by Sara Shepard
“Good, you’re awake.” Pierce passed her a bottle of sunscreen. “Can you put more lotion on my back?”
“Can’t your friends do it?” Aerin groaned.
Pierce grinned at her. “I like it better when you rub me down.”
Aerin begrudgingly squirted SPF onto her palm and kneaded the spot between his shoulder blades. “Thanks,” Pierce said. He gave her a kiss, then traipsed off to find his friends.
Aerin flopped back onto the chair and tried to find her Zen again. It really was a perfect day—the Newport air was warm but not too hot, the mansions that peppered the coast gleamed like diamonds, and she was aboard the largest yacht on the harbor.
Helena would approve.
She flinched. It was like her sister was a commercial jingle playing on auto loop in her brain. Aerin didn’t want to think about Helena. She certainly didn’t want to imagine her here. She was still so angry with her. Helena had lied to her, had chosen to run away with an older man and leave her family behind without a word. Aerin still loved her sister, but sometimes she wondered if she ever knew her at all.
And did Aerin even know what actually happened to Helena? The world accepted that Marissa Ingram had killed her, but Seneca Frazier’s theory about Brett Grady gave Aerin pause. Aerin didn’t want to believe it. Marissa’s motive was neat, tidy, and logical, while the idea that Brett—whom she had almost kissed—had done it was nonsensical, irrational, and terrifying. How could her sister have even met Brett Grady?
Aerin jumped to her feet. A change of scenery always helped when her thoughts tumbled down this particular rabbit hole. On the lower deck, Pierce and his buddies, Weston and James, were opening beers. She walked down to them, plucked the open Anchor Steam from Pierce’s hand, chugged it, and handed it back with a wink. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth. “I needed that.”
Pierce’s grin was delightfully scandalized. “Babe, you can steal my beer anytime.” He loved that Aerin was a little crazy. He’d told her so when they’d met at a party in Paris, where Aerin’s parents had sent her on a pity trip after Marissa Ingram’s arrest instead of actually talking through things. Her parents had made a lot of promises after it all went down, including spending more time together and going to family therapy, but it had taken them only a few weeks to slip back to their old ways.
Instead of working through her grief in Paris, Aerin maxed out her credit card at Chanel, buying treats for kids she barely knew. She went to seedy dance clubs, drank champagne straight from the bottle, and staggered home alone through dodgy neighborhoods in the middle of the night.
And on that trip, instead of facing the possibility that Brett Grady might actually be Helena’s killer, Aerin agreed to travel to Nice with a guy she’d just met. On Pierce’s private plane, she sloppily made out with him, then did some body shots of Patrón, then rinse and repeat. The first thing she did at Pierce’s family’s villa was drunkenly strip, sprint to the swimming pool, and slip on the slick stones, practically cracking her head open.
Was she acting out? Sure. Laden with baggage? She’d break an airport scale. Absolutely aware of it? Of course. But what was she supposed to do? Go to therapy? Rebond with her estranged parents? Write a college essay about how she was a survivor? Cue burst of sarcastic laughter.
The alcohol zooming through her bloodstream began to soothe her frenetic brain, but she could still hear the jackhammer inside her, thudding and splintering. Move. Do something. She marched to the cockpit and plopped down on the plush leather seat. “Mind if I take us for a cruise?” she called to the boys.
“Go for it,” West yelled back.
Aerin pressed the lever that powered the engine. The boat jolted to life, skimming past water-skiers, a pleasure cruiser with Newport Ferry Tours emblazoned on its side, and a medium-sized yacht with a half-naked couple entwined on the prow. Her hair flapped in the wind, and she relished the rushing air on her face. She pushed the lever forward. The boat zoomed faster. Whitecaps lapped against the hull. She felt so powerful. She pressed the lever forward again and let out a wild yell that matched the roar of the motor.
“Yeah!” West called out, pumping his fist.
Aerin clipped a buoy and sent it skittering across the surface of the water. The lighthouse was ahead, and she focused on it. What would it feel like to crash the boat into its rocky shoreline? Would the boat be ruined? Would they catapult overboard? Would they die?
