Burned

by Sara Shepard

Page 9

 

  Gretchen frowned, fiddling with her necklace. “Well, we need you to return to the ship every night—otherwise we’d have to send out a search party. The hikes take you over a lot of terrain, but I wouldn’t call them extreme. And I’m not sure what you mean by role-playing—perhaps you can elaborate?”

  The speaker, a guy with longish brown hair and thick eyebrows, waved his hand dismissively. “Forget it. ”

  Gretchen told them they would have to scour beachheads, traipse over dunes, bushwhack through tropical rain forests, and navigate busy city streets to extract information that would lead them, ultimately, to the prize. Aria exchanged excited glances with kids next to her. There were quite a few couples holding hands in the group, and she felt a longing pang. Maybe Noel would have chosen the scavenger hunt if he had known about the prize.

  “Okay, the first thing I need you guys to do is split up into groups of two,” Gretchen said after she’d called roll.

  The couples paired up. Other kids turned to people they knew. Aria spun around, but everyone from Rosewood Day had already found partners. Even her roommate, a sweet, quiet girl named Sasha who’d also signed up for the scavenger hunt, had paired up with another bookish-looking girl from her school. As more and more people grouped together, she felt a self-conscious twinge. Years ago, when kids at Rosewood Day teamed up at recess, formed partnerships in art class, or picked groups for an English project, goofy, friendless Aria was often the last to be chosen. Is it because I have a pink stripe in my hair? she would wonder. Or is it because of some innate, loserish quality that I don’t even know I have?

  “Those of you who don’t have a partner, raise your hands,” Gretchen announced.

  Aria sheepishly lifted her palm a few inches. Several other kids did, too.

  Gretchen matched those who didn’t have partners with one another. When she got to Aria, she pointed her toward the guy who’d just asked about camping and role-playing. “You two okay to work together?”

  The boy looked at Aria and shrugged. “That’s cool. ” He extended a hand to Aria. “I’m Graham Pratt. ”

  “Aria Montgomery. ” She smiled at him. He had pretty hazel eyes and wore gray Toms shoes, beaten-up Army-surplus shorts, and a faded T-shirt with what looked like a shield on the front and a small hole in the shoulder.

  “Do I know you from somewhere?” she asked. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. “Do you go to a school on the Main Line?”

  Graham’s brow crinkled. “No, I go to school in Philly. ” Then he brightened. “Wait. Are you in SCA?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Society for Creative Anachronism!” Graham grinned.

  Aria hid a smile. Her cousin Stewart was in SCA, and he talked about it nonstop. It was like a year-round Renaissance Fair, where people role-play parts in a medieval society. He’d met his wife there, in fact—she’d been a kitchen wench, and he played the guy who collected dead plague victims in a wooden cart.

  “Uh, no,” Aria answered after a moment. But then, in an attempt at diplomacy, she added, “But it’s always sounded really cool. ”

  “You should join!” Graham looked excited. “There’s a meet-up in Camden next month. ”

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” Aria said. “But I still think I know you from somewhere. Did you spend time overseas? I lived in Iceland for a few years, but I traveled to France, Germany, Austria, Holland …”

  Graham shook his head. “The last time I went to Europe was with my parents when I was six. Last summer I backpacked through Chile, though. ”

  “That must have been amazing!”

  “It was. ” Graham looked wistful. “It was for an SCA conference—we anointed a new king. ” Then he peered at her curiously. “What was Iceland like?”

  “Magical,” Aria said softly, though when she opened her mouth to wax poetic about Iceland, all she could think about was her last trip to the country, the one she’d taken with Noel, Mike, and Hanna—the one she never wanted to think about again.

  She fixed her gaze across the boat instead. Several kids were swimming laps in the pool. Emily, who had volunteered to lifeguard, sat on the stand, twirling a whistle around her finger. Aria considered waving, but Emily seemed like her thoughts were a million miles away.

  She turned back to Graham. “So anyway, I’m really excited about the scavenger hunt,” she said, deciding to change the subject.

  “Me too,” Graham said. “A buddy of mine was supposed to do it with me, but he changed his mind at the last minute. ”

  “Yeah, I tried to get my boyfriend into this, but he wanted to surf instead,” Aria said. “It’s cool, though. He seemed really excited for it. ”

  Graham nodded. “I’m not sure my girlfriend would have wanted to do this, either. She was more of the tanning type. ”

  “Is she on the cruise?”

  Graham scratched his nose, looking uncomfortable. “No. And, uh, well, we’re actually not together anymore, so …” He trailed off and sat down on one of the benches that lined the pool. “So you’re from the Main Line, huh? Does that make you a snob?”

  “Far from it!” Aria scoffed. “Most of the time, I feel really out of place there. Like it’s not really where I’m supposed to be. ”

  “I used to feel that way in my old town—it was a really stuffy suburb, too,” Graham said. “I was thrilled when my family moved to Philly last year. ”

  “Where did you live before that?” Aria asked.

  “Maplewood, New Jersey,” Graham said.

  “Maplewood?” Aria blurted. According to the Tabitha Clark Memorial website, Tabitha had gone to high school in Maplewood.

