by Hannah Jayne
She expected him to blow her off or take off running after her marathon blabbering. Instead he just shrugged. “You need a ride?”
Twenty-Eight
Addie’s head spun. Spencer Cohen was offering her a ride. Suddenly, her throat was dry and her heart was thundering in a different pattern. The angst-ridden terror was gone, overthrown by something sticky sweet.
Spencer Cohen wants to drive me to school.
Everything in Addie’s brain screamed. He was a suspect in a murder. But then again, so am I. His ex-girlfriend was found dead less than a week ago! Maybe he needs some company…
Addie found herself nodding. She found herself shifting her backpack and pushing her hair back over her shoulder, the sexy, coy move she had seen Maya do a thousand times. She giggled. She batted her eyelashes. She hated herself.
Spencer grinned at her, a grin that was half joyful, half relieved. He darted around the car and pulled the passenger side door open for her. Addie wanted to sing. She wanted to dance and be gleeful and thrilled that a boy—not just any boy, Spencer Cohen—was fawning over her, but the darkness was still there, still playing at the back of her mind.
What if he was a murderer?
She sat down in his car, clicked on her seat belt, and sunk into the seat as he settled in his. Spencer tossed her another grin and turned over the ignition, his fingertips brushing over her shoulder as he backed out. Fireworks worked their way up Addie’s spine.
This is okay, she told herself. I can feel this. I’m in a car with a boy. It’s okay.
And both of us are being accused of murder.
Addie chewed on that last thought, doing her best to work it out of her mind.
They drove in silence for the first couple of miles, Addie gnawing her bottom lip and trying to look nonchalant and cool, Spencer tapping out the beat to every song on the radio on his steering wheel. The closer they got to Hawthorne High, the more the knot in Addie’s chest tightened. Hawthorne was a big place, but news traveled fast. Would everyone know that the police had been to her door?
They had gone to Colton’s too, she reminded herself. They said they were doing “due diligence” and following “leads.” But what lead had brought them to her door? GapLakeLove.
R. J. Rosen.
Sucking in a breath she hoped Spencer didn’t catch, Addie thumbed her phone open, glanced at the screen. She commended herself for keeping her cool when she saw the message.
TheRealRJRosen:
I’m watching you.
“Everything okay?” Spencer asked.
Addie nodded, certain that if she opened her mouth her heart would spill out. Finally, “Just my dad.”
Spencer nodded. “He seems pretty cool. Is it just you and him?”
Again Addie nodded, mute.
“Must be kind of nice.”
“I guess. He…he kind of works a lot.”
Spencer nodded, turned the radio down a notch. “What does he do?”
“He’s in finance. So, is your dad…better?”
Spencer’s eyebrows went up. “You mean his drinking? Yeah, maybe if he admitted he had a problem he would be able to do something about it.”
“Oh,” Addie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
Spencer shrugged and flashed her one of those three-point grins that felt like a lightning bolt. “No, no worries. Do I sound horrible talking about him? I’m sure I drive him crazy.”
“Oh, I doubt that! You?” Addie cocked her head, pretty sure she was flirting, pretty sure she was nailing it. “You seem so…sweet.”
Spencer’s cheeks pinkened deliciously and Addie was suddenly a thousand miles away from her problems. She was in a car with a boy, with the windows rolled down, the music cranked up, and this boy was smiling—at her.
Spencer narrowed his eyes so that they crinkled at the corners. Somehow, the move only made his eyes sparkle more. His voice was a playful, throaty whisper. “I’m only sweet until you get to know me.”
“I guess. I mean, I’ve seen you playing water polo!”
The color drained from Spencer’s face and Addie’s mouth went slack, her eyes bugging. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I didn’t mean…I mean, about the—I know it was an accident.”
Quickly and coolly, Spencer went back to that easy smile, the sexy crinkle around his cocoa-brown eyes. “Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. I was a little worried about you peeking at me in the swimming pool. Tell me, Addison Gaines, are you peeking at me anywhere else I should know about?”
Addie burned a fierce red. “I wasn’t spying on you. I just saw you bringing stuff into Colton’s house that one time. I wasn’t staring. ”
Spencer’s laugh cut through the car. He slapped the steering wheel. “You’re way too easy, Addie. I was just joking.”
Addie’s humiliation turned to annoyance. “Hey, maybe I’m on the neighborhood watch. Did you ever think of that? It’s my duty to watch suspicious people moving stuff at night. You’re lucky I didn’t call the police. How do I know you weren’t actually robbing Colton?”
Spencer eyed the road, was silent for a beat. “I suppose I should watch myself. I mean, what would the police say if they saw someone moving property into a house? That’s practically robbery! Except it’s the exact opposite of that because I’m putting stuff in, not taking stuff out.”
Addie frowned. “You’re making fun of me.”
Spencer nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“You suck.”
“You’re a peeping Tom.”
“Maybe you should stay out of my neighborhood. What were you doing anyway?”
Spencer’s eyes flicked from the street in front of them to Addie, then back again. Just the glance—a tiny, three-second glance—made her heart titter and ratcheted up her temperature by ten degrees.
