Cole began to back out of the space. “Who’s going to take the lead this time?”
“You again,” I said.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “She might open up better if you asked her questions.”
“Yeah, but why would I be asking her about Amber?”
Cole thought on that for a bit. “Maybe Amber was your mom’s cousin?” he said. “And you’re doing a report on her for school?”
I felt very nervous about that approach. “If she knew Amber well enough to know her family, and starts asking me questions about relatives, the lie is going to unravel. What about if we say something like we’re working for the school paper, and we decided to cover Chamberlain High’s most controversial event—the murder of Ben Spencer by Amber Greeley? We can dig around in Sara’s memories all we want if that’s our cover story. She won’t think it’s suspicious that we’re asking personal questions about them.”
Cole pointed a finger gun at me. “I like that,” he said. “I like that a lot.”
“Okay, then that’s the story we’ll stick with, and we’ll hope that she can tell us something new.”
“SO WHAT’S THE STORY WITH YOU and Spence?” Sara asked me as we changed into pajamas.
I felt myself stiffen. “Story? There’s no story.”
Sara shook her head at me. “Come on, Amber. You guys are barely smooching in the hallway anymore. What gives?”
I pulled on my fuzzy slippers and refused to look at her. I loved Sara, but as graduation was approaching, she was turning into someone I barely recognized. All she did was spend a lot of her time wasting it. She seemed to have no ambition beyond where she could get her next buzz. The choices she made were starting to really worry and upset me, but I’d been setting aside both my opinion and irritation in favor of our friendship. I tried to remind her about how much potential she had, how much I believed in her, but, lately, it was falling on deaf ears.
“Nothing gives,” I said lightly, in answer to her question. Then I pointed to the clock on the wall. “Come on, if we want to watch the movie before my parents get home, we’ll have to start it now.”
My parents had just gotten a brand-new VHS player and Daddy had taken me to the video store earlier to rent Grease—one of my favorite films. Sara and I had planned a pajama party to watch it as my parents were going to be out late. Spence was hanging out with his friends that night, too.
Well, most of his friends. He and Jamie still weren’t speaking since their fight the week before. And no matter how much I asked about it, Spence wouldn’t tell me what’d sparked the fight or the one before that on his porch. And I didn’t think the first fight was a continuation of the previous thing. There was something else that’d been added to their feud, but whatever it was, Spence wouldn’t tell me. He’d become even more distant with me in the ensuing days, and I was terrified he was about to break up with me.
The doorbell rang just as Sara and I were getting settled on the couch. I opened the door to find Britta standing there, triumphantly holding up two six-packs of beer.
“Ta-da!” she said, dancing into the living room.
“Oh my God!” Sara squealed. “You got it?”
“Told ya I’d come through,” she said, handing off the package to Sara, who promptly popped open one of the cans.
Sara took a big swig. “Oh, man, that’s good!” she said.
I made a disgusted face. I didn’t like beer, and I didn’t know how Sara could stand the bitter, awful taste. She offered me one of the cans, and I shook my head. “No thanks.”
Britt gave Sara a look that said, Told ya so. It irritated me.
“I’ve got rum,” Britt said, her eyes glistening with mischief. Opening her jean jacket, she pulled out a fifth from one of the inside pockets. “Diet Coke in the fridge?”
“Yeah, but don’t go crazy, Britt. My parents are coming home soon.”
“I thought they were out till, like, eleven?” Sara said. I wanted to punch her.
“Sometimes they come home early.”
“God, Amber, will you lighten up?” Britt said. “You’re always Little Miss Perfect. It’s annoying.”
My chest tightened, my face got hot, and my eyes immediately misted. I turned away from Britt and Sara so they wouldn’t see. I knew I was pretty anal, but I’d been that way since I could remember, and it hurt my feelings to hear one of my best friends say something so mean. Still, I didn’t say anything in reply. I was barely holding it together these days anyway, and if I lost it in front of these two they’d bug me until I confessed all my fears and worries about Spence and me.
