But Krista Harper, Lindsey’s best friend, blogged like she was an authority, saying Lindsey wasn’t pregnant, but she was seeing another guy besides Brody. “I don’t know who the guy was,” Krista wrote, “but I know he killed Lindsey. I know it.
“But the police! Geesh, they’re so clueless,” Krista went on. “They kept asking me about Lindsey’s earrings. Her earrings! I couldn’t believe it.”
Krista blogged on (and on and on), “This is what I kept telling them, when I could get them to listen: Lindsey was all irate that the guy broke up with her. (And I swear, she was scared of him too.) Only she told me she had some sort of ‘incriminating evidence’ on him. I don’t know what that was about—she wouldn’t say. But she was going to blackmail him. The afternoon before she died, she said—and these are her exact words—‘I’m going to make him pay through the nose.’”
The hairs on my arm stood on end and my heart started beating wild. I looked up at Sawyer. “Lindsey had information for you too. She was going to tell you that night—when we jumped her car. Did she?”
Sawyer looked away, rubbing his neck. He seemed disturbed. “No. She didn’t. I don’t think she really had anything. I really don’t.”
I got a weird, panicked feeling. ‘Cause Sawyer was acting dodgy. It had me sort of freaked. Because back at the beginning of the school year, Sawyer had thought Lindsey wanted money from him.
Did she?
What had that all been about—Come and get it out of me, k?
“What?” Sawyer asked nervously. He got up. “Look, kids’ blogs aren’t going to tell you anything. They don’t know anything—the police don’t even know. If they had a clue, they wouldn’t be asking you about a stupid fight in the bathroom. They’d be picking up the guy—making an arrest.”
I just stared at him.
“Look, no more blogs, okay? Just news articles. Or better yet, just drop it.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Can’t you just drop it?”
“No, not really.” I bit my thumbnail, still unsettled. “Sawyer, it seems like we were the last people to see her alive. She was going to Dover’s Ridge to meet the guy. She was murdered at Dover’s Ridge.” Tears welled in my eyes. “We could have stopped it if we had just gone with her—if I’d let you go.”
Sawyer took me in his arms. “We couldn’t have stopped it.”
“Maybe we could have. Sawyer, I could tell she was scared. If I hadn’t been such a spaz—jealous that she was after you—you would have gone with her and the guy wouldn’t have killed her.”
Sawyer held me a while longer, and I let him. His arms were comforting, always comforting. But after my shivering stopped, I sat up, desperate to go back to task, find out what happened to Lindsey. I had to. I had to find out it wasn’t my fault she was dead.
But the news articles about Lindsey’s death were all pretty much the same. The police found remnants of Lindsey—blood and guts—at the rocky bottom of Dover’s Ridge, indicating she had been pushed off the cliff, splattered at the bottom, and then her body was moved.
Picked up and moved.
The article speculated that the perpetrator might have felt he needed to get rid of her body if he had any sort of physical altercation with her—afraid she might have proof of his identity on her body, such as his blood and skin in her fingernails, or his hair on her clothes.
But the thing was, Lindsey wasn’t dragged. It wasn’t a wild animal. She splattered to the ground, and then she was picked up and moved.
The more I read, the sicker I felt. I mean, I was nauseously ill. Who would do that? Push her off a cliff, then pick up her splattered, bloody body and move it?
Sawyer kept trying to lure me away from the computer, tempt me with food, a back rub, anything I wanted. But I couldn’t leave the computer … until Kenzie decided to do it for me.
Suddenly, the world was twirling out of focus, spinning away.…
***
“Did you tell her?” Zack asked as he straddled the chair at my desk.
“I’m not even sure she’s Jodi yet,” Sawyer said smoothing back my hair.
I squinted my eyes open. “It’s me,” I said groggily. “Tell me what?”
All the four of the guys were in my room. They looked so grave. It had me sweating. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Sawyer sat protectively beside me on my bed taking my hand.
“Tell her, man,” Zack said.
I looked at Sawyer, waiting, but he looked away, instead studying our entwined hands. My stomach knotted. The last thing I remembered was researching Lindsey’s death … then I must have turned into Kenzie. “Tell me what?”
