The Good Girls

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  “You idiot,” Lyla sighs, and she pulls her knees up. “I’m your best friend. I’m your best friend and you’ve been lying to me. I’m mad, but it’s because I want to be there for you.”

  You can’t, Avery doesn’t say.

  “Anyway. Party in our room, right?” Lyla doesn’t wait for her to answer. “Shay says she snuck in some of her dad’s, you know, special stuff. But last time it was watered down and super gross. I brought orange juice to help with the taste.”

  Avery looks out the window. She feels his eyes on her the whole way back to the hotel.

  They round up in the hotel lobby. Mr. G claps for attention again. “Girls, you did a great job,” he says. “I’ve just called Principal Mendoza, and he’s really proud of you. A lot of these other schools have better funding and a bigger student population to choose from, but you’re more hardworking, talented, and dedicated than any of those guys. Good work, Avery.” The team claps. Shay and Natalie wolf whistle. Lyla gives her a half hug. “You made a great team and a great routine—no matter what that bitch of a judge says. Oops!” He covers his mouth in mock guilt as the team shrieks with laughter. Mrs. Halifax glares at him. “Forgot I wasn’t supposed to say stuff like that. But really. Relax for twenty minutes, dinner’s a five o’clock buffet. Show up on time if you don’t want me to eat all the cake.”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Lyla says as they disperse. She shoots Avery a come upstairs and dish look.

  When they get back to the room, Avery grabs her swimsuit and towel instead. “I’m going for a swim.” She fishes through her bag. “Have you seen my phone?” There’s nothing in here but an empty jolly rancher wrapper and a folded note—god, it’s probably from Michael.

  “Seriously?” Lyla moves to block the door. “Aves, talk to me.”

  She can’t. She’ll throw up. If she keeps lying to Lyla, she’ll hate herself. But Lyla wouldn’t buy the truth. “After dinner.” She pushes past Lyla and flees down the hall.

  Her skin feels tight and itchy. She wants to scrub it until Avery peels away and someone new can step out. Someone brasher, louder, angrier. Avery wants to be all of these things, but she’s too scared. The fear pushes into her brain, taking up space until she can’t think of anything else. Of what to say to Lyla, or Michael, or the rest of the team, or the police back in Lorne.

  The postage stamp of a pool already has someone swimming in it. Avery goes to the sauna, where she can be alone. The heat hits like a wall, burning her lungs. For a blissful moment, she forgets everything.

  She takes a seat on the oak bench. There’s something green growing on the underside but she doesn’t care. A basin of water sits in the corner, next to the box of oven-hot stones. Avery closes her eyes. Soon. Soon it will all be over. But then what? College? She wants to go to college so that she can live with her friends and make chocolate cupcakes at four in the morning and cram for tests together in big libraries with leather-bound books. She doesn’t know what she’d major in, and she won’t be granted a cheer scholarship for getting a second-place trophy at a regional competition. When she said she wanted to teach dance to kids, Dad replied with “Everyone needs a hobby.” He’d never pay for her to get a teaching education. She’s supposed to go to Harvard, like she’d ever get in. Maybe she can trick him into sending her to Massachusetts and just never come back.

  Because once this is over, she won’t want to set foot in Lorne ever again. She doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t want to remember.

  The door opens with a gust of cold air. “Lyla,” Avery groans. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  It’s not Lyla.

  The lights flick out, and all Avery can see is a silhouette, dressed not for the sauna but for the cold outside, from his windbreaker jacket to his Pine Nation hiking boots.

  The door closes. His body blocks the door. “Do you know what surprises me the most?” he says in a dark, low voice.

  She scoots back on the bench. Maybe if she can trick him into stepping away from the door, she can squeeze out around him. “Uh,” she says to mask her panic. “You’re not supposed to be in here. Girls’ sauna.”

  The hiking boots shift. “What surprises me most is that it took me this long to figure out that you were in on it. I thought Avery Cross couldn’t trick rocks. But you got me, sweetheart.” His voice turns hard, the way it did when she said no in his office. “You let me believe we shared something. But you were trying to blackmail me, weren’t you?”