“I’m just hanging out with Colton for a little bit. Dad is…being Dad.”
“A safe house, nice.”
Spencer was smiling as he pulled the car into the Hawthorne High parking lot. “It’s possible you watch too many crime shows.”
Twenty-Nine
Maya was standing at the edge of the parking lot, gaping, when Addie approached her.
“Okay, you’d better start talking, like, right now, young lady.”
Addie wrinkled her nose. “Young lady? I’m six months older than you.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You’re riding in cars with boys! You’re riding in a car with a boy. Spencer Cohen.”
Addie glanced nonchalantly over her shoulder even as everything inside her exploded. “Oh, yeah, I guess I was. Anyway, I should get to class.” She took two tiny steps, pausing when Maya slapped a hand on her arm and yanked.
“No way. You’ll tell me every last detail about your fictional boyfriend and your nonsexual love affair with an online author, but when it comes to a real, living, breathing boy you play coy? Not happening. Spill everything.”
Addie’s grin was so wide her ears hurt. “It’s nothing, really. Spencer was just leaving Colton’s house and he saw me and he offered me a ride.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And?”
Addie cocked out a hip. “And nothing. It was nice. We talked.”
Maya was visibly crushed. “That’s it? You talked? Was it at least super sexy pillow talk?”
Addie shook her head but didn’t stop smiling. “No. It was just…nice.” She shifted her backpack and started to walk toward her chemistry class.
“It was nice?” Maya spat. “Puppies are nice. Dinner with my grandma is nice. Being in a car with a hotsy-totsy like Spencer Cohen should be more than nice.”
Addie raised an eyebrow. “A hotsy-totsy?”
Maya shrugged. “I did just have dinner with my grandma. Okay, now on to t
he real issue. Lydia Stevenson. You got a ride to school with Lydia Stevenson’s ex-boyfriend. Did he say anything about her? Did he tell you he’s secretly been harboring a burning love for you the whole time and that’s why he had to send her to stepping?”
“‘Send her to stepping’? Who are you?”
“I’m your best friend and because my life is currently devoid of love, and more importantly sex, I need to have all the details from my probably-going-to-do-it best friend.”
Addie stopped. “How did I go from getting a ride to probably-going-to-do-it?”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “Just start talking.”
Addie pulled open the door, and Maya edged in front of her, gesturing for Addie to start talking as they walked.
“He didn’t say anything about Lydia. We didn’t talk about her or relationships or anything. It was just a car ride to school, okay? Just that.”
“Okay, but I bet it’s the start of something romantic and totally hot.”
Addie rolled her eyes but deep down hoped that Maya was right.
“All right everyone, take your seats. We have fifty-six minutes, not all day.” Mr. Dawson was always in a hurry, convinced that his chemistry class would, at any minute, run out of time and self-destruct. “Take one and pass them back, please.”
“You’re seriously just going to leave me hanging?”
“I told you everything, Maya.”
“Not the nuance. Not the…the…essence of the car ride.”
“Girls, please!” Mr. Dawson pinned Addie with a glare, then droned on for fifteen minutes about the packet, about four days of homework, and about other things that Addie couldn’t focus on. Spencer Cohen was single and he decided to drive her to school. That meant something, didn’t it?
No, she scolded herself, it didn’t. He was outside and she was outside. They were going to the same place. Maybe he’s just…what? An environmentalist? No, kind. He was just being nice to her.
Addie wasn’t sure why she was convincing herself.
“Something you’d care to share, Ms. Gaines?”
Addie blinked up at Mr. Dawson who was staring her down. She shook her head silently, certain that every single person in the classroom could hear what she was thinking. “No, sir,” she said with a whisper.
***
Addie made it through the rest of her chemistry class unscathed and was for once happy that Maya wasn’t in her government or art class. At least she’d have a two-hour reprieve from her best friend’s needling, from Maya’s constant barrage of questions and pronouncements of Spencer’s intentions and the supposed near-death of Addie’s virginity.
“He totally wants you,” was the last thing that Maya had whispered in her ear after the chemistry bell rang. “He totally wants you and you want him and you guys are totally going to do it, and I’m going to die a virgin.”
When the lunch bell rang, Addie’s stomach was growling even though Hawthorne High was known for their all-gray lunch selections in the gruel line. Maya was waiting for her in front of the cafeteria doors.
“Are we having lunch, or do you and Spencer have plans?”
“You really need to get off this Spencer-and-me kick. It’s getting way old.”
Maya pushed out her lower lip. “Look, I’ve known you for two years and the only man-related thing that has ever happened to you is a new boy character in your Gap Lake fan fiction. This is big. This is my little girl growing up.” She faked a sniffle.
“Spencer and I don’t have plans, so you get to share my gray plate as usual.”
Maya shot her a half smile. “Good. But seriously, why don’t you whip out that credit card and door-dash us something delicious?”
“For emergencies only,” Addie said.
Maya frowned. “My stomach is having an emergency.”