The truth was that I didn’t know where we stood anymore. I couldn’t get Spence to give me a straight answer about the scholarship from Mrs. Bennett. He kept insisting that she was still coming through with the money, but he never met my eyes when he said it. There wasn’t an easy way for me to find out, either. I certainly couldn’t ask Mrs. Bennett.
Or maybe I could? Maybe when she came in for her next hair appointment I could casually thank her for helping Spence out, and if she told me she wasn’t, then I’d know.
I had no idea what we’d do if she didn’t give him the money. I’d dropped off the financial aid package that his mother needed to fill out months ago, but so far, she hadn’t done it, and Spence refused to pressure her about it because his mom had issues. Emotional. Mental. The works.
“Hi, Bailey!” I heard Britt say. I softened a little toward her when I saw her plop down to her knees and snuggle with my dog. I was going to miss Bailey so much! But it was only for a couple of years. Mom and Dad promised me that they’d get her to California for my junior and senior year—provided I found available housing that was dog-friendly. By then, Spence and I could be living together. If we were still together, that is.
“So, what’s going on?” Britt said, getting up to saunter over to the love seat with her rum and Diet Coke. I wondered if those were the only calories she’d had all day.
“Not much,” I said, flipping on the TV and reaching for the video, still in its plastic holder. “We were just about to watch Grease.”
Sara made a pffing sound. I noticed she’d already downed the first beer and was working on the second. Turning to Britt, she said, “Little Miss P won’t tell me what’s going on with her and Spence.”
“What’s going on with her and Spence?”
“Well, according to Spence’s mom, they’re gonna break up.”
The room went completely silent except for the TV as both Britt and I looked at Sara in shock. How dare she say something like that!
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.
Sara waved her beer can at me. “Don’t yell at me,” she said. “Yell at Mrs. Spencer.”
“What did she say?” I snapped.
“Well,” Sara said, as though she was amused by the proclamation, “you know Mrs. S cleans our house, right?”
I did know that. It was a fact that Sara often mentioned around Spence. It had never seemed to bother him, mostly because he was proud of the fact that his mom was working.
“What about it?” I snapped again.
“Well! According to my mother, Mrs. S said that Spence had no intention of flying off to California next fall. He was going to stay at home and take care of her. She said he was thinking about community college for a year before transferring to UVA.”
Heat filled my chest like molten lava slipping into a well. “That’s a lie, Sara,” I said quietly, my tone laced with warning. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Britt sitting on the love seat across from us with big eyes. Her mouth hung open. I ignored her and gave Sara all of my angry attention. “If you repeat that lie, then you and I will never be friends again. Do you understand?”
Sara finally seemed to get that no one in the room thought she was funny. “I was just letting you know,” she said. “I mean, God, Amber! If Spence is about to break up with you, shouldn’t I tell you that?”
“He’s not,” I growled
. “And you’re not my friend if you keep saying that.”
Sara’s eyes watered. “I’m sorry,” she said. But the tension in the room wasn’t ebbing.
Britta got up and came over to squeeze in between us. Handing me her cup, she said, “Drink.”
“I’m not—”
“I don’t care,” she cut me off. “You need to chill out. So drink.”
I took the cup from her, my hands trembling, and much to my own surprise, downed the contents.
“CAN I GET YOU TWO something to drink?” Sara Radcliff asked Cole and me.
“No, thank you,” we said together.
She smiled kindly and pointed us to the sofa in her gorgeous living room. When we’d first pulled up to the house, I’d wondered if we’d gotten the address right. The home was a very modern-looking structure, with lots of sharp angles and huge windows. It looked like a house of the future. And it was big.
Sara had answered the door herself, and she was very pretty—very elegant. She had long blond hair set in stylish waves, her skin was flawless and her makeup simple, but also flawless. She wore a pair of lightweight gray silk pants that billowed when she walked, and a cream shell underneath a thin powder-pink sweater that draped across her shoulders. We’d introduced ourselves by first name only, and told her that we were from Chamberlain High, working on our first senior-year story for the paper on Amber and Ben. She’d seemed a bit surprised by the topic, but had readily agreed to talk to us.
