guess Anna doesn’t get a lot of merlot in her life.
MUÑEZ: The local police report shows that you were arrested at Anna’s Run.
CLAUDE: Yeah, maybe.
MUÑEZ: Maybe?
CLAUDE: I mean, I don’t remember any incident in particular.
MUÑEZ: You don’t remember being arrested for suspicious activity and disorderly conduct? Those were the charges.
CLAUDE: Look, Officer, the police hate me, and the police hate my mom. I’ve never done anything my peers haven’t done at Anna’s Run. Are we going through my record or my alibi?
As I slithered into my clothes one-handed, Mom sighed. Her voice softened. “I don’t mean to lose it on you. It’s been a rough night. And you didn’t text back. . . .”
“Sorry,” I said as Jamie returned in a cloud of body spray. “Out like a light.”
“Okay.” She sighed again. “I love you, sweetheart. Have a good day at school and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” That’s an old joke in the Vanderly home. Mom was the biggest terror in high school. Some of my teachers talk about her with awe.
Jamie and I walked the block and a half to my car. I park by the playground when I go to Jamie’s so that Mrs. Schill doesn’t see the Devil Incarnate’s car sitting in her driveway each morning. Jamie slouched into the passenger side as I slung my backpack into the trunk. “Don’t you get tired of sneaking around all the time?”
“Nope.” For the record, I’m not a sneak. But I like boys—so sue me. Don’t you get tired is the textbook beginning to a boy wanting to be exclusive. In my experience, boys only want to be exclusive if I’m getting laid more than they are.
So I revved up Janine—that’s my six-speed Honda, 2014 model, charcoal gray, in case you’re taking notes. “So what was your mom saying about Anna’s Run?”
Jamie shrugged. “Weird things, blah blah.” He looked at me sidelong, quirking one eyebrow up. “Someone probably heard a coyote in the night and panicked.”
I slid into the game. “Someone fell asleep after too much weed and had a weird dream.” Jamie’s the best person to riff off. Also, doing this meant he couldn’t stumble through the let’s-be-exclusive proposal he’d so clearly rehearsed.
“Sex cult covering for their loud noises,” he said.
I guffawed as I pulled away from the park. “Oh my Universe, who would even be in a sex cult in this town?”
“It’s always the ones you think are most respectable.” Jamie wiggled his fingers theatrically. “My money’s on Mr. Cross.”
“Ew.” Mr. Cross owns most of the construction companies here. He’s the kind of guy who wears sunglasses indoors, who rubs elbows with the mayor and the governor, who invites all the teens over for a pool party, who has a yacht parked in front of his house even though we live in friggin’ Colorado.
“Where are we going?” Jamie asked as I turned off the main road.
“We’re taking the scenic route,” I said.
“Claude,” he groaned.
But I wanted to see Anna’s Run.
“We won’t actually see anything. And we’ll miss breakfast burritos.” Jamie’s voice took on a suspicious tint. He saw me skip lunch once and now he’s terrified I might be anorexic. “At least have some of my shake.” He held up the protein shake his mom leaves him every morning.
“No thanks. Cement has more flavor.” I held up a hand to stop his protest. “I brought lunch—I’ll eat it for breakfast. Calm down.”
“We could still be getting burritos,” he grumbled, sliding low in his seat. Poor guy. He’s used to having his way.
Sadly for him, I’m also used to having mine. We drove to Anna’s Run.
Ordinarily I’d have liked the drive. The smell of the woods out that way is crisp and clean. We get a view of the mountains from the road, rising blue-gray and capped with snow almost year-round. The road is dotted with turnoffs that lead to dozens of hiking trails
, going farther into the Rockies or up to Diamondback Ridge (great place for parties, by the way). And, of course, Anna’s Run.
The water was high. I could hear that from the car, even though I couldn’t see the river through the trees; I’ve been out there enough to picture it. Squeaking bridge, rocks as sharp as blades.
Jamie was right: we weren’t going to see anything. The cutoff to Anna’s Run was blocked by three police cars. More cars were parked by the side of the road where the asphalt met prairie grass. I slowed Janine to a crawl. Over the rush of the river, I heard men’s voices calling back and forth as they moved through the woods.
“They’re looking for something,” Jamie said.
I didn’t have much time to think about it. We’d been spotted by a cop, and he was on his way over. And it wasn’t just any cop. It was Deputy Chief Bryson, my personal nemesis in the Jefferson-Lorne PD. That man has it in for me, and he has since before he caught me stuffed in the coat check with his son at homecoming. I stifled the urge to roll the window up and speed away.
Bryson leaned on the windowsill. “Can I help you fine folks?” he said, giving me an impressive stink eye.
Jamie tried to be my white knight. “We’re just driving to school, sir.”
Bryson’s eyes never left my face. “Don’t you live on the other side of town, Miss Vanderly?”
“I’m giving my fine friend a ride.” I batted my eyes. “We’re stopping for breakfast burritos. Want to come?”
Bryson glared at me a moment longer. I was sure he’d ask us to pull over so he could check the car for weed—don’t have any, by the way. But someone shouted to him, and he stepped away instead. “Drive on. And don’t come back this way. You don’t have business here, Miss Vanderly.”
All in all, not the worst encounter with Bryson. As I put Janine in first, Jamie slumped over and let his head thump against the dash. “Why did we do that?” he moaned. “What if he tells Mom you drove me to school?”
“Relax,” I said, patting his knee. “He’s obviously got more to worry about than your personal life.” I watched the scene as it receded in the rearview mirror. More cars were pulling up to the side of the road, disgorging adults in suits and uniforms. It looked like the beginnings of a search party. Or a manhunt. “Is that the FBI? Ooh, I bet they’re looking for the sex cult.”