“Maybe I should see what Spencer is doing…”
“So you do love him!”
Addie groaned. “Get a tray.”
Thirty
Addie followed Maya out into the hall later that day, Maya rooting through her backpack. “I totally killed that quiz,” Maya said.
“So you won’t have to live off me after all,” Addie said. She paused, putting her hand on Maya’s shoulder. “Also, can you not say kill? I just”—she shuddered—“I’m still freaked out.”
“Sorry, Adds. I guess I am too.”
“This whole thing is just…I mean, I can’t believe something like that happened here.”
Maya shrugged. “This school is not exactly known for its lively student body. It’s been a long time, but…”
Addie shook her head. She knew the legends. Hawthorne High bred some kind of madness.
“I thought that was all in the past.”
“Yeah, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Um, hello, stare much?” Maya glared at the group of girls who had stopped in the hallway and were eying Addie and Maya. They turned away and Addie shifted her backpack.
“That was weird. I feel like everyone is staring at me.”
They were.
“I mean, I saw her get out of his car this morning. I mean, who does that?” One of the girls whispered loudly.
Addie felt heat at the back of her neck.
“Are they talking about me?”
Maya roped her arm through Addie’s and tried to pull her along. Addie stayed rooted, her stomach clenched, her saliva going sour.
“Spencer and Lydia broke up months ago,” the other girl said, brushing her fingers through her curly brown hair.
“But he decides to move on, like, days after his ex-girlfriend died? That’s just morbid.”
“Maybe he didn’t decide to move on. Maybe Addie decided to move in.”
Addie shook Maya off. “They’re talking about me and Spencer.”
“So there is an Addie and Spencer,” the first girl said with a sharp grin. “I knew it.”
Maya stepped up. “What are you miscreants talking about?”
“We aren’t the only ones talking about it. Lydia Stevenson turns up dead, then, like, days later, Addie Gaines, the chick who spends all of her free time writing about morbid death and murder, moves in on her boyfriend. That’s sick.”
Heat exploded at the back of Addie’s eyes. She shook her head, trying to force herself to talk, to make some sort of sense.
“No,” was all she could muster. “No, no, it’s not like that.”
“So it’s not like you write about murder and then one happens—kind of like the ones all over your website?”
Addie’s stomach folded in on itself.
“Do people really think that?”
“People really think that you may have had something to do with Lydia’s murder, yeah.”
“Shut up! That’s not true and you know it.” Maya exploded, her cheeks a dark red.
The girls shrugged and skulked off down the hall, slowing every once in a while to shoot withering glances back at Addie and Maya.
“Maya, I can’t believe—”
“No one believes that you killed Lydia, Adds.”
“They do!”
“Who are they? No one! Anyone who believes that you could actually kill someone because you write about it is stupid. That’s not how murder works. That’s not—that’s just not real.”
Addie tried to swallow, tried to force her breath back to normal. “The lady on the news said there might be a copycat killer.”
“Listen to me.” Maya stopped dead in the center of the hall, turning Addie to face her. The weight of her hands felt good on Addie’s shoulders, felt solid and real. “That woman was just a nosy concerned citizen. She’s not a police officer or any kind of psychologist or anything like that. She’s just espousing stupid beliefs. No one—except for those two idiots in the hall—thinks that you have anything to do with what happened to Lydi
a.”
Addie tried to nod. She tried to force a smile, but her lips were bone dry and she could feel the skin stretch and break. “I didn’t do it.”
“I know that, Addie. Everyone knows that.”
“But…she may have been killed because of me.”
Addie could tell that Maya was trying to restrain herself. She could feel her best friend’s fingertips burrowing into her skin. “What are you talking about?”
“R. J.—”
“Don’t even start with that, Addie.”
A dark thought began to form at the edge of her periphery.
I’m watching you…
Addie spun, her breath catching in her throat.
“He could be here.”
“What? Who?”
“R. J. Rosen.”
“Addie…”
Addie shrugged Maya’s hands off her and held up her own. “Hear me out,” she started. “We don’t know who R. J. Rosen is. No one really does. I always just assumed he was some big-shot writer in New York.”
“But?”
“But what if he’s not?”
Maya shook her head. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
Addie slipped her phone out of her back pocket. “You said it yourself. What if it’s Mr. Moreau?”
Maya forced an uncomfortable laugh. “And you said that was stupid. And you were right.”
“But look.” She opened the Google search engine and typed in R. J. Rosen’s name.
“So there are, like, fifty million results. I’d say that makes him pretty available.”
“No.” Addie thumbed through the list, clicking on one after the other. “It’s all basically the same information, and it’s all—”
“Pretty useless.”
“Exactly. Why I write, what I write about, how I research.”
Maya pulled out her phone. “He has to have an ‘about the author’ page or whatever, right?” She went to his site and frowned. “There’s one from his publisher and one from Amazon, and neither have a picture.”
Addie scrolled through her phone. “Here’s a Wikipedia page.”
“No picture.” Maya crossed her arms. “I’m still not sure what any of this means.”