Would she see Helena if she did?
“This is awesome!” Pierce screamed.
But something began to shift inside her. Aerin noticed how hard she was gripping the steering wheel. Her heart was pounding, and she was out of breath. The adrenaline high had vanished, and now she just felt…drained. Messed-up.
She steered away from the lighthouse, slowed down, and slid off the captain’s chair. “Why’d you stop?” Pierce called from his perch.
“Because we almost crashed,” Aerin said shakily. She stared at her hands, suddenly not quite recognizing them as hers. “I almost crashed.”
The boys just laughed, like she’d made a joke. She hurried down the stairs into the cabin. It was dark and cool, and she sank into the leather booth in the elegantly appointed dining room and took a few deep breaths, trying not to cry.
“Babe?”
Pierce stood on the stairs, a concerned look on his face. Aerin felt a lump in her throat. Maybe he was more perceptive than she thought. And maybe, just maybe, she was finally ready to talk about what was going on. But as her eyes adjusted, she noticed he was holding something. It was the bottle of Banana Boat. He turned around and pointed to his lower back. “You missed a spot. I’m getting burned.”
Aerin wanted to hurl the bottle at him, but she found herself squirting lotion into her palm. What did she expect? She and Pierce didn’t have that kind of relationship. They didn’t have any kind of relationship, really. As she rubbed it into his muscles, she felt a pang for Thomas Grove, the cop she’d met while investigating Helena’s death. Thomas would have noticed she was slowly going crazy. Thomas would have wanted to know why she’d almost smashed a million-dollar boat to pieces.
Wrong, Aerin thought. She wasn’t even speaking to Thomas anymore. He’d quit the police force and gone to college in New York City shortly after Marissa Ingram’s arrest, when Aerin needed him most. He was probably having a great time right now. Aerin probably never entered his thoughts.
Something buzzed. Aerin’s gaze flicked to the granite bar, where she’d deposited the large cream-colored leather Chanel satchel Pierce had bought for her in France. Something was buzzing inside it. She dug her phone out of the smooth silk pocket. Seneca had sent her a text. You need to look at this.
She opened the accompanying link. The headline caught her eye. Chelsea Dawson, 21, Disappears in Avignon, New Jersey. Next to the story was an image of a girl in a see-through blue dress. Aerin stared at the girl’s blue eyes, her white-blond hair, the dimple on her left cheek. Aerin’s blood turned ice-cold.
She looked exactly like Helena.
MADDOX WRIGHT FINISHED his treadmill run with three minutes on the 11.0 mph setting, his pounding feet echoing through the LA Fitness in Dexby, Connecticut. Normally, he preferred to run outside, but it was way too hot and humid, even for an elite athlete like him.
Breathing hard, he hit the end button, wiped down the handgrips, and guzzled a water bottle he’d filled with chocolate milk. He found it disgusting to drink chocolate milk post-run, but John Quigley, his soon-to-be coach at the University of Oregon, said in his best-selling self-help book, The Path to Gold, that chocolate milk had the optimal mix of proteins, carbs, and fats to refuel after a workout. Maddox made a point to be Coach Quigley’s model athlete-in-training.
“Hey.”
A tall, fit girl with green eyes and glossy, kissable lips smiled at him from the water fountain. As she moved closer to Maddox, he realized she smelled like sugar cookies.
“You were really booking it.” She lowered her long eyelashes.
“Are you some sort of pro?”
Maddox shrugged modestly. “I’m headed to the Olympic trials next summer, if all goes well.”
The girl widened her eyes, then thrust out a hand. “I’m Laila. Wanna grab a smoothie? You can tell me more about it.”
An instructor’s voice boomed out from a nearby exercise room: Pick up the pace! I want to see higher kicks! Maddox’s tongue felt coated with chocolate ooze. He cleared his throat and blurted, “Actually, I’ve got to get home.”
Laila blinked. “Oh. Okay.”
