“Hadley! Are you okay? We’ve been trying to reach you and—”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Well, we’re not! We’ve been freaking crazy worried. Where the hell are you?”
I smiled. “You really want to know?”
“I think that’s the least you could share.”
“Georgia.”
I imagined Brooklyn’s face, her eyes popping wide, her perfectly pink lips falling open. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Georgia.” I giggled. I couldn’t help myself. Saying it out loud, sharing how far I’d decided to go, felt too good. There was a twinge of sadness when I thought of Penny. She would have loved this crazy night. “I’m closing in on Florida.”
“Florida?!” Brooklyn shouted. “You’re almost to Florida?”
“Well,” I said. “It is spring break.”
I heard Mia’s voice, a squeal ringing out from the other end of the line. And then something else, the deeper tone of a guy’s voice.
“Who’s there with you?” I asked.
“That’s not important right now. You have to listen. Very carefully. Ben came to Cincinnati just like you expected. We tried to send him on the scavenger hunt, but he caught on after, like, the first two stops.”
“Yeah? And then what?”
“Okay, this is going to sting. Like, really sting. Just know that you’re smarter than him, and you can outplay any move he—”
“Just say it!”
“He has a GPS tracking device on his BMW. Apparently, it comes standard these days when you blow enough cash on a car. Anyway, he’s been following you, and I don’t think he’s too far behind. So, please—”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“What to which part? You have got to keep up!”
“What to all of it. We turned the GPS off before we even left Cincinnati.”
“You might have turned off the GPS in the dash, but there’s still a tracker. Some Internet site he can access or something. I have no idea how it works. Just that it does and he knows exactly where you are. Like, exactly exactly. He’s probably only an hour behind you, depending on how many stops you’ve made and how fast he’s going. I should have paid more attention to those stupid story problems sophomore year about two cars traveling at different speeds, but they made me feel dizzy and—”
“Holy shit.”
“Just breathe, okay? I have more to tell you.”
My stomach turned on itself. “I’m not sure I can handle more.”
“Knowledge equals safety.”
“Jesus, Brooklyn, you’re scaring me.” Ben was after me. Right behind me? I knew we didn’t have time to waste, but I couldn’t keep driving—not with the total freak-out feeling that was pressing in on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I veered across two lanes of light traffic, barely making the exit ramp for some little town that probably wasn’t even on a map.
“Are you ready?” Brooklyn asked.
Pulling the car to a stop at the end of the exit ramp, I closed my eyes. “Shoot.”
“Ben’s not alone.”
“Okay, that’s not so bad. Is it?”
“He’s with that Roller guy. Roller Haughton? The one everyone hits up for party favors.”
I leaned forward, tapping my forehead on the steering wheel.
“You catch me when I say party favors?” Brooklyn asked. “I did some checking, and this guy is big-time in Oak Grove these days.”
The package Josh and I had buried was starting to make sense. “That’s bad.”
“Just remember, you’re smarter than both of them combined. You’ll think of a way out of this.”
“I’m going to have to face them,” I said, glancing over at Josh. His head was tilted toward the door. It looked like he was still sleeping, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You will definitely have to face them,” Brooklyn said. “But not before you know one last thing.”
“No. Not unless it’s good news, B.”
“It’s kinda good and bad at the same time…. It started when Mia snagged his phone. He realized it later, so we had to give it back, but not before—”
“Ben’s phone?” A wave of relief washed over me. If they had his phone for even a few minutes, then they had wiped the picture of me out of existence.
“Yeah. Mia played like she was wasted when they first got to the bar, all sloppy and leaning up against him, and slipped it out of his pocket as we were telling him we thought you’d gone to Graeter’s.”
“You deleted the picture, right?” I asked. “Please tell me you deleted it from Facebook and his phone.”
“The Facebook administrators responded to our message and did that part themselves. As for his phone, we had planned on it. Obviously. But this whole thing with your picture, Hadley, it’s bigger than we first thought.”
“Bigger how?”
“Bigger, as in there’s more than one picture of you. And some of them are a little more, um, revealing than the one Ben posted.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please tell me you deleted them. Every last one.”
“We thought about it,” Brooklyn said.
“Thought about it? Oh my God, Brook—”
“Yours weren’t the only pictures. There were other girls.”
I held my breath as Brooklyn told me what she’d seen, listening as she listed the string of names, feeling an oddly familiar connection.
“We didn’t delete anything because we’re going to bust Ben. Anyone twisted enough to do what he has deserves to go down.”
I felt like I was going to throw up.
“We thought you needed to see them. All of them. We emailed the files to you. And to Tyler.”
“Rawlins? Have you lost your mind? He’s on Ben’s side!”
“No. He’s not.”
A horn blared behind me. I jumped, my breath catching as I looked in the rearview mirror, sure that Ben was there—right there—behind me.
“Tyler was with Ben when they got to Cinci, but he stayed behind when Ben and Roller left. Penny is one of the girls on Ben’s phone. The pictures of her are bad. Tyler’s here with us now. Totally behind our plan.”
“Plan? What plan?”
“The plan to bust Ben. Keep. Up.”