  The hair all down her arms stands on end. “No.” It sounds like a plea. She hates it, and the memories it brings. You won’t tell your parents, will you? No need to go to the nurse, is there? No one else will understand you like me, will they? No, no, no. Always no.

  The figure says, “You know how I knew? The ankle. Yesterday you limped around like you thought it was broken. Today you danced perfectly. And I mean perfectly.” Avery shivers, pulling her towel up over her bikini. “I started wondering, why would Avery Cross fake an ankle injury?”

  Every hair on her arm prickles. “I didn’t,” she says, trying to bait him, pull him away from the door. But he doesn’t move. Why doesn’t he move?

  “You wanted all of us to be distracted. Because you wanted to give your friend the opportunity to snoop around. If you hadn’t stopped pretending, I might never have realized. Bad luck, Aves.”

  The air swims before her. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want to know who’s in on it with you. Your soppy, stupid boyfriend? Your piece on the side?” He shifts, a rustle of clothing. Sweat slides down Avery’s spine. “It’s funny, really. Prudish Avery is in the running for school whore.” His voice twists, ugly. Angry at what she wouldn’t give him willingly, wouldn’t let him take.

  He reaches into his pocket. Avery flinches, but he brings out a phone. The screen unlocks, and Avery realizes whose it is.

  “Careless girl. All I had to do was exercise my chaperone privileges. You know cheerleaders and their wild parties. I heard your roomie wanted to take a shower. Maybe when I’m finished with you, I’ll go upstairs and join her.”

  Avery’s stomach heaves. She clamps her mouth shut. At least if he’s down here, it means he’s not up there. Lyla’s safe.

  “Who else was at Anna’s Run that night? You couldn’t have done this alone.” Her phone lights up, illuminating the plane of his cheek. “Is it Study Buddy?”

  Cold washes over her. She surges to her feet, nearly falling off the bench. “Leave her alone,” she says. She reaches for anger, but it flickers weak within her, confused and mixed with fear.

  A broad hand connects with her sternum. Her skin crawls. He pushes her back onto the bench and every muscle seizes. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  For a moment he lingers, hand on her bikini strap, too close to the line of her breast. She can’t move, can’t even think anything except This is it. Then he steps away and moves the thermostat with a fingernail. The heat surges. “I’m not happy about this. You’ve always been a good girl, and you deserved better. But I can’t have you jeopardizing my whole life.”

  What about my life? Avery thinks. But she still can’t speak, and besides, she never met a man who cared about her life.

  “My records show how upset you were about Emma. Crying in class, spending lunch in my office, unable to eat. You’ll be just another teen suicide for poor Jefferson-Lorne.” He picks up the pot of water and upends it over the stones. They hiss and roar. Steam billows out in a thick white mass. Avery coughs, gasps, coughs again. She’s drowning.

  By the time she stumbles to the door, he’s already on the other side.

  The lock turns with a click. A cruel smile plays over his face, and he taps out something on her phone with quick fingers. He turns it to the glass.

  I’m scared.

  Meet me at Glenmere Park. Near Stadion.

  Please hurry.

  Avery hammers on the glass. But a girl her size couldn’t hope to break it. Not if she wer
e clearheaded and strong and breathing dry Colorado air.

  She watches as he disappears around a corner. She tries to shout but can only muster a whimper. Her mouth is dry, and her skin burns where she touches the floor, the glass, herself.

  The others are settling in to dinner. Nobody else knows she’s here.

  And the temperature keeps climbing.

  Diary Entry

  Emma Baines—November 12, 2018

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I fucked up and I fucked up BAD.

  I’ve known for a while. It had to be him. After everything, after he utterly destroyed me . . . but I still didn’t have evidence. Not until I found the phone.

  I knew it was hers as soon as I saw the cracked case. I recognized the butterfly sticker on the back, and the police never found the phone. . . . After she died, a lifetime and an innocence ago, I asked Dad about it. He said it had probably ended up in the river—there was no point in looking for it. But it wasn’t in the river at all.