Sawyer shook his head, looking lost for words. Finally, he let out a breath. “Okay,” he said to Zack. “Get out and I’ll tell her.”
I watched the guys file out of my room. Jeremy was the last to leave. He gazed at me, his eyes full of pain and sympathy as he shut the door, leaving Sawyer and me alone.
“What’s going on?” My voice was unsteady. I knew by the way Sawyer was acting—the way they were all acting—I didn’t really want to know. But I asked again. “What’s going on?”
Sawyer exhaled slowly. “Remember Lindsey’s car—at the hotel? How it seemed we started it up? Well, we didn’t. It kept dying. But you changed into Kenzie by then—so you didn’t know.”
My stomach knotted. “Sawyer, what are you saying?”
He stared out the window a minute, then back at me. “We took Lindsey to Dover’s Ridge.”
I let out a gasp. No! “What are you saying?”
He shrugged. “We took her.” He stared up at the ceiling, then back at me. “But we stopped at Zack’s house on the way and raided his dad’s booze. Then we took Lindsey to the Ridge, to wait for the guy she was going to meet. She said she was scared to wait alone, but we wanted to leave. So she said she’d pay us to stay, she’d give us each a hundred bucks to wait with her—to hide while she talked to the guy. So we waited. And while we waited, we drank—a lot.”
I clutched my stomach, felt sick.
Sawyer watched me double over for a moment, then shook his head slightly, his eyes sad. “Sorry, but you need to know.” He hesitated, but then went on. “We built a fire. We sat around it, passing around a bottle of vodka. Except Kenzie—Jeremy wouldn’t let her drink, and he didn’t drink any either, so he could watch her, you know, make sure she didn’t get into trouble.”
Tears welled in my eyes. Jeremy had kept his promise—he tried not to be alone with Kenzie and he didn’t let her drink. I didn’t know that.
Sawyer went on, sounding monotone, tired. “Lindsey didn’t drink the vodka, either. She said it makes her sick. But she was drinking beer after beer. And we were getting loaded and … things got out of hand.”
I gasped. “What are you saying?” I asked in horror, remembering the scratches on Sawyer. On Zack too. My stomach turned, ached so bad I had to clutch it, doubling over again. “Are you telling me you guys killed Lindsey?”
Sawyer shook his head, looking haunted. “We didn’t kill her,” he said. “Kenzie did.”
CHAPTER 39
“I killed Lindsey?” I gasped.
“Jodi, no.” Sawyer took me into his arms. “Not you, Kenzie.”
“But it was my body.”
“That’s why we weren’t going to tell you,” Micah said, he and the others had come back in the room. “We didn’t want you to have to know.”
“So, why are you telling me now?” I tried fighting back tears.
Sawyer held me tighter, trying his best to comfort me, but he couldn’t. I was beyond comfort.
Zack spoke up. “Kenzie’s trying to frame us for Lindsey’s murder.”
“Yeah,” Micah said. “She tried telling Jeremy we did it.”
I turned to Jeremy and he glanced away. He hadn’t collaborated their story. He hadn’t said anything.
“Jeremy, what happened?”
He shook his head, looking tormented. “Jodi, I don’t know, seriously. Kenzie a
nd I, we weren’t drinking with them. We went out to my car and I fell asleep. I swear, I fell asleep. Lately, I’ve been so worried about you—at night, I can’t sleep. Then we were in the car—me and Kenzie—and seriously, I just fell asleep. I don’t know, maybe she put something in my soda. Maybe. Probably. Whatever. I fell asleep.”
He was quiet a minute, seeming to relive that night. A visible tremor went through him.
He looked agonized, haunted. “But Kenzie woke me up. She was hysterical. She was screaming, telling me the guys killed Lindsey—pushed her off the cliff. She showed me Lindsey’s body—shined a flashlight on it. Lindsey was at the bottom of the cliff—on the rocks, all smashed and mangled. And dead.
“And the guys, they were all passed out by the fire—totally gone.” Jeremy rubbed his face in his hands. “Kenzie called 9-1-1 anonymously, but I wouldn’t let her mention the guys. ‘Cause they wouldn’t do that. Jodi, you know they wouldn’t.”
