This is WAR

by Lisa Roecker

  “Get it?” Sloane asked, knowing this could go only one of two ways.

  “You. Are. A. Genius.” Four words from Madge. Four simple words and Sloane’s heart soared. “Great Grandpa Gregory and their great uncle passed down those watches. They’re antiques. Priceless. Oh my God, Sloane. That’s it!”

  Sloane felt her confidence grow as Lina beamed at her, and Rose gave her thumbs up, which felt so, so good in spite of its inherent dorkiness. Even the Russian sisters nodded enthusiastically. “We could sell them. Make it look like they needed gambling money or whatever. That would really piss off Gramps.”

  “ON EBAY!” Lina shouted. “We sell them on eBay.” She laughed maniacally, and everyone couldn’t help but join in. Sloane laughed the loudest for once. Turns out being a dumbass had its moments.

  Chapter 20

  It was the first time Sloane had seen James Gregory sober since Willa died. His aviators hid most of his face. Judging from the greenish tint of his complexion, she guessed he was recovering from yet another bender. But it was Sunday morning and that meant golf with the Captain. And lucky for the girls, his fancy watch got in the way of his golf swing. It was the only time he ever took it off.

  Sloane watched him warm up at the driving range from a bench partially hidden by trees. She had a magazine as an alibi should it come to that. She was staring, after all. She had no idea what the perfect golf swing was supposed to look like, but her guess was that James had to be pretty close. Or maybe she was just making assumptions based on his perfect body.

  Somehow she had landed the job of monitoring James while Rose stole the set of master keys from her mom’s desk and slipped them to Kira and Nadia. Lina and Madge were supposed to be watching Trip at the basketball courts. If either Gregory made a move toward the Club lockers, the girls were supposed to text a warning to everyone. God bless technology.

  James took a break from his practice and used his driver to stretch his shoulders, his pink golf shirt creeping up and revealing a sliver of toned, tanned stomach. Sloane couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward on the bench to get a better look.

  “If you’re waiting for me to pass out midswing, it’s not gonna happen,” he called.

  At first Sloane figured he had to be talking to someone else. He hadn’t even bothered turning to look at her. She grabbed her magazine and pretended to read just to be safe.

  “That’s upside down, you know.”

  He laughed hoarsely. His voice was louder. Footsteps approached. She looked up and found James standing directly in front of her. Close enough that she could smell last night’s drinks on his skin and see this morning’s stubble along his jaw.

  She opened her mouth to say something, wrapped her lips around imagined words, but no sound came out. She thought about running. It would be safest to run. There was no telling what James might do to her. She should have thought of that before she agreed to do this alone, but none of the other girls were taking the Gregorys seriously yet. And now Sloane was on the golf course, blatantly spying on James. Calling their bluff.

  Her movements were calculated and slow. Don’t make eye contact, she thought. As if maybe if she didn’t look at him he wouldn’t be able to see her. Sloane looked up through her eyelashes. Yup. Still there. Shit. Shit. Shit. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

  “Can I ask you something.” It wasn’t a question. Gregorys almost never asked questions.

  She nodded. Her head was light with adrenaline and fear. He was going to ask her about the pictures. Accuse her of plotting against them. He was going to threaten to kill her just the way he’d killed Willa.

  “What do you remember about that night?” His voice was cold.

  He couldn’t be serious. Was this some kind of test? A joke? Maybe the girls had already been caught, and he was just toying with her before the Captain swooped in and exiled her to some SAT prep summer camp.

  “Uh, you mean …” Sloane stammered, hoping to buy herself some time.

  “Yeah, that night. The Fourth of July. What the hell night do you think I mean?” James ran his shaky fingers through his thick blond hair. “I don’t remember anything. I … just need to know, I need to know what I did to her.” His voice cracked on the last word.