“If those pictures are as bad as you say, I don’t want them getting out.”
“You’re the victim here. Remember that.”
“But I don’t want to be.” The horn blared again, and I flicked on the blinker, turning right onto the cracked pavement of a street lined with fast-food restaurants. “Brooklyn, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“What? You can’t just—”
“I’ll call soon. I need to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“We? As in you and who else?”
I turned into a McDonald’s. “Josh.”
“Josh Lane? You’re still with Josh Lane? I thought we ditched him back at—”
“I couldn’t very well drive after all those Jell-O shots, so I found him. He’s been … good.” I pulled into an empty space and put the car in park, leaning back against the seat and closing my eyes. Josh had been a lot more than good. He’d been helpful and supportive and motivating. And then there was the kiss. I felt dizzy just thinking about it. “Brooklyn. Are you still there?”
“I’m trying to process the combined use of ‘Josh Lane’ and ‘good.’” Brooklyn sighed. “I guess one positive is that you’re not alone.”
“He’s helping.” I watched the rise and fall of his chest. “Trust me.”
“You do need someone strong on your side right now. And after the past year, Josh Lane has proven that he’s stronger than most of us.”
“That’s true.”
“You’ll call soon? You swear?”
“Yes. And I’ll keep my phone on for now in case you need me.”
“Good. Be careful, okay? Ben’s pissed. Out-of-his-mind pissed. And so is Roller. With those pictures, you have the upper hand. But you still have to be safe.”
/> “Promise. I love you. Mia Pia, too. You’ll tell her?”
“On it. And remember, Hadley, you can do this.”
“Right,” I said, not so sure that was true.
I slipped the phone back into the console, then turned to Josh and shook his arm, wondering if he was really sleeping.
Wondering what he was thinking if he’d heard everything I’d just said.
25
MAIN STREET – 2:11 AM
“HAS JOSH texted you yet?” Brooklyn asked as she turned onto Main Street.
“No.” I checked her phone to be sure, but I knew I hadn’t missed anything.
“Maybe you should leave it alone?” She sounded hopeful.
“Was that a question?” Mia asked. “Because the answer is pretty clear. Not that she’s going to listen with this Choose-the-Worst-Option game we seem to be playing.”
“I can’t leave it alone, guys. I started this.”
Mia huffed. “You didn’t start anything. Ben did by posting that picture. He totally baited you.”
I was angry. Getting back at Ben wasn’t just for me anymore; it was for all the girls on Ben’s phone. Most of all, it was for Penny. But I needed Brooklyn and Mia on my side. And there was only one way to keep them from trying to stop me every step of the way. I had to make them care as much as I did.
“Pull over.” I looked out the window, the neon sign for Edie’s Diner shining brightly in the darkness of the night. It reminded me of something just out of reach. I thought of Josh and was hit with the crazy notion that, somehow, the sign could lead me to him.
“Pull over?” Brooklyn asked as we passed the sign, the blue-tinted light washing through the car. “I thought you said we were safer on the move.”
“We are.”
“Then—”
“Just do it.” I slipped Ben’s phone from the pocket of my jacket.
Brooklyn pulled into the diner’s back lot and looked at me with soft, sad eyes. “What’s going on, Hadley? What aren’t you telling us?”
I swiped my finger across the screen of Ben’s phone, navigating to the pictures, not stopping, not thinking. I turned the phone around and heard a double gasp of recognition.
“Penny?” Brooklyn grabbed the phone. “You didn’t tell me—”
“She didn’t tell me, either.” Mia leaned forward, her shoulders pressing against the front seats, her eyes following Brooklyn’s finger swiping through the stream of photos, ending with the shot of Penny, dripping wet, curled on a sea of ocean-blue tiles.
“Hadley?” Brooklyn looked up at me, her eyes shining with tears and rage.
“Don’t get emotional. I can’t handle emotional. Not tonight.”
“I’m going to be sick.” Mia pushed against my seat with so much force, I didn’t ask, I simply moved—fingers pulling the door handle, forearm pushing the door, feet sweeping out and across the pavement.
Mia followed, bending at the waist, heaving up the contents of her stomach, which, I knew, included a few swigs of gin and a handful of Skittles.
“Do you think she knew?” Brooklyn asked, her words quiet and hard, as if she was hoping no one would hear because she didn’t really want to face the answer.
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t.” Brooklyn leaned over the console so she could look into my eyes. “He did the same thing to you, and, for whatever reason, you didn’t remember any of it.”
Mia heaved again. The sound made my own stomach churn.
“But I remembered that I didn’t remember. The gaps scared me.”
“Gaps are one thing,” Brooklyn said. “But remembering—that has to be worse.”
“I wouldn’t know. I still don’t remember. Even with the pictures.”
“So, unless she saw the pictures, chances are she never knew,” Brooklyn said. “And there’s no way she could have seen the pictures, right? Which means she never had to face this. God, I hope she never had to face this.”
Mia grabbed my hand, squeezing tight, as though I was the only thing keeping her from floating away.
“But we all know something was going on. She wasn’t herself. She was jumpy. Angry. She was pulling away.”