  Graham gave a resigned sigh. “Let me guess—you’ve been following the Tabitha Clark case. ”

  Aria’s stomach felt like it had been filled with hot, explosive fizz. “Did you know her?”

  Graham stared into the middle distance, his blue eyes muddy. And then, before he said another word, Aria knew why he looked so familiar. She recalled a video she’d seen on the Tabitha Clark website of a cute boy dancing with Tabitha at prom. She saw his name next to posts about a pizza party fund-raiser in Tabitha’s honor. She even recalled his voice on CNN, talking about the last time he saw Tabitha, a few months before she died.

  All of this passed through her mind in a matter of seconds. And then Graham raised his teary eyes to Aria, uttering exactly what she feared. “Yeah. Tabitha was my girlfriend. ”

  8

  LICENSE TO KILL

  Later that night, Hanna took Mike’s hand as they stepped off the elevator on the Palm Tree Deck. “Nine-oh-seven is that way,” he murmured, then turned right and started down a long corridor. Hanna followed him, shooting a haughty look at Phi Templeton, who had paused eagerly at her cabin door. Hanna and Mike were on their way to a top-secret, exclusive party in Mason Byers’s suite, but not everyone was invited.

  They passed a long mirror, and Hanna gazed at her reflection. She was definitely party-ready. Her skin glowed with a brand-new tan; the gauzy, burnt-orange sundress she’d bought at the King James floated softly away from her hips; and the gladiator heels she’d purchased just before the trip made her legs look so superlong that she didn’t mind that they pinched her feet a little.

  Mike stopped at the last door at the end of the hall. “Here we are. ”

  They listened for a moment. Bass thumped from inside. A girl squealed, and a bunch of guys laughed. The scent of booze and cigarettes wafted under the door.

  Hanna bit her lip. “What if the chaperone hears us? I don’t want to get in trouble. ”

  Mike’s thick brows knitted together. “Since when do you care about getting in trouble?”

  Hanna wound a piece of perfectly curled auburn hair around her finger. “I don’t want to have to give up any more tanning time to sit in some cruise ship’s idea of detention. It’s bad enough I have to work in the dungeon. ” She hadn’t bothered to sign up for
a volunteer job before the cruise, so she’d been randomly assigned a position in the ship’s administration office. The office was in the bowels of the ship, run by a woman named Vera who wore a thousand tiny barrettes in her hair and was obsessed with country music. Hanna was supposed to do mind-numbing data entry about the ship’s capacity the whole morning—Vera tried to make it seem so interesting that this particular vessel could hold almost a hundred more guests than were on board. Mostly, she’d just googled how she could make a grass skirt look sexy for the end-of-trip talent show.

  “Don’t worry,” Mike said. “Mason paid off this hallway’s chaperone to keep quiet. We’re cool. ”

  Then he knocked on the door. It opened a crack. “Password?” said a gruff voice.

  “Flipper,” Mike whispered.

  The door opened, and they walked into a suite packed with bodies. The patio door was open wide, letting in the warm, fragrant air, and a bunch of people leaned over the railing or sat on the deck chairs. On the kitchen’s counter were a bunch of airplane bottles of liquor, a half-drained jug of rum, plastic cups, and pretzels, peanuts, and M&M’s from the minibar. Rihanna blared from an iPod dock, and a few people were dancing on one of the beds. The room smelled thickly of perfume, sweat, and all-natural carpet cleaner.

  “Welcome to our soiree. ” Mason strode forward and offered Hanna and Mike cups filled with rum and Diet Coke. He was wearing his Rosewood Day blazer, a striped tie loosely knotted around his neck, and a pair of seersucker shorts that looked suspiciously like boxers.

  Hanna accepted the drink, then started through the crowd. A lot of kids from Rosewood Day were here, as well as people from Doringbell Friends, Pritchard, and Tate. A couple of blond bombshells from Villa Louisa were doing shots with James Freed and a few other boys from the lacrosse team. Maybe it was something about the hot, humid air, or maybe it was the smell of the coconut sunscreen everyone was wearing, but suddenly Hanna was reminded of the parties they’d attended in Jamaica—especially that crowded dinner the night they met Tabitha. They’d all been sitting at the table, drinking and having a good time, when Emily had grabbed their arm. “It’s Ali,” she’d said, and there was Tabitha on the top step, looking eerie and familiar in that yellow dress. . . .

  Jesus. Why was she thinking about it again? She grabbed Mike’s arm. “Let’s dance. ”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Mike said.

  They hit the dance floor and started moving to a Wiz Khalifa song. Hanna shook her arms and legs like a dervish, trying to purge the negative thoughts from her mind. A Lil Wayne song came on next, and then there was a medley of stuff from Madonna’s latest album. By the time someone put on vintage Nirvana, she was slightly winded from dancing and much more relaxed.

  “I’ll get more drinks,” Mike said. Hanna nodded woozily and wandered out to the balcony, where kids were staring at the moon. A hand touched Hanna’s bare shoulder, and she turned, thinking Mike was back. Instead, it was Naomi. Hanna instantly inhaled a heady whiff of her fruity Kate Spade perfume.