  I should have turned it over to him. Or tipped Deputy Bryson on where to find it. Now the fingerprints will get muddled, and I can’t put it back in case he’s realized it’s gone. I don’t even know why he kept it, except a lot of sickos keep mementos of their conquests. Maybe I should’ve taken the pom-pom, too, the hair tie with the silver heart. But I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  He’s going to know it’s me.

  I have to move quickly, but who do I tell? No one will help me. Dad won’t help me—he hasn’t helped for months. If I speak out, they’ll pluck the words and twist them from my lips, until my truth becomes marred and ugly, unrecognizable. Why didn’t you come forward before? Are you sure you aren’t lying? You’ve always been too close to poor Lizzy, Em. It only makes sense that it’d make you unhinged.

  I have to get into the phone. That’s my last chance. The noose draws tight.

  26

  The Burglar

  Janine inches over the road, grumbling. “Come on,” Claude breathes, tapping the steering wheel. Her phone buzzes again. This is a mess. Stay safe and INSIDE. Love u xxx. “Too late, Mom.”

  She pulls into a neighborhood that has yet to be plowed. Kids in snowsuits hide behind packed walls of snow, hurling snowballs. Janine becomes their target as she rumbles between them. Normally Claude would curse or roll down her window and shout. Now she just wonders if he watches the girls in their happy, jeering youth. If he sits on his front porch in summertime as they go by in their bathing suits with their ice cream.

  The neighborhood is so . . . white middle class. So normal. When she finds the right house, she’s almost disappointed to see a literal picket fence around the yard. The little square block of brick has clean windows and a picture-perfect white door adorned with a wreath. A concrete porch runs around the side of the house. So domestic.

  Claude checks the address one more time, then parks around the corner. For a moment she sits, closing her eyes against the storm. But nothing can stop the storm within.

  “Get in, drop off, get out,” she mutters. “Get in, drop off, get out.”

  She goes to her trunk and grabs the gun with gloved fingers. Her teeth worry at her lip as she tucks it in her coat pocket. Then she picks up the shovel.

  She goes up to the front door first and rings the bell, listening to the tinny screech echo inside. She waits a beat, then two. But there are no footsteps, and no one comes to the door, even when she rings a second time to be sure. Her body sags and her forehead hits the screen door. She sucks in air. Her mouth floods. Claude forces herself to swallow, then traipses around the porch. The window there is small, but it’s harder to see from the road, and there are no windows in the house opposite for nosy neighbors to watch her.

  She yanks the strings of her hoodie and pulls her scarf up until only her eyes are visible. Then she hoists the shovel and heaves it at the glass.

  The first blow sends a crack spidering out, the sound of it like a thunderclap. She crouches, trying to calm her rolling stomach, trying to control the waves of heat that wash over her. She harnesses her rage, at him and at the whole world for letting there be people like him. And then she thinks of the lonely girls, who needed help so desperately, who needed advice or support or freedom from their peers or parents. And he was all they got.

  The world carries the silence of snowfall with it. The kids have gone inside for hot cocoa and warm blankets and a few more years of innocence. Claude gets up again.

  The second punch shatters the glass.

  She picks shards out of the frame, dropping them on the porch. The window screen tore in the break, and she pulls on it until she’s ripped a Claude-sized hole. Then she pushes herself up, grunting, and wiggles inside.

  She slides off the linoleum counter and down to the tile floor. Everything is dark. She brushes crumbs off her coat as she stands, then pats her pocket. The gun is a reassuring lump.

  Dishes stack on the side of the sink. The kitchen smells like old food and standing water. The fridge has half a pizza and three cans of Coors, and a sprouting potato in the vegetable drawer. Claude grabs a beer, wanting to take something from him—then thinks better of it, puts it back. She slams the fridge door and moves away. Her boots trail snowmelt and mud into the living room.