Maddox gave her a polite smile and hurried toward the front door. A scoff stopped him, and he noticed his stepsister, Madison, perched in the little nook that sold athletic gear. She was giving him such an indignant glare you would have thought Maddox had just walked across the gym floor naked.
“What?” he snapped. It made no sense that Madison was here. Whenever Maddox asked his sister if she wanted to go to the gym with him, her typical response was something like, Well, I power-walked the Dexby Diamond Shoppes in my dream for hours last night searching for the perfect Gucci purse charm, so I’m pretty exhausted.
Madison tucked a piece of straight, shiny black hair behind her ear. “Did you seriously just blow off Laila Gregory?”
Maddox stiffened. “Did you seriously just spy on me?”
He headed for the front door, and his sister jumped up after him. “Victoria’s Secret just signed Laila as a runway model,” she hissed in his ear.
He snorted. “As if a Victoria’s Secret model would be hanging out in this dump.”
“Her family lives in Dexby.” Madison pointed back to the row of machines. “Go back in there and apologize. Explain that you’re a reformed dork. This could be huge for you, Maddox.”
Maddox rolled his eyes. “Even if I did believe you, I need to focus on running right now. Not random girls.”
“Only you would blow off a Victoria’s Secret model for running.”
Maddox unlocked his Jeep, opened the door, and tossed his gym bag onto the seat. The bag tumbled into the footwell, and the contents spilled out. His phone bumped against the frame of the car, and the screen lit up, displaying the wallpaper Maddox had chosen that morning: a picture of Seneca Frazier the night of the Ritz-Carlton party in New York, her dark, curly hair in her face, her glowing light brown skin, the corners of her mouth stretched into a lazy, tipsy smile.
Maddox lunged to hide the screen, but it was too late. Madison breathed in sharply. “Oooooh!”
He stiffened. “There’s nothing to ooh about.” He cursed himself for choosing that wallpaper. Of course Madison was going to ask questions.
There was a knowing look on Madison’s face. “At least this explains Laila Gregory.”
“It doesn’t!” Maddox was keenly aware that his voice had shot up an octave. Why was it, though, that Madison had a particular knack for sussing out Maddox’s private, most mortifying secrets?
Because, okay, he thought a lot about Seneca. He had no chance with her, romantically, but ever since she left Dexby three months ago, no girl had measured up. He couldn’t stop thinking about the bouncing, boyish way Seneca walked, or her raucous laugh, or the crinkle that appeared between her eyes when she was puzzling something out. He’d relived the moment they’d kissed at least two thousand times. Whenever she e-mailed him these days—which was becoming less frequent—he pounced on the message, stopping whatever he was doing, even running, to read it. But her e-mails were so chilly, so spare, just briefings about cases Brett Grady had been interested in on Case Not Closed. They weren’t peppered with details of books she’d read or new music she’d listened to. There were no updates about whether she’d had dinner at her favorite greasy Asian noodle place in downtown Annapolis. It was like she was pretending what had gone down between them—how close they’d been to becoming something—had never happened.
A few times, Maddox composed an e-mail to Seneca that cut through the bullshit, laying out how he was still crazy about her and that he worried she might be becoming a mild agoraphobic—she was spending a lot of time in her room, on Brett Watch. That he couldn’t begin to imagine how devastated she was right now. The betrayal he felt was nothing compared to what she must be going through. I’m here, he wrote. We’re in this together. But when he reread his words, they seemed cheesy. Seneca was the last person who wanted unsolicited help; maybe he should just leave her alone. And so he always wrote an equally toneless e-mail in reply, burying the truth deep.
But Madison didn’t need to know that. He glared at her now. She looked so smug, like she’d solved some major mystery. She was wearing a heart-print dress and bootie sandals with stacked pink heels. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and she smelled like she’d just smoked a pound of weed.
“What are you doing at the gym, anyway?” he asked grumpily.
“I came to find you. You got mail.” She presented a slender envelope. Maddox Wright, it read, and then his address. In the upper right corner, there was only a name. Brett Grady.
Maddox felt the blood drain from his cheeks.