  It was a trick. It had to be a trick. He was baiting her. Trying to get her to expose her friends. He had to be because there was no way he didn’t remember that night. How the hell could he kill someone and not remember anything about it? But when she looked up at him, she saw nothing threatening. In fact, he almost looked hopeful. Not to mention scared. Like she, Sloane, might be able to help him figure this whole mess out. He kind of looked like someone might look if they really didn’t remember killing a person.

  It was his eyes. They were bleary, yet somehow serious. Focused behind the alcohol and pain. She remembered watching Willa look up into his eyes that night. Jealous of how she laughed as she navigated the party. Jealous of her ease, of the way she moved, talked, and existed without even having to think about it. Sloane hung on her every word, wondering if she tried hard enough, if she could fake it. Like Corduroy. And when Willa left and wasn’t around to watch, she moved onto Lina, Madge, and other girls at the Club. While her friend fought for her life, she was fighting to fit in.

  “I remember …” Just as Sloane began, a sharp voice cut her off.

  “James!” The Captain stood on the green, his wiry grey hair perfectly combed, his golf shirt with Hawthorne Lake’s monogram crisp. It was already close to eighty degrees, but his face didn’t flush, his shirt wasn’t damp. Apparently it took more than moderate global warming to make the Captain sweat.

  “Just do me one favor. Tell Rose I don’t remember, okay?” James’s blue eyes pierced into Sloane. He was practically begging. Gregorys never begged. “I’ve seen you with her. I know you guys talk. Just … just tell her.”

  Sloane nodded in silent shock, too confused to do anything but agree with whatever he was asking of her. Her phone vibrated on the bench next to her. It was a text from Madge.

  GOT THEM

  A picture of two gold watches popped up on the screen.

  Sloane should have felt excited. She should have been celebrating. The girls were on their way. But sitting on that bench, staring at those watches as James Gregory and his grandfather climbed into a golf cart, the only thing Sloane felt was terror. Terror that one of her best friends was dead, and she had actually spoken to the guy who had killed her. Terror that all of her friends were working so hard to destroy him. Terror because when James said he didn’t remember, she believed him.

  She needed a minute, an hour, a day to try to process what was going on. But she was smart enough to know that time was the one thing she didn’t have. The watches were already ticking.

  Chapter 21

  The rest of the hot day passed in a blur. Madge’s paranoia upon learning that the Gregorys were onto them had compelled her to set up an unnecessarily complex hand-off process (in Sloane’s opinion, anyway)—one that involved Sloane fishing the watches out of a garbage can in the ladies locker room.

  Now she was home alone with the watches, obsessing over their brand-spanking-new eBay listing. The ceiling fan above her head spun and rattled like it was on decapitation setting, seconds away from flying down and chopping her to pieces. Although maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe if the stupid fan fell down, it would dice up her guilt, along with the rest of her, into such small pieces that no one would ever know it’d been there in the first place. Maybe the fan’s blades would open her up and reveal her guts, blackened and rotted for not being brave enough to save Willa and for failing her again when she’d spoken to James.

  Of course if Sloane died in a freak ceiling fan accident, she wouldn’t be able to check the status of their eBay listing.

  She rolled over to the opposite side of her bed where her phone lay nestled on a pillow, once again swiping and clicking her way to the post she had created for the “Rare Vintage Cartier Men’s Watches.�
� It was fascinating to watch the bids roll in, to wonder if the Captain took the bait after Madge had sent him the listing. It was downright exhilarating to imagine their plan, Sloane’s plan, working.

  CCG1927 outbid a***y AGAIN. Up to $19,876.

  She sent the message to the girls despite the fact that they could easily keep track as well. It felt good to be doing something right for once. Then again, she’d practically pulled her hair out over the listing, using a combination of a thesaurus, Wikipedia, and other eBay listings to cobble together what she hoped would be one coherent auction. But she was proud. She’d even learned how to return messages to potential buyers, copying and pasting vintage Cartier facts scored from a Google search. She liked to imagine the bidders—a creepy old man with gnarled fingers hunched over an old desktop computer buying back a watch from his glory days, a desperate housewife determined to win back her husband from his hot new secretary, a devoted mother buying a graduation present for her only son.