Sawyer grabbed my arm, making me look up at him. “You know we wouldn’t, right? Right?”
I bit my lip, then nodded slightly. Because I knew they wouldn’t … pretty much. But I shuddered, remembering Sawyer and Zack’s scratches. I couldn’t get them out of my head. They both got the gashes the very night Lindsey was murdered. They were both so wounded—like there had been some sort of struggle. Like two very drunk guys doing something very wrong with a very drunk girl.
I felt sick.
“Jodi, we didn’t do it.” Sawyer sounded incredulous that I could even think otherwise. “We were drunk, yeah. But we passed out—all of us. Only, I came to a little bit. I sort of woke up and saw Kenzie fighting with Lindsey. I don’t know what about. And then she pushed her—pushed her right off the cliff.”
I stared at him, not really believing.
Sawyer looked incredulous. He shook his head in disbelief. Then, winced and slowly pulled something out of his pocket. An earring.
I stared at it a moment, confused. Then horror washed through me as comprehension dawned. I started to shake.
The earring was one of Mom’s dangling clip-ons. I’d been wearing the pair the night Lindsey died. I’d forgotten about them—until now.
“Lindsey grabbed your earring,” Sawyer said. “She was just grasping for something, anything, to keep her from falling. She pulled it off Kenzie, took it with her over the cliff.”
I drew my lips into a tiny, thin line, haunted by Krista’s blog—her ranting about the police interrogating her about an earring—my earring.
Sawyer went on, “The police have the other one. They must have found your earring on the rocks with Lindsey’s remnants. They have it as evidence.”
I swallowed.
“So we’re just keeping the earring,” Zack said. “For insurance. In case Kenzie tries pinning us for the murder.”
I glanced up at him, then at Sawyer. “But it’s me that would go to prison. It’s my body.”
“Right,” Sawyer said. “We won’t need to use it. Jodi, we won’t. She won’t try that. As far as she’s concerned, it’s her body too. The earring, it’s just to keep her from … being her.”
I glanced over at Jeremy and he shook his head. Gave me a grim look. “I really don’t know what’s going on.”
“I told you—Kenzie. Killed. Lindsey.” Sawyer stared into my eyes. “Jeez Jodi, why won’t you believe me?”
“Because you and the band have been acting all secrety since the night Lindsey died. And why would Kenzie do it? Why?” My eyes filled with tears. “She had no reason. But you—Lindsey had information about you. And you had scratches. You and Zack, both.” I gave out a tremendous sob, shaking. But I went on, full of reasons I didn’t believe him, reasons that made me tremble with grief and horror. “And Jeremy is the one who kept Kenzie from drinking—not you. But you said it was Kenzie that scratched you—for not letting her drink. You lied.”
Sawyer gave me a withering look. “Okay. Yeah. I did—about that. But it was only because I didn’t want to tell you that you were the one who killed Lindsey—I mean, Kenzie killed Lindsey.” He ran his hands through his hair, as though on the verge of ripping it out. “Look, I don’t know why Kenzie did it. I don’t. Maybe to shut Lindsey up. Maybe that’s what Lindsey was trying to blackmail me about—maybe she knew about Kenzie. And Kenzie didn’t want her to tell anyone.”
My hand suddenly had a mind of its own. Totally without my control, my hand shot out and picked up the lipstick beside me on the nightstand. It wrote across my wall, “That’s not what Lindsey knew.”
I stared at the words, amazed. And horrified.
Sawyer furrowed his brow, tilting his head. “Kenzie?”
I shook my head, shaking. “No, it’s me. But Kenzie wrote that.”
Sawyer studied the message with a frown. “Okay.” He finally relented with a shrug. “So, that’s not why she did it—why she killed her. But she still did it. Like I said, I don’t know why.”
“I didn’t do it!”
Everyone turned to look at me. But I blinked, again amazed. The voice had come out of my mouth. But I was still here, me. Only, somehow, it was Kenzie talking.
“I didn’t! It was them. They did it, I swear.”
Okay, who was I supposed to believe? The guys with scratches and secrets? Or the stranger inside me?
CHAPTER 40
I had an idea. Maybe a lame one, but it was all I had.
