Faye's golden eyes narrowed and the long red-tipped fingers on Cassie's arm tightened. "You're lying."
"No," Cassie said. She cast an agonized glance around and then whispered, "I think I know where it is, but you have to give me time."
Faye was staring at her, those strange eyes raking hers. Then she relaxed slightly and smiled. "Of course, Cassie. All the time you need. Until Saturday."
"That may not be long enough-"
"It'll just have to be, won't it?" Faye drawled.
"Because after that I tell Diana." She let go and Cassie walked to her own desk. There was nothing else to do.
They had a minute of silence at the beginning of class for Mr. Fogle. Cassie spent the minute staring at her entwined fingers, thinking alternately of the dark rushing thing inside the skull and Doug Henderson's tip-tilted blue-green eyes.
At lunch there was a note taped on the glass door of the back room in the cafeteria. Outside in front, it said. Cassie turned from it and almost ran into Adam.
He was approaching with a loaded tray, and he lifted it to stop her from knocking it all over him.
"Whoa," he said.
Cassie flushed. But then, as they stood facing each other, she discovered a more serious problem. Adam's smile had faded, she couldn't stop flushing, and neither of them seemed to be going anywhere.
Eyes in the cafeteria were on them. Talk about deja vu, Cassie thought. Every time I'm in here I'm the center of attention.
Finally, Adam made an abortive attempt to catch her elbow, stopped himself, and gestured her forward courteously. Cassie didn't know how he did it, but Adam managed to carry off courtesy like no guy she had ever known. It seemed to come naturally to him.
Girls looked up as they went by, some of them casting sideways glances at Adam. But these were different than the sideways glances Cassie had seen on the beach at Cape Cod. There, he'd been dressed in his scruffy fishing-boat clothes, and Portia's girlfriends had averted their eyes in disdain. These glances were shy, or inviting, or hopeful. Adam just tossed an unruly strand of red hair off his forehead and smiled at them.
Outside, the members of the Club were gathered on the steps. Even Nick was there. Cassie started toward them, and then a large shape bounded up and planted its front feet on her shoulders.
"Raj, get down! What are you doing?" Adam yelled.
A wet, warm tongue was lapping Cassie's face. She tried to fend the dog off, grabbing for the fur at the back of his neck, and ended it by hugging him.
"I think he's just saying 'hi,' " she gasped.
"He's usually so good about waiting just off campus until I get out of school. I don't know why-" Adam broke off. "Raj, get down," he muttered in a changed voice. "Now!" he said, and snapped his fingers.
The lapping tongue withdrew, but the German shepherd stayed by Cassie's side as she walked over to the steps. She patted the dog's head.
"Raj usually hates new people," Sean observed as Cassie and Adam sat down. "So how come he always likes you so much?"
Cassie could feel Faye's mocking eyes on her and she shrugged uncomfortably, staring down into her lunch sack. Then something occurred to her: one of those witty comebacks she usually only thought of the next day.
"Must be my new perfume. Eau de pot roast," she said, and Laurel and Diana giggled. Even Suzan smirked.
"All right, let's get down to business," Diana said then. "I brought us out here to make sure nobody's listening. Anybody have any new ideas?"
"Any one of us could have done it," Melanie said quietly.
"Only some of us had any reason to," Adam replied.
"Why?" said Laurel. "I mean, just because Mr. Fogle was obnoxious wasn't a reason to murder him. And quit grinning like that, Doug, unless you really did do something."
"Maybe Fogle knew too much," Suzan said unexpectedly. Everyone turned to her, but she went on unwrapping a Hostess cupcake without looking up.
"So?" said Deborah at last. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well..." Suzan raised china-blue eyes to look around at the group. "Fogle always got here at the crack of dawn, didn't he? And his office is right up there, isn't it?" She nodded, and Cassie followed her gaze to a window on the second floor of the red-brick building. Then Cassie looked down the hill, to the bottom where Kori had been found.
There was a pause, and then Diana said, "Oh, my God."
"What?" Chris demanded, looking around. Deborah scowled and Laurel blinked. Faye was chuckling.
"She's saying he might have seen Kori's murderer," Adam said. "And then whoever killed her, killed him to keep him from talking. But do we know he was here that morning?"
Cassie was now staring from the second-story window to the chimney that rose from the school. It had been cold the morning they found Kori dead, and the principal had a fireplace in his office. Had there been smoke rising from the chimney that morning?
"You know," she said softly to Diana, "I think he was here."
"Then that could be it," Laurel said excitedly. "And it would mean it couldn't have been one of us who killed him-because whoever killed him killed Kori, too. And none of us would have done that."
Diana was looking vastly relieved, and there were nods around the Circle. A little voice inside Cassie was trying to say something, but she pushed it down.
Nick, however, had his lip curled. "And who besides one of us would have been able to drop an avalanche on somebody?"
"Anybody with a stick or a crowbar," Deborah snapped. "Those rocks on the cliff at Devil's Cove are just piled up any old way. An outsider could've done it easy. So it's back to the question of which of them did it-if we have to ask anymore." There was a hunting light in her face, and Chris and Doug were looking eager.