  But there was one bidder who she didn’t have to imagine at all. Sloane was positive that CCG stood for a scrambling Charles Cornelius Gregory. Perhaps he was this much closer to disinheriting his worthless grandsons. Madge had been the one in charge of sending the Captain the link to the listing via a newly set up email address. Sloane could almost feel the satisfaction Madge must have felt when she’d clicked send. The very thought of the Captain having to register for an eBay account was a small victory.

  Sloane refreshed the auction again. Another two bids came through neck-and-neck.

  James. James. James.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about him. The auction didn’t distract her; it only heightened the obsession. Willa had once told her that James used to black out when he was drinking. They’d have entire conversations that he wouldn’t remember the next day. It drove her insane. He’d been sober for the past year, so Sloane had nearly forgotten about James’s alcohol-induced memory loss. But now … what if James was telling the truth? What if he really didn’t remember anything that happened on the Fourth of July? She remembered him swaying on the boat, his eyes bleary and unfocused. Would that make Willa’s death a terrible accident or the murder they’d all assumed it was? Did murderers ever forget? The lines she’d always seen so crisply drawn were suddenly turning hazy, wavering along the edges. Destruction of the Gregory boys had only seemed fair when she was sure James had killed her best friend on purpose. Eye for an eye and all that. Now, the spark she’d felt that first day in the attic fizzled out, the smoke leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

  But Sloane had to do her part. The War was for Willa, yes, but Madge was still alive and they all deserved to know the truth. Doing her part meant keeping the watches safe and hidden. Their housekeeper had come way too close to uncovering them earlier in the day. She could just imagine Helene reporting to her parents and the after-school-special-esque conversation that would inevitably follow. Her parents would probably think she was planning on selling them to pay for a boob job. In the end, Sloane decided the safest place for the watches was on her body, in a small fanny pack that she had used on her class trip to France to hold her passport and Euros.

  James. James. James.

  She threw her phone in her bag and hopped out of bed. She needed something to do. Somewhere to go. Her legs were jittery and her brain was stuck on a new track, the one where it kept replaying James’s voice.

  “I can’t remember. I can’t remember. I can’t remember.”

  Sloane couldn’t stop herself from responding.

  I can’t forget. I can’t forget. I can’t forget.

  Ice cream. She needed ice cream. Something cold, creamy, and distracting. Ben and Jerry’s was a ten-minute walk from her house. It would be good to get out, stretch her legs, and maybe even find a new broken record for her brain.

  Sloane slipped into her flip-flops, left a note for Helene, and trotted down her narrow driveway onto the sidewalk. The enormous oak trees that lined her street created a shady canopy for her as she meandered toward the ice cream shop. Sprinklers sprayed her legs as she went, the drops of water sparking in the sun. It felt good to be outside, alone for once. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this.

  “Sloane?” Someone gasped for breath behind her. “Is that you?”

  A red-faced, sweaty Jude Yang ran to catch up. If there was anything she didn’t need right now, it was Jude Yang. He was wearing a Yale T-shirt with the arms cut off revealing sinewy biceps. Every time Sloane saw him, he was decked out in head-to-toe Yale gear. He was only a freshman. He must have bought every single article of clothing they were selling at the damn school bookstore.

  “Oh, hey.” Sloane lowered her head, turned, and kept walking, praying that he’d get the hint. She knew she shouldn’t hate him. Jude had been valedictorian last year, was an exceptional musician, a star lacrosse player, ridiculously good-looking, and nice. His father worked at the hospital with her parents. He was all they ever talked about. He was everything Sloane wasn’t, everything everyone wanted her to be. And she hated him for it.

  “I just don’t see why you don’t give him a chance,” Willa had once said to Sloane as they lay on the deck of Sloane’s parents’ boat. “You’d make the perfect couple, and he’s always staring at you. Everyone sees it.” She’d hoisted herself up on an elbow then, peering over her sunglasses, waiting for Sloane’s reaction.