Once we were all seated, she said, “First of all, you should know that Amber was a good person.”
I felt some of the nervous tension in my shoulders relax. “We keep hearing that,” I said. “Can you tell us about her?”
Sara glanced over my left shoulder, and I turned slightly to see that one of the bookshelves in her living room held a series of framed photographs. I couldn’t see the images up close, but I suspected there was one of Amber among them.
“She was my best friend,” she said. “Since we were very little. And she was my best friend when nobody else could stand me. I was a holy terror when I was younger, but Amber either took pity on me or saw something in me. She used to always say to me, ‘Sara, you’re smarter than you think. You could be anything you want to be. Why are you settling for mediocrity?’” Sara paused to press her index finger against her upper lip and dip her chin, as if it pained her to remember that. “No adult had ever said anything that wise to me. She was always my best cheerleader, and she believed in me. Somehow, she saw through the tough, rebellious act I was putting up for everybody else. She knew I had potential that I didn’t even know about. Amber was…amazing.”
A little pang hit me mid-chest. Sophie used to say similarly validating things to me. Listening to the way Sara spoke of Amber made me wonder if I’d ever talk like that about Sophie. Would I regret never speaking to her again? Looking at the glint of tears in Sara’s eyes, I knew that somehow, some way, I’d have to find a way to forgive Sophie, because I didn’t ever want to look that sad when speaking about my best friend.
“After she died,” Sara said, brushing away one stray tear, “well, I went into a tailspin. I drank myself out of school my freshman year of college. Drugs followed. I nearly died twice. But one day when I was in rehab, I had a dream about Amber. She came to me looking so pretty, wearing her prom dress, and she said those same words to me again. She asked me why I was settling for mediocrity. I didn’t have an answer for her, but I felt such sadness. Such hopelessness. She told me to get help. To go back to school. To start building things. And then she said, ‘I’m gonna see you again, girl. And when I do, I want you to have done something with your life.’”
I felt a chill travel up my spine and my arms tingled with goose pimples. Something about the story of Sara’s dream tugged at the back of my mind. Almost like I remembered having that exact dream, but I knew I hadn’t, and I wondered at what Amber had said to Sara in her dream. That she’d see her again. Was Amber seeing Sara again through my eyes? The goose bumps on my arms got bigger.
“The next morning,” Sara continued, “when I woke up, I knew what I had to do. So I got clean, went back to school, got my associate’s in architecture, then my master’s, and finally my PhD.”
“You’re an architect?” Cole asked with admiration.
She smiled. “I am. I’m also a professor at UVA, and I own my own firm, but only because I did exactly what Amber told me to do, and it saved my life and built this one. And that’s really what you need to keep in mind when you’re writing about her. That she was a good person who saw the potential in everybody.”
“So you don’t believe she could’ve killed Ben Spencer, right?” I asked, knowing we’d found another ally.
Sara surprised me. “Oh, I didn’t say that. I do believe Amber killed Spence. But I couldn’t really blame her. I mean, I knew how much she loved him, and how deep a betrayal he’d committed against her. It’d make anybody crack.”
Cole and I both sat forward. “Ben betrayed her?” I said, shocked by the statement. “Did he cheat on her or something?”
Sara sighed sadly. “No, I don’t think so, Lily. It was much bigger than that. I don’t know what happened between them other than he lied to her about going away with her to UCLA in the fall. He strung her along to the bitter end, making her believe that he had every intention of going with her to California. The night of prom, I suspect he finally confessed that he’d be staying home, and he broke it off with her. I think she just snapped.”
I sat there, stunned, and my heart felt like it was breaking. Amber’s best friend believed she was capable of murder. It hurt as deep as when I’d found out that Sophie and Tanner were dating. It felt like a terrible betrayal.
