ROSALIE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19
For a minute, Amanda stares at me unblinking. This—the two of us face to face, breathing the same Carter-less air—is definitely strange. I wasn’t expecting a hug, but she could at least stop looking at me like I’m a space alien. She’s taller than I realized from Facebook; she must have six inches on me. Otherwise, she looks exactly like I expected. Shiny manicure, fitted jeans and top, tiny gold earrings and necklace, fresh makeup. Curated. I realize I’m probably giving her the same judgmental look she’s giving me.
She snaps out of it and takes my hand in hers, giving it a quick shake.
“Amanda. Obviously. Come in, you’re letting out all the heat.”
She backs out of the doorway and I step inside. After hanging my coat in the hall closet, she guides me through the living room, across the dining room, and into the kitchen. The niceness of her house is almost menacing. We pass three fireplaces and a dozen stone vases to match the intricate stonework that lines the walls. I’m surrounded by sleek, marble countertops, plush rugs, and lavish bouquets of flowers. Everything is dark and modern. Amanda catches me staring.
“My mother has a thing for stone accents.” I wonder if she realizes she’s touching the black stone heart that hangs from the delicate chain around her neck. “You want something to drink?”
“Water would be good.”
She opens the fridge and gestures toward a SodaStream bottle. “Sparkling?”
“Just regular water.”
“Suit yourself.” She pours a glass of sparkling, then hands me a tall blue bottle that I guess contains spring water. “Come on, we’ll talk in my room.”
We take the stairs to the second floor, and I follow her down the hall toward the only open door.
“I’ll be right back.” Amanda leaves me alone to explore her bedroom, which is, to be expected, nice. The room is huge and was clearly designed to match the sleek, dark tones of the rest of the house. The colorful photo collage above her bed and messy pile of French novels on her desk are the only signs that a teenager lives here. Even her trinkets are displayed behind glass. I open the door next to her desk, expecting to find a closet, but it leads to a private bathroom with a whirlpool tub.
In a minute, Amanda’s back with her laptop. She takes a seat in her desk chair, and I perch on the corner of her giant bed with my fancy bottle of water.
I’ve been in her house for eight whole minutes, and she hasn’t asked about Carter yet. My eyes flit to the framed photo of the two of them that sits on her desk. I look quickly away. I need to clear the air, tell her the truth about Carter and me, but before I can figure out where to start, Amanda opens her mouth.
“Did you bring your phone?” Her voice is clipped, all business.
“Yes.” I dig it out of my messenger bag and switch on the screen. “No new messages from Private since Wednesday. He also send you a friendly reminder?”
Amanda presses her lips together. “I turned my phone in to the cops on Wednesday. So if Private’s been sending reminders, I didn’t get them.”
Right, her email had mentioned something about her phone. I’m hit by a sudden surge of hope. If Amanda went to the cops, maybe they have something on Private. Maybe this is almost over.
My optimism must be obvious, because Amanda says, “Don’t get your hopes up. I had enough on my phone to connect Private to the hit-and-run, but my mother derailed the investigation. That’s why you’re here.”
“What?”
She looks at me hard, clearly debating how much to say. “She thinks whoever hit Carter was an opportunist who saw the accident on the news. But she’s wrong.”
“Private texted us that same night.”
“There was also this thing at my locker, with fake blood and a teddy bear.” Amanda makes a face.
I nod. “Carter told me.” And there it is: his name, hanging in the air between us.
Amanda sucks in a little breath. “Whoever hit Carter put one of those same bears in his backpack on the day of the accident.”
“I think so. My parents hired a PI to investigate quietly, this Nathaniel Krausse guy. So that’s why I need your phone.”
“What?”
“Your phone. You kept all the messages from Private, right?”
I nod and grip my phone tight. I’m sure for Amanda getting a new phone is no sweat, but I worked hard for this. It’s my only source of internet outside school, my only connection to Pau. I can’t just run out and replace it.
“You’ll get it back. God.” She sticks out her hand and glares at me.
“When?”
“I don’t know. A couple days. I need to get it to the PI so he can work his magic with Private’s blocked number. We have five days, Rosalie. You get that, right? I thought you’d want to expose Private as much as I do.”
I stare at her outstretched hand. Her eyes are flashing, but her fingers are trembling just slightly. She’s as scared as I am.
“Fine.” I hand over my phone and run my fingers through my hair. It’s messier than usual, a casualty of static and the cold dampness that’s been hanging in the air since Monday’s storm.
“Thanks.” She softens a little, my phone now in her possession. “I’ll tell the PI he needs to return it as soon as possible. Here’s his contact info.” She copies something down on a sticky note and hands it over. “In case you need it.”
“Thanks.” I stare at the phone number and email address. “And what if he can’t, you know, trace the number? What then?”
Amanda frowns, then slouches back in her desk chair. “I don’t know.”
For a moment, we’re both quiet. If we’re going to get anywhere, I need Amanda to trust me.
“You know the girl from the photos?” I ask. “The ones Private wanted you to send to my dad?”
Amanda nods, straightening in her chair.