  Sloane could have listed a million reasons why she shouldn’t give Jude Yang a chance but didn’t bother. When Willa got an idea in her head, it was impossible to change it. Willa waited a few more seconds, and when it was clear Sloane wasn’t going to respond, she flopped back onto her towel.

  “No one’s perfect.” Willa had practically whispered the words.

  Sloane had never been sure exactly who she’d been talking about that day, but the memory had a tendency to pop back up when Jude was around.

  “Hey, wait up.” Jude trotted next to her.

  Sloane angled her body toward the street and kept walking, pretending to be engrossed with her phone.

  “I just wanted to say I’m so sorry about … about what happened,” he offered awkwardly. “I know you two were super tight.”

  “Oh, um, yeah. It … sucks.” Tears welled in Sloane’s eyes, and she wasn’t sure if she was about to cry for Willa or because she sounded so stupid. She had no words and she hated being forced to find some. The last thing she needed was Jude moving in for an awkward hug or something. Her fanny pack felt as if it were squeezing the air out of her body. She grabbed at the strap, hoping to loosen it, but hit the buckle instead and the bag went flying out from under her shirt. It struck the pavement with a sickening crunch.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Ninja 101 must have been a required course at Yale because Jude was on the ground grabbing the bag before Sloane could even breathe.

  “That didn’t sound good.” He handed her the bag carefully.

  Sloane’s hand shook as she pulled the zipper. The watches were broken, they had to be. She was so screwed. So, so, so screwed. She gingerly removed one. Her fingers trembled harder. Sure enough, the glass on the face was cracked.

  “Dammit.” She swore under her breath, tears pricking her eyes again.

  “Oh man, I’m so sorry. Those look important.” Jude’s voice was so earnest, so kind. Sloane had the sudden urge to knee him in the balls. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t stopped her. Goddamned Jude Yang was ruining her freaking life.

  “They’re like antiques or something, right?” Jude lifted one of the heavy gold watches and ran his finger over the face. If Sloane hadn’t been so miserable she would have swatted his hand away. “Cartier. These things have to be worth a fortune. Hey, at least this one isn’t broken.” He shot her a reassuring smile. “Glass half full, right?”

  Sloane could think of a number of places for Jude to stuff his glass.

  But then Jude flipped the watch and lines appeared on his forehead. He brought the back closer to his face and narrowe
d his eyes. “Huh. I’m surprised there’s no inscription on the back. My dad’s is engraved with the year and product line and stuff.”

  Uh-oh. Doubt made her breath catch. What if they had stolen the wrong watches? Why did she always feel like she was one step behind? But more than that, why did it feel like it was everyone’s goal in life to make her look like a jackass? Including Jude.

  He noticed her disappointment. “Oh … I’m sure these are just too rare. They probably didn’t start engraving the back until the eighties or something.”

  “Yeah … right.” She took the watch from Jude and tucked it back into the bag in an effort to excuse herself.

  “Hey, I know a guy who could fix the other one for you. It’s not too far. I could walk you.”

  “No.” The word slipped out before Sloane could stop herself. “I mean, thanks, but you should finish your run. I think I know the place you’re talking about. I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s right up on Cedar. If you tell him you know me, he’ll give you a deal. Yale man.”

  Sloane squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open. If he said the word “Yale” one more time, she would snap. “Awesome. Bye.” This time Sloane didn’t feel even the tiniest pin prick of remorse when she left Jude Yang standing near the curb. Honestly, she was bolting for his own good.

  By the time she made it to the jewelry store, Sloane’s cheeks were moist with tears. At least the guy at the counter wasn’t emblazoned in Yale. He was just a paunchy middle-aged nerd with a grey beard and glasses. She handed him the watch, desperate for him to say he could fix the complete mess she’d made of the situation. But when the jeweler’s eyebrows pulled together in the exact same way that Jude’s had as he ran his rough fingers over the back, all remaining hope whooshed out of her. She was defeated. Done. The War was over.