Really quick, I texted Hanna, asking her if she could please tell us what happened the night Lindsey died. I didn’t know if she could or would. It seemed if she was able to summon up something about Lindsey’s death she would have told the police…. Only, maybe not.
The other day, Sawyer told me Hanna didn’t like people to know about her “gift.” He found that out a few days ago, after asking her why she stopped reading his palm in the fifth grade.
Sawyer said she’d flinched. Actually looked pained. She told him she just wanted people to think of her as normal, not a freak. “And that’s what most people thought of me—freaky,” she said. “And it wasn’t like I could help anyone. I could sort of see that something bad was going to happen, sometimes, but I didn’t know how to stop it from happening. So, I tried to stop seeing it.”
Knowing all that, I texted Hanna anyway—basically out of desperation. I was either hanging out with a bunch of murders, or I had one inside me. Either way sucked. Still, one seemed worse than the other. Way worse.
If I only knew what it was Lindsey had on Sawyer. What her information was that she wanted him to “get out of her.” That, AND if he didn’t have those scratches. And lie about them. Zack too.
I so needed answers. So I could get rid of the pain in my chest and ache in my gut and so I could breathe without my heart catching in my throat.
Unfortunately, as soon as I sent the text, it bounced back, saying something was wrong with Hanna’s cell account.
I quickly scribbled her a note instead, my hands shaking so bad it was hard to write. My breath catching in my throat, I gave the note to Sawyer. “Will you take this to Hanna’s house?”
He read over the note, read that I wanted information about that night, what happened. “Jodi, I told you what happened,” he said, sounding firm, unable to believe I didn’t trust him. “But yeah, I’ll give her the note.”
The rest of the band waited with me while Sawyer went to Hanna’s. No one actually talked much. What could they say? Sorry we’re holding your earring hostage? Sorry we maybe murdered a girl and are blaming it on the ghost that lives inside you?
No. They didn’t say any of that. They didn’t say anything. They wouldn’t even look at me. No one but Jeremy.
Jeremy kept looking at me. “Here, let me help you with that,” he said as I brought my tray into the kitchen. He took it from me, standing close. “I remember that necklace,” he murmured, his eyes on the emblem around my neck.
My heart throbbed. Kenzie had put the “J” back on the chain at some point. Actually, she had done it a couple of times. I kep
t taking it off, she kept putting it back on. Now it held both the “J” and Dad’s ring.
Jeremy’s eyes seemed to be trying to give me some sort of message. “Do you remember what it meant?”
I nodded.
I was going to ask him if he remembered, but right then, the phone rang.
It was Sawyer, calling from Hanna’s. “Meet us at the cemetery.”
***
A cemetery is a lot scarier at night than during the day. I stayed close to Jeremy. Like, in his shirt. He took my hand. “I’m right here, Jodi.”
Sawyer and Hanna were already at the Grandma Grave when we finally found it. Sawyer eyed me holding hands with Jeremy and I quickly let go. But now my hand was cold, totally missing Jeremy’s warmth. I glanced at Jeremy and he gazed back. But then I looked away because Sawyer was watching us, drinking in our every move.
“Okay,” Hanna said. “Again, I can’t stay with you for more than—than a second. And don’t ask me who killed Lindsey—I can’t even look into it. Not when Ethan’s lurking around. Evil draws to evil. I’m not going to try to dig up a murderer, don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t,” I said, though really I was.
“I recorded what I got from my safety circle,” she said, rooting around in her backpack. “I was in a trance. I don’t even know what’s on it.” She dumped the key drive in my lap. “Okay, I’m gone.”
The recording was a reenactment of what happened that night on Dover’s Ridge—told in Hanna’s voice as though she were there while the whole thing happened—as though she was having a vision.
Kenzie had slipped something into the guys’ vodka bottle when they weren’t looking. Then she went and sat with Jeremy in the car. Meanwhile, Lindsey had crawled up into Sawyer’s lap near the campfire, and purred in his ear, “I really like you Sawyer. Just kiss me and I’ll tell you my secret.”
“Oh, your secret.” He grinned. “Is there really a secret?”
“There is.” She licked his neck. “It’s good, too. You won’t like it, though.”
The Stranger Inside Page 27