“That’s Paulina, my girlfriend. We’re moving to the city after graduation, and we’re going to Pitt together in the fall. Until Private found out, no one knew except her family. And now you know.”
“So, you’re bi?” Amanda asks.
“No, I’m not into guys. At all.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Have you heard of the Fellowship of Christ?”
She makes a face. “Carter made me watch a PBS documentary about a woman who escaped. It was basically a cult except the people don’t live on a commune, and the kids go to regular school. But they believe in the Rapture and eternal damnation and all that. They’re fanatics.”
“Oh.” I never knew Carter watched that documentary. The woman was Extradited. It was a big scandal two years ago. But despite my feelings about the church, somehow hearing Amanda trash it stings. Cult. Fanatics. Her words hurt because they’re true.
“Carter probably made you watch it because my family is FOC.”
Amanda’s eyes get big.
“When I was thirteen, I came out to my parents. I’ve spent the last four years in and out of what they call ex-gay ministry.”
“Like, conversion ‘therapy’?” Amanda forms air quotes around the word. “To try to make you straight?” She looks appropriately horrified.
“Yeah. Like that. They homeschooled me for a while, then we moved across the state for a fresh start in Culver Ridge. That’s when I met Pau. I have zero feelings for Carter, I promise. He was just a good cover.”
I flop back on Amanda’s bed and stare up at the deep cream, crack-free ceiling and wait for her to lay into me.
Instead, she says, “So you never really loved Carter?”
“No, never.”
“I’m not sure I did either.”
I sit up and stare. Her eyes are shiny, but her face is composed.
“I thought I did.” She’s studying some spot above my shoulder. “I really thought this was love. It was always just a given that we were meant to be together. We were the perfect couple; everyone said it. But I was never enough for him. I thought he’d grow out of it, out of you.” When she finally looks at me, it’s all I can do to meet her gaze. “But you weren’t the problem. I was the one who wasn’t good enough. . . .”
The tears spill over, and I don’t know what to do. I jump up and grab the box of tissues on Amanda’s dresser and hold them out to her.
“Thanks.” She snatches the box from my hand, and I wonder if she regrets opening up to me. If she said more than she meant to say.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
She shakes her head back and forth, fast, and blows her nose. It’s a big, ugly sound, not the delicate sniffle I’d expected from Amanda Kelly.
“It’s okay,” she says. “If none of this had happened, who knows how much longer I would have stayed with him. We would have started college together in the fall. Do you know how many girls go to WVU? I would have pretended he wasn’t sleeping with them. I would have married him.”
“We never slept together. Not even close. Just in case you were worried.”
She wrinkles up her nose. “I wasn’t.”
Then, she breaks into a grin, and suddenly we’re both laughing. It feels great. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this.
“You know,” I say when we’ve recovered, “you’re wrong about one thing.”
Amanda dabs at her eyes with a fresh tissue and takes a sip from her glass. “What’s that?”
“The only one who isn’t good enough is Carter. We both deserve better.” When the words leave my lips, I know they’re true. Carter may be supernice, but he’s still a cheater.
In a few days, he’ll be out of the hospital and my time will be up. I can’t keep doing this—burying myself beneath a pretend girl, a girl I’m not. I’m going to have to decide what to tell my parents, what to do. I don’t have any answers yet, but a hard, dark kernel of truth lodges itself in my chest: The lies were a shield and their own kind of bravery, but I can’t carry that burden anymore. I’m not going back to that life. The kernel nestles into the hollow inside my rib cage, takes root.
“Thanks.” Amanda’s voice draws me back into her room. She runs her fingers through the strands of her perfectly straight hair, smoothing the tips. Her face is composed again. “I still kind of hate you. But only a little.”
Before I can respond, she turns toward her computer and opens a fresh Google Doc. Then, she types: Suspects.
“If PI Krausse can’t trace the number,” she says, “we need a backup plan. Let’s bring this fucker down.”
I grin, feeling suddenly more alive than I have in weeks. Maybe longer. “Where do we start?”
We spend the next hour comparing notes. I tell Amanda about the person who’s been following me, and we read through the texts on my phone. She tells me about all the creepy shit that’s been happening to her and her conversation with Officer Lu. Finally, she shows me the screen shots she saved of the Private texts before turning in her phone and the bucket of photos in her closet, hundreds of prints, some candid of Carter and me at a gallery opening.
When we’re done, we sit for a minute in silence. It’s a lot of information, but it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. The only thing it adds up to is someone with a giant vendetta against Carter and, by association, us. My mind revolves back to Pau, like it’s been doing constantly since yesterday afternoon.
“Whoever Private is,” Amanda says finally, “this is personal. And I don’t buy Officer Lu’s theory that someone’s trying to get at his dad through Carter. Why would anyone with a real estate bone to pick go after me? Or you?”
I shake my head. “It’s definitely more personal than that.” My eyes are fixed on Amanda’s computer screen, the blank space below Suspects.
“Let’s not think of this as a suspect list,” I suggest. “Let’s just start with a list of your friends. The people close to Carter.”