  She stops at the front of the living room, wary of the windows and anyone who might be able to see her silhouette behind them. But the house is dark and the shades are drawn. A leather couch sits across from a TV. The glass coffee table holds magazines: GQ, Runner’s World, The Atlantic. The bookcases are stuffed with back issues and trophies from cheerleading and lacrosse competitions. Glory years gone by. He took the lacrosse team all the way to national championships when he was captain. In between the trophies sit framed certificates. Jefferson Lorne Educator of the Year, 2016. That one looks official. But the Best Cheerleading Chaperone EVER is clearly student made, and signed. Bile rises in Claude’s throat. She wonders if any of those girls let his hand creep up her thigh. If they thought it was something they should want. If they thought they only had to get through it, and then things would be better. A few console games round out the bookshelf.

  It’s all so . . . normal. The garbage in his wastebasket. The flannel sheets on his bed. The James Patterson book on his nightstand. The toothbrush and shaver and Head & Shoulders shampoo in his bathroom. “Get in, drop off, get out,” Claude whispers, but she can’t help peering under the sink, opening the drawers of his dresser. There must be something here that exposes him. How can he fool the whole world into thinking he’s normal?

  Or maybe he is normal, and that’s the worst possibility of all. After all, Lily Fransen was molested by a normal everyday man, and nobody cares about her now. This is Claude’s reality. The school disaster can’t go up against JLH’s favorite member of staff. Not unless the evidence is incontrovertible. She buzzes with electric rage. She wants to take the shovel and smash everything in the goddamn house. More than anything, she wants to smash him, until his face is a bloody lump. Until his outside resembles what she feels on the inside.

  She pulls in a breath. Get in, drop off, get out. Her hands are hot in her gloves. She makes a fist and moves out of the bedroom.

  The study seems like a likely place. There’s a small corner desk with a lopsided office chair. More shelves hold folders labeled Taxes or Receipts. One folder has Letters from Mom, and Claude’s stomach flips at the idea that any woman might actually love him.

  She pulls the gun from her pocket and sets it on the desk. Get out. But her teeth catch her lower lip again. The computer monitor blinks.

  They couldn’t get what they needed off the phone. Maybe they can get it here. She leans over and pushes the power button. Get out, get out, her blood sings, but she can’t. They need every piece of the puzzle.

  Now she just has to figure out his password.

  The lock screen pulls up. Claude tries a couple of things off the top of her head, and she’s not surprised when they fail.

  She starts opening the drawers of his
desk. Maybe he keeps a password list. Her gloved fingers fumble over papers and receipts. She grabs a notebook and flips through it, tearing the paper in her haste.

  There. A list of random characters. They’re unlabeled and they may not have anything to do with passwords at all, but it’s worth a shot. She lays the notebook down, next to the gun.

  The front door crashes open.

  Feet thunder. Everyone’s shouting. Claude’s heart stampedes in her chest and her blood roars like a river. She doesn’t even have time to straighten. “Got him!” shouts a voice right behind her. A minute later her chin’s in the keyboard as a cop holds her head down. He pulls her arms behind her and cuffs her in quick, brutal motions.

  He turns her around and rips the scarf off her face. Then his eyes widen. “We got a she,” he yells.

  More cops pile into the room. Their bulletproof vests are on, and their guns are out. Deputy Chief Bryson snorts when he sees her. “Small-time dealing not enough for you these days?”

  “Who ratted me out?” Claude asks. Please not Jamie. Please not him.

  “Home security system. Technology’s a wonder, ain’t it?” Bryson moves in, knowing that she wants to lean back but can’t, using his size and his smell and her fear to make her tremble. “Think your mom can get you out of this one?” He smiles, all teeth and shadow in the snowy gloom.

  His eyes move behind her, and his smile widens as he sees the gun.

  TO: Will Tabor

  FROM: Detective Diego Loya

  DATE: December 8, 2018, 7:12 PM.

  SUBJECT: Forensics study and preliminary examination—handgun—case number 27-95-1682

  We’re sending over a Smith & Wesson M & P Shield 9mm, serial number SKU207248 that we suspect belonged to Randy Silverman, found in the possession of another suspect. Please run prints and ballistics ASAP, this case is of highest priority.

  Thank you.