“Guys,” Mia said. “Can we please not do this?”
“Hadley’s right,” Brooklyn said. “It wasn’t just the party she didn’t want to go to. She skipped girls’ night the weekend before.”
Mia dropped my hand. “I can’t do this.”
“We have to. We owe it to Penny to figure this out. To make Ben pay for what he’s done.”
“What about what we’ve done?” Mia asked, her voice trembling. “We forced her to go to that party, even though we knew something was wrong.”
“We thought the party was going to make things better. We tried.”
“But the party made it worse.”
“We don’t know that,” I said. “We don’t know why she left, why she walked into those woods and—”
“I know.” Mia’s lips trembled. Tears gleamed in her eyes.
“What are you talking about? You never said—”
“I never said anything because I didn’t want you to hate me.”
I tried to steady my breathing and stay calm, but I wanted to shake her. “You have to tell us,” I whispered.
Mia dropped her chin to her chest, covering her face with her hands. I walked to her, folded her into my arms, and gave her a good squeeze.
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll deal with this. Together. But we need to be honest. To tell each other everything.”
Mia nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I hated keeping this secret.”
“Then it’s time to let it go.” I led her back to the car. Taking a deep breath, I settled myself in the passenger seat and closed the door.
“I was dancing in the backyard,” Mia said. “Remember the music? It was so loud it felt like a second heart beating in my chest. But I couldn’t go on forever, because I had to pee.”
Brooklyn laughed. It came out quiet at first, stifled, but then broke free. That got us all going, the stress of the moment released.
“I went inside, right through the sliding glass door into Ben’s bedroom. I’d seen Penny walk in a few minutes before me, and I remember thinking our timing was perfect. Nothing’s better than a bathroom catch-up during a party, right?”
“But she wasn’t in the bathroom?” I asked.
“She wasn’t anywhere. At least that’s what I thought at first. But then I heard her voice. She was angry. About to blow.”
“You found her?” Brooklyn asked.
“Not exactly. She was behind a closed door. I didn’t know where the door led—thought maybe it was the laundry room, or a utility room, or something. Tonight, when I had to look for that backpack, I figured out she’d been in Ben’s closet. Arguing. With Ben.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell. I heard her say that she wanted something back.”
“The turtle?” Brooklyn asked.
“It could have been the pictures,” I said. “If she knew what he’d done, she’d have been all over him for those pictures.”
“I don’t know. But Ben laughed, mentioning something about a safety measure. And then I heard them moving, so I busted ass to the bathroom.”
“So, she might have known?” I asked. “Why didn’t she tell us?”
“I should have asked her what the fight was about. I should have made her tell me. But she was so pissed, and I was trying to give her space, to wait for her to open up in her own time. Except she was all out of time. And I had no idea.”
“None of us could have stopped her from leaving that party,” I said. “She’d made up her mind.”
“We should have tried,” Mia said. “We could have followed her. And then, maybe …”
“Guys,” Brooklyn said. “Mia was right. This isn’t helping.”
I shook my head. “It is. It might not feel like it right now, but we’re on the right track. W
e might actually be able to figure things out.”
“Haven’t we already?” Brooklyn asked. “Ben got her wasted. He took some horrible pictures. Penny remembered or figured it out some other way. And she was pissed. She died pissed. That’s the horrible, awful end of the story.”
“It’s not,” I said. “We’re not going to let it be. We don’t know anything. Not for sure. But we need to.”
“What if knowing makes it worse?” Mia asked. “This feels worse. We tried to help Penny, but instead, we set up her death.”
“What if it wasn’t us?” I asked. “This whole thing is connected to Ben. There’s got to be more to it.”
“Not likely,” Brooklyn said.
“Okay, so say you’re right. I still want Ben to pay for what he’s done. As much as it hurts to face this, I know you guys do, too. But we have to know everything, or at least as much as we possibly can. And there’s only one way to make that happen for sure.”
I paused then, the silence unfolding like broken lines painted on a lonely stretch of highway.
“No,” Mia said. “I can’t go there, Hadley. You promised.”
“I did. You don’t have to go. But I do.”
“Oh my God. Seriously? You sound just like her, you know? Right before she walked into those woods and disappeared forever.”
Brooklyn sighed, looking back at Mia. “We can’t let her go alone.”
“Fine. But just so you know, I am going to be such a bitch about this.”
26
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA – 11:07 AM TRIP ODOMETER – 613 MILES
“WAKE UP!” I smacked Josh on the leg again. I was now sure he wasn’t faking his nap, that he hadn’t heard any of the positive things I’d said about him to Brooklyn, which made me feel both disappointed and sad.
I kept my eyes trained on the looping arches of the big yellow M sign just in front of the parked car, trying to steady myself.
Josh stirred, twisting in his seat until he was facing me, wincing from the sun’s glare. “McDonald’s?”
“I’m hungry.” That part was true. But there was so much more.
“I could eat.” He stretched his arms over his head.
“Before that, I have an update.”
“That sounds ominous.” Josh started rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.
A Million Times Goodnight Page 14