The letter had a generic American-flag stamp and a postmark from Cleveland, Ohio. It had been addressed on an old-fashioned typewriter, but there was something wrong with the lateral alignment, and the letters jumped up and down across the page. It gave Maddox a spinning sense, like he was looking at an optical illusion.
He peeked at his sister. She was watching him carefully, the playful look on her face gone.
“Oh.” He moved to stuff the letter into his bag, but Madison grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t play dumb. Anything Brett says, I want to know, too,” she said.
Maddox could feel his heart pounding through his shirt. When he’d first heard Seneca’s theory about Brett, he’d thought she was crazy. Brett was a cool guy—they’d hit it off a year before at a CNC meetup. But the more he thought about it, a lot of Brett’s behavior during the investigation was sketchy. Could Seneca be onto something? Could Brett have used a fake name and lied about who he was? Was it such a leap to think that Helena’s killer had steered their investigation all along, pointing them to the wrong suspect? That beneath Brett’s seemingly harmless exterior lurked a monster? That possibility terrified Maddox. He’d let him in. They’d partied together. He’d never once guessed that he’d been lied to.
The sun crept behind a cloud, turning the sky a purplish gray. Locusts began to screech, the sound discordant and ugly. Maddox felt a rushing sensation in his ears and peered nervously over his shoulder, half-sure Brett would be lurking nearby. The gym’s rusty Dumpster lid banged shut in a gust of wind. A large graffiti eye was spray-painted on its side, watching him. Goose bumps rose on his arms.
Suddenly, Madison shot forward, ripped open the envelope, and extracted two sheets of folded paper. “Hey!” Maddox tried to yank it back, but his sister had hurried across the parking lot. “We’re both reading it,” Madison snapped.
“Madison…” Maddox rushed over to her, blood sloshing in his ears. Single-spaced typewritten words marched jaggedly across the page. He caught sight of the words What up, Maddox on the first line and felt the same way he did when he stepped onto a boat slip: groundless, shaky, suddenly unsure of the rules of the world.
The air around him went still. As he read each sentence, his stomach began to twist with disbelief. He read the letter one more time, trying to process what Brett was saying.
What up, Maddox—
Hope all is well with you. I bet you’re wondering where I am, huh? I know you’ve been looking. I know all of you still talk. So really, this is a letter for everyone. I miss you guys. But look, I might have withheld a few important details when we last hung out. I thought I’d share a few of them now, in case you want to know.
Seneca—I know how eager you are for information, so here’s a nugget: Remember when you’d go to Target to buy books? Did you know Mama flirted with someone at the Starbucks while you were thumbing through paperbacks? Even kissed someone?
I know you know what I did. And I know you want to find me. I’m not done with you, either. Game on, everyone. You’ve gotten my first clue, so come and get me. But if you think about going to the cops with this, someone’s dead.
Stay real,
Brett
“What. The. Hell?” Madison whispered, stepping away from the letter as though it was seeping radiation.
When Maddox tried to fold the letter, his hands shook. “W-we have to call the police.”
“Are you insane?” Madison cried. “He told us someone will die if we do!”
From inside the car, his phone started ringing. Dazed, Maddox wrenched the Jeep door open and found it on the floor. He wondered if Brett was now calling…but it was Seneca’s name that flashed on the screen. His heart dropped.
“Maddox?” Seneca barked when Maddox answered. “Are you there? I have Aerin on the phone, too. We need to talk to you.”
Maddox couldn’t feel his legs. Spots formed in front of his eyes. His vocal cords seemed to have knotted together. “Wh-what’s going on?” he heard himself say.
“Brett just posted on Case Not Closed. Something about a girl who went missing in New Jersey. The police weren’t too concerned about it at first, but then they found blood in the parking lot near the party. It matches her blood type. BMoney60 posted that he thinks her ex-boyfriend did it. He said he was at the party.”
“Chelsea Dawson looks exactly like Helena,” Aerin chimed in.
Maddox’s chest tightened. “Maybe that’s what he’s talking about in his letter. That post is his first clue.”
“Letter?” Seneca asked sharply. “What letter?”
