“She’s clearly not over it,” Emma agreed. “Actually, I don’t think she’s over you.”
Garrett sighed and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I wish it never happened. I thought she understood my position. We were friends, and when we tried being more, there wasn’t any romance. I didn’t think she felt a spark either.” He broke off a piece of cracker and held it in his palm. “She’s actually called me a couple of times. Sometimes she just hangs up.”
Emma sat up straighter. “Like . . . prank calls?”
Garrett frowned. “I don’t think so. She just doesn’t know what to say. I feel bad for her. I mean, she’s so tough, but it’s got to be hard on her. And I still see her all the time with you. I want her to be my friend—I want all of us to be friends. Besides, Charlotte was there for me during everything that happened with Louisa.” His voice cracked on Louisa. A pained look crossed his face. “We share a lot of history together.”
The words rushed over Emma. She felt dazed as she tried to process all Garrett had said. Then he grabbed her hand. “I don’t want it to be anything more than that with her though. I’m with you now. I want to be with you.”
He moved a little closer to her and draped his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “That reminds me though . . . of what we talked about this summer. Our . . . plans?”
Emma searched his way-too-close face, trying hard not to pull away. Garrett looked so serious all of a sudden. “Uh-huh,” she lied, hoping he’d elaborate.
“Well, I was thinking of making that happen for your birthday.” He shot her a bashful smile as he traced a squiggle on her arm. “What do you think?”
Emma shrugged. “Um, sure,” she said.
Garrett snuggled toward her and leaned his face close to hers. Emma braced herself as he touched his lips to hers, but he tasted like sweet grapes and fizzy cider, and his lips felt warm and soft. She relaxed a tiny bit into the kiss.
A twig snapped close by. Emma pulled back and sat up straight, instantly on edge. “Did you hear that?”
There was another snapping sound. “Yeah.” Garrett frowned and looked around, too. Someone emerged from a dirt path off the main trail. It was a girl with pale skin and bright red hair. Emma drew in a breath.
“Oh!” Charlotte stopped short and pulled a pair of iPod earbuds from her ears. Her gaze darted from Garrett to Emma, then to their entwined hands. What was Charlotte doing up here? Had she been watching?
Garrett tugged nervously at the collar of his shirt. “Uh, hi, Char. What’s up?”
Charlotte fiddled with a rope bracelet around her wrist. “Oh, just getting a hike in.”
“Cool,” Garrett said.
“Nice night for it,” Emma added stupidly.
A hawk screamed ominously from a nearby ledge. When Charlotte raised her head again, her expression was placid. Her mouth no longer trembled. “Anyway,” she said. “See you lovebirds later.”
“L-Later,” Emma stammered.
Charlotte slipped the earbuds back in. Garrett waved weakly. Emma did, too. Just as Charlotte made the turn, darkness crept over her face. She glanced over her shoulder, and met Emma’s gaze.
All at once, Emma felt the hands at her neck and heard the raspy voice from last night in her ear. Sutton’s dead. Could it have been Charlotte?
I recalled the broad-shouldered shape standing over me in the trunk and wondered the same thing. Could it have been Charlotte staring angrily, finally getting her revenge?
Then Charlotte whipped her head around, red ponytail bouncing. She shook her hips to the song on her iPod. As she rounded the next rock, her footsteps didn’t make a sound, almost like she’d never been there at all.
Chapter 22
DIRTY SECRETS
On Tuesday afternoon, when Mr. Garrison the gym teacher dispatched the class to either take a walk or play floor hockey—bleh—Emma strode along the hedged-in path past the tennis courts toward the empty running track. The afternoon was breezy but warm, smelling faintly of ground coffee beans from the cafeteria’s espresso bar. Bits of dried grass turned tumbleweeds blew across the eight yellow-outlined lanes and nestled in the long jump pit. Red-and-white-striped hurdles were stacked neatly in the middle of the field, and an abandoned gray sweatshirt lay next to them, along with a half-drained bottle of Gatorade. The only sounds were the crows cawing in the far-off trees.
Emma pulled out Sutton’s iPhone and composed a text to Madeline: SPA AFTER TENNIS PRACTICE?
She hit SEND. Emma had been dying to talk to Madeline alone ever since her strange encounter with Charlotte on the trail on Saturday, but Madeline had been at a ballet workshop in Phoenix all weekend. And Emma had just found out that Charlotte had a doctor’s appointment after tennis—“the gynecologist,” Charlotte had covertly whispered to Emma at lunch, giving her a loaded look—which meant Emma and Madeline could have some time alone.
She desperately needed to find out Charlotte’s state of mind. This weekend, she’d pored over Sutton’s journals, searching for clues about just how angry Charlotte was. But there was only the entry that said, C has been so bitchy lately. She just needs to get over it. And, of course, Sometimes I think all my friends hate me. Every last one. Was that enough? Perhaps Charlotte had been furious at Sutton for stealing Garrett away . . . angry enough to strangle her. Angry enough to kill her. It would’ve been easy for her to sneak downstairs in her own house, too, strangle Emma in the same way, and slip back upstairs unnoticed. Maybe there was a secret staircase in that crazy-big house.