“You really loved her, huh?”
Emily cast her eyes downward. That was something else she’d admitted to Jordan right away: There was no use in hiding her attraction to girls anymore. It was easy to tell Jordan things, though—she was so accepting of everything that came out of Emily’s mouth. She’d just smiled faintly and said that was fine with her.
She cleared her throat and looked up at Jordan. “I meant to ask you. Do you need to call your parents? I have a phone card you can borrow. They’re probably wondering where you are, right?”
Jordan shrugged. “I said I was staying at a friend’s house for a while. They won’t check up on me.”
“Are you sure? For a whole week?”
“They probably don’t even notice I’m gone.” Jordan fiddled with her velvet headband. “My parents are way more concerned with their own lives. They don’t really have time for me. Add in the fact that I’m not the perfect daughter they always wanted, and they’d probably rather I was just gone for good.” She said it nonchalantly, finishing with a sarcastic laugh, but the pain was obvious in her voice.
Emily drew a squiggle in the margin. “Sometimes I think my parents want me to disappear, too.”
Jordan looked up at her, clearly waiting for Emily to say more. “I’ve done some stuff to make them really mad,” Emily said vaguely. Even though she’d shared a lot, she wasn’t ready to get into that.
But suddenly, Jordan’s face had moved closer. The air smelled heavily of jasmine perfume. “I don’t know why anyone would want you to disappear,” she blurted. “No matter what you did.”
Emily held her breath, noticing for the first time that Jordan’s eyes were the color of tourmaline gemstones. Then her cell phone let out a few sharp bleeps. She groaned, rolled over, and looked at the screen. Hanna had sent a text.
A is on the boat. Meet me near the tiki bar now.
Emily turned the phone over so Jordan couldn’t see the message. “I-I’ll be back,” she whispered, and was through the door before Jordan could ask what had just happened.
Ten minutes later, Emily stood at the tiki bar, a steady rain pelting the awning above her head. Naturally, the deck was empty. Somewhere down below, she could hear the strains of New Age music from a late Cirque du Soleil performance in the theater.
The elevator doors opened, and Spencer and Aria walked out. They spied her and jogged over, shielding their heads from the rain.
Hanna emerged up a staircase wearing a long sundress, high heels, and an incongruous oversized white hoodie that stretched to her mid thighs. Her eyes were wild, her face was pale, and she held her phone tightly in her right hand. “The bitch somehow made it on board with us,” she snapped when they approached.
She thrust the phone at the girls. Emily stared at the text message on the screen. Be careful who you hit and run, jailbird. See you on the Fiesta Deck!
Aria squinted at the note. “Hit and run? What is A talking about?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Hanna said. “The accident on Reeds Lane? That horrible night in the rain? A knows.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. The night of Hanna’s accident felt so far removed—it had happened at the beginning of the summer, before anything else. She’d found out she was pregnant just after spring break in Jamaica, and though she’d still been living at home when Hanna had called, she was moving in with Carolyn the following week, much to her sister’s chagrin. When Hanna called Emily, she had almost declined—she had a little belly bulge at the time, and what if the other girls guessed what was going on? It was hard enough to hide it from her parents. Her mother had even commented on Emily’s new billowy-shirt style.
But a split second later, she’d felt terrible. Hanna needed her. And then Aria had called, saying she’d swing by and pick her up, and Emily didn’t know how to say no. In the end, if any of them noticed her belly, no one said anything. They were all too preoccupied with the car crash.
Emily leaned against the bar. “How does A know about that?” she asked, looking at Hanna. They’d been on such a desolate stretch of road, and they’d driven away before the ambulance had arrived. But then more of the night came back to her. They’d possibly hurt the girl. And then they’d run, like it was a prank.
Hanna fiddled with a large, carved tiki-head candle on top of one of the tables. “I’m not sure. But you know that girl in the car, Madison? It turns out she’s Naomi Zeigler’s cousin. Naomi and I have been getting along, and at first I thought it seemed suspicious, but then I figured she’d turned over a new leaf. Until I saw her fake ID—it’s Madison’s picture.”
Aria’s brow furrowed. “So you think Naomi was being nice to you because she’s A?”
“I’m not sure,” Hanna said. “But if she’s not, A is going to tell her about the crash. Naomi will turn us in for sure.”
“Yeah, if A doesn’t turn us in first.” Spencer pointed at Hanna’s phone. “A called you jailbird.”
“Hanna, did Naomi say anything about the accident?” Aria asked.
“Sort of,” Hanna admitted, looking at Spencer. “She mentioned going through some terrible stuff last summer. And she got this weird look on her face when someone asked her who it was on her fake ID. She was like, My cousin doesn’t need her ID anymore.”
“Like she was dead?” Spencer gasped.
Emily’s eyes widened. “In the crash?”