Chapter 8

“One more time,” said Madame Puant, her face a mask of confusion. She’d had the same expression for about forty-five minutes as the girls tried to relay their story to her. Madame had immediately dispatched Bert, the maintenance man, to check out the problem. Ten minutes later, he came back confirming the danger. The shower was now roped off, and an electrician had been called.

“I don’t know how that wire got exposed,” Bert kept saying. “It came through a crack in the grouting, but I don’t know how a wire could just come out like that.”

But the girls knew. Someone was trying to kill Emma. At a small ballet school, people had their favorite shower stalls and stuck to them religiously. That one was Emma’s. Someone had arranged the wire there and had timed it just perfectly.

The thought made Sophie’s blood boil.

“Madame,” Sophie said, “Someone is trying to kill my sister.”

Madame shook her head. “You have a fine imagination, Sophie, but who would want to kill Emma?”

Kayley sighed. “Whoever left the notes.”

Madame said, “And the notes were left on your computer, yes?”

Emma nodded.

“Did you see the time stamp? Keep the documents?”

“No,” Emma mumbled.

Madeleine, Ophelia, Kayley, and Sophie flipped their heads around to her.

“What?” Sophie said. “Why didn’t you keep those notes?”

“Well, I thought they were from you, Sophie,” Emma said. “And I wanted to think that, in the end, you’d never hurt me. I didn’t want you to get in trouble. So I deleted them.”

Sophie ran her hand through her hair and then said the words that had been bothering her for days. “How could you think I would write something like that?”

Emma’s face got red. Madeleine rubbed Sophie’s shoulder and spoke up. “I think we might have convinced her, Sophie, to be honest. In your room, you said Emma was dead to you. And then there were these notes that threatened death, and you were gone … and you are the only one who has Emma’s key and her password. We’re so, so sorry. You were just so angry …”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that,” Sophie said.

“No, it’s unforgiveable,” Emma said. “Somewhere deep down, I knew you didn’t. But I didn’t listen to that voice.”

Sophie smiled. “Water under the bridge.”

“Ahem,” Madame Puant said. “I hate to interrupt this episode of Sisters United, but we aren’t getting anywhere. I’m afraid that without any physical evidence, well … I have nothing to go on. A wire in a shower stall—a communal stall at that—does not a murder threat make. And without the notes … you girls understand my predicament.”

She stood up, managing to look imposing even though she couldn’t be more than five foot two. “That said, my students’ safety is my number one concern. Emma, my inclination is to send you home.”

“Madame, no, please. I’m not ready to go home yet!” Emma said.

Sophie knew that her sister was afraid of missing out on any upcoming performances. At the school, missing any time set you back months, sometimes years. Sophie also suspected that Emma didn’t want to leave Trey.

Madame stared hard at Emma and sighed. “The last thing this school needs is another scandal. Even a hint of one could do damage. But I’m simply not sure the wire was prepared for you. This school is very old.

“You may stay for now, Emma. However, if you so much as stub your toe, I’m sending for your parents. I’ll see that Bert makes his rounds more often and add more hall monitors. I’ll also talk to all the teachers and see if we can’t ferret out who the culprit is. Threats—however serious—are cause for expulsion. In the meantime, Emma, make sure you are with someone at all times. All times—that means even going to the bathroom. Sophie, you have permission to sleep in Emma’s room until we get to the bottom of things.”

Sophie saw a small smile pass over Madame’s lips, as if Madame too was glad she and Emma had made up.

“Now, if that will be all, I have an academy to run and a shower to fix.”

Halfway to Emma’s room, Sophie stopped short. Kayley ran right into her. “Dude!” Kayley said as she climbed off Sophie’s heel.

“Sorry,” Sophie said absently. “I just remembered something important. Right after everyone got mad at me, someone pushed a note under my door.”

“Was it a note threatening to kill you too?” Emma asked.

Sophie shook her head. “No. It just said, ‘I believe you.’ But it was cut out of magazines.”

“Do you think that’s the same person who left the notes for Emma?” Ophelia asked.

“Think about it, Ophelia. Everyone thought I’d planted those notes. Even Emma. Because it all fit. Almost too well, like someone was trying to frame me. So who would believe me, then? The person who actually did leave the notes for Emma.”

Madeleine’s face scrunched up. “But why would they bother with all that if they were busy framing you? I don’t know, Sophie. That doesn’t add up.”

“It just seems right, though,” Sophie said. “Maybe the person framing me … felt bad?”

Kayley said, “What kind of a person would go through the trouble of getting Emma’s key, finding out her password, sending her notes at times when you didn’t have an alibi … and then leave you a nice note saying ‘sorry, dude’?”

“That is a lot of stuff going on,” Emma said. “While we’re at it, how did someone get into my room and onto my computer?”

“Well, let’s find out,” Ophelia replied.

They walked to Emma’s room, and Ophelia put her hand out to keep everyone back. “Emma, you’re sure you lock the door every day?”

Emma nodded.

Ophelia took a bobby pin out of her hair. “OK, then I’m going to try to pick the lock. I saw someone do this once on True Crime, so I YouTubed it to find out how. I’ve only had it work once …”

She put the bobby pin in the old, iron lock and twisted it around. Her tongue stuck out as she concentrated. Sophie doubted that Ophelia’s measly bobby pin was any match for the iron lock.

But then she heard a click, and Ophelia’s eyes widened. “I think I got it.” She turned the handle and the door swung open.

“Holy crap,” said Kayley. “Are you sure the other time this worked you didn’t try it on Emma’s door too?”

“Nope,” Ophelia said happily. “This is gonna come in handy … ,” she added under her breath.

“Oh great,” Kayley said. “Now we have Ophelia the cat burglar. Time to change the locks.”

Emma walked in the door, her face pale again. “So basically, anyone could have gotten in here.”

“Well, any delinquent like Ophelia,” Sophie said.

Ophelia shot her a dirty look, and Sophie grinned. It felt good to be a part of the group again.

Emma shook her head. “Well, that’s freaky. I mean the delinquent part, not Ophelia.” She went on: “But that still doesn’t answer the question of who got into my computer. My password is pretty good.”

“I don’t think EmmaheartsTrey is a good password.” Kayley looked for a laugh from everyone and flinched when she got to Sophie. “Sorry, Soph.”

Sophie chuckled. “Seriously. I’m over all that.”

“Well, what is your password, Emma? You’ll need to change it again, probably, anyway.”

“My password was capital N, lowercase u-m-b-e, capital R, underscore 674834125, exclamation point, asterisk.”

“Whoa,” said Kayley. “Does that number mean anything to you?” Madeleine asked, daunted by the password.

“No, it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve had this password since I came to the academy. Remember when that hacker got into some of the students’ tuition accounts a couple years back? Well, no one got into mine. I’m super paranoid about that sort of thing.”

Kayley picked up a jewelry box off the dresser. As she opened it up, a haunting melody played and a ballet dancer spun around. “So we’re looking for a hacking genius lock-picking delinquent with murderous tendencies?”

“Who likes Trey,” Emma added. “And who’s been here more than once.” She pointed to a letter on the hardwood floor they all seemed to have missed. It had gone halfway under the dresser.

Emma picked it up and unfolded it. In the same magazine letters that Sophie had received, someone had written,

STAY AWAY FROM TREY OR YOU’LL DIE