“Okay.” She stares at the screen, then starts to type.
Graham, Bronson, Alexander, Ben
Adele, Trina
Winston and Krystal Shaw
Linda and Jack Kelly
“Winston and Krystal are his parents, obviously. Linda and Jack are mine. The guys are his best friends; they’re all on varsity lacrosse except Alexander. Graham’s a sweetheart, Bronson’s a daredevil, Alexander’s his boyfriend, he goes to North. And Ben’s the third wheel we let hang around.” She makes a face. “Adele and Trina are my best friends. Trina could be a model, but she’d rather be behind a camera than in front of it. She took that picture of you and Carter at the gallery.”
“She what?” My eyebrows shoot up.
“It’s not her,” Amanda says dismissively. “Someone got ahold of her camera, probably copied the memory card. Trina doesn’t have anything against Carter. Or me.”
“Okay . . .” Anyone remotely suspicious has my interest, if it means Pau might be innocent. “And Adele?”
“Adele’s . . . just Adele.” She looks like she wants to say something else, but then she gets quiet.
“What about Adele?” I press.
“Nothing. She’s had this silly crush on Carter forever. But she’s my best friend; she would never try to sabotage our relationship.”
“Hmm.” Both of Amanda’s supposed best friends sound a little shady. “And what about Ben? You said he’s one of Carter’s friends, but you don’t seem to like him very much.”
She sighs. “Ben just tries too hard. He probably wouldn’t be part of our group except for lacrosse, and he’s smart enough to know it.”
“Okay, so that could be something,” I suggest. “Maybe he’s jealous of Carter? Messing with his relationships would bring him down a notch. And Carter’s probably not playing lacrosse anytime soon.”
Amanda thinks for a minute, then shakes her head. “Ben Gallagher wouldn’t have the guts to do something like this. No way.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t take a lot of guts to send anonymous threats. People will say anything behind the safety of a screen.”
Amanda takes another sip of sparkling water. “If this is Ben, I am so going to kill him. But I really don’t think so.”
I perch on the edge of Amanda’s desk to get a better view of the screen. I can’t put it all together yet, but a neat little triangle is starting to form: Adele with the crush, Ben with the jealousy problem, and Trina with the camera. That gallery opening was in November. This means Trina, at least, has known about Carter and me for a very long time. Amanda and I should have put our heads together the second this all started; she’s too close to see the forest for the trees.
I turn toward her, trying to sort out what to say, and Amanda’s eyes light up. “Rosalie.”
“Yes?”
“Does your girlfriend know about Carter?”
My stomach clenches. My Adele-Ben-Trina triangle theory is appealing, but what if I’m the one too close to see the truth? I try to imagine Pau behind the wheel, going after Carter in some sort of violent rage.
“She knows,” I say slowly. “And she’s not Carter’s biggest fan, or the Fellowship’s. But she wouldn’t want you two to break up. Why would she mess with you?” My stomach is still in knots as I wait for her reaction.
“Right, I guess not.” Amanda hesitates, then types Paulina at the bottom of the list. “I don’t know, but I’m adding her anyway. We have to consider all the angles.”
“Agreed.”
We both stare at the list on the computer screen. Carter’s parents, Amanda’s parents. Six friends. Paulina. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something. Something obvious, something we should be able to see. But I can’t figure out what, and clearly, neither can Amanda. She closes her screen.
“Now what?” she asks.
“Now we hope your PI guy can deliver.” I glance at the clock on her wall. It’s after eight already. “I have to get home.”
Amanda walks me to the front door and hands me my coat.
“How are you getting there?”
“Bus.”
She frowns. “You walked from the stop? I’ll drive you.”
“That’s not—” a good idea, I start to say. Who knows who might be watching, and what they’d think about Amanda and me together.
“I’m just taking you to the bus stop, not to Culver Ridge. Relax.”
I relent and follow her into the garage. She drives a BMW. Of course she does. I pull my snow hat down low and sink into the passenger’s seat as we drive.
“I’ll email you,” she says finally, when we’re pulling up to the stop. “When I hear something from the PI.”
I don’t tell her I don’t have internet at home. That my phone is my lifeline.
“Right. I’ll watch my inbox.”
“Want to wait in the car until the bus comes?” she asks. “It’s pretty cold.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks.” But I don’t get out of the car right away. We sit in her BMW and stare at each other for a minute that stretches into two. I don’t feel much closer to solving this thing than I did yesterday, but I do feel better somehow. When this is all over, I’m going to move my life forward. We have a few possible leads. And Amanda’s not heartless. She’s just a girl whose entire future is on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. We’re the same.
I get out of her car, and before she drives away, she waves.
Knowing the Kellys have a PI on the case gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. But as I wait for the bus, my thoughts turn again to Paulina. More than anything else, my mind keeps going back to one thing—those pictures in the clearing. Pau couldn’t have taken them; she was in them. But she could have set it up so easily. The clearing was a perfect spot, untouchable. All this time, I’ve been thinking somebody followed us there. But what if my triangle is really a square, and Pau showed Trina exactly where to go.