Cole said, “See, we’ve been digging into the murder a little, and we don’t think Amber was responsible.”
It was Sara’s turn to sit forward. Eyeing him curiously, she said, “Why do you say that?”
“There’s a rumor going around that a teacher might’ve murdered them both. Some guy named David Bishop.”
Sara’s brow furrowed. “Bishop?” she said, and then tapped her cheek with her finger. “Huh.”
“Did you know him?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. “I didn’t. But I had heard that one of the freshmen math teachers had been fired. I think his name was Mr. Bishop.” She seemed to think on it some more and said, “But what would he have to do with Ben or Amber?”
Cole and I exchanged a look, and I nodded to him to tell her. “We think it had something to do with the SATs,” he said. “And someone said that maybe the Bennetts were involved.”
“Oh, that!” she said with what sounded to me like a forced laugh. “Yeah, I heard a little about that, too. Did Britt tell you about it? She knew more about it than I did.”
“Britta Cummings?” I said, remembering the name from the yearbook.
“It’s Schroder now,” Sara said. “Britta Schroder. She married a plastic surgeon. If you guys don’t know that then I guess you haven’t talked to her?”
“Not yet,” I said. “She was next on our list.”
Sara nodded. “She lives in Ashland now. Her and her husband have a couple of kids from what I hear.” She seemed about to say something more, but hesitated.
“What?” Cole asked her.
“I’d be careful with anything that Britta tells you about Amber,” she said. “She was very jealous of her, because Britt was in love with Spence. She and Amber got into it at prom. And, while they were arguing in the ladies’ room, Spence left the dance. Amber went looking for him a little later, but neither of them was seen for at least forty-five minutes after that. By then, Spence was dead.”
Something clicked in my mind and I said, “Was Britta there with you during that time?”
Sara turned to me as if I’d just touched on something that’d bothered her for a long, long time. “No,” she said. “Her date walked out on her, and she took off, too. I rem
ember seeing him before we heard about Spence, but I don’t remember that Britt ever came back to the dance.”
Cole nudged my knee with his, and I nudged a little back. We had ourselves yet another suspect in the pool.
We left Sara’s house and got back in the car.
“How far away is Ashland from here?” I asked him, anxious to go talk to Britta.
Cole glanced at the clock. It was nearly five thirty in the afternoon. “Depending on traffic, it’ll take us at least an hour,” he said.
I frowned. “Crap. They’ll probably be eating dinner by then.”
“Might not be a good plan to interrupt their dinner,” Cole agreed. “Plus, it’s Saturday night. They could be going out or something, too.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“We can go see Britta tomorrow,” he said. “You up for that?”
“I am. I’ll have to figure out what to tell Mom. Her thirty-six-hour shift ends at six A.M. tomorrow, but she’ll head straight to bed, so I can probably just leave her a note that I’m hanging out with you and that’ll be okay.”
Cole glanced again at the clock on the dash. “Do you want to get a snack before I take you home?”
I was a little hungry, and it was an excuse to hang out with Cole a bit longer. “I’m always up for a snack.”
He started the car and backed out of Sara Radcliff’s driveway. “Taco Bell or ice cream?” he asked.
“Ice cream,” I decided.
We got a couple of cones and ate them leaning against Cole’s car, talking about stuff that had nothing to do with Amber or Spence, which, honestly, was a relief. At least for a little while. Cole asked me about living in Richmond and my old school, and I asked him about certain teachers and classes I had at Chamberlain High. Once we’d polished off the cones, he motioned to the car and said, “Can we make one more quick pit stop before I get you home?”
“What’s the pit stop?”
“I want to check the murder file again,” he said. “There were all those witness statements taken the night of the murder and no mention that Britta had left the dance early, or that Amber and Britta had gotten into a fight. If Sara knew about the fight, probably some other people did, too, so I just want to check the file to make sure I didn’t miss something.”
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