fter brunch, I called the phone number on the tag. The line was disconnected. As far as blackmail material went, that didn’t give us a lot to go on, but I’d spent a good chunk of my life obsessed with watching professional poker, and Lily had spent the entirety of her childhood in a world ruled by etiquette and unspoken rules.

We both knew how to bluff.

It took several hours before the two of us were able to “go for a walk and catch some fresh air”—also known as visiting our hostage. Sadie-Grace was already there when we arrived. She was holding a blender.

“Campbell says no more kale.”

Personally, I thought that Campbell wasn’t in much of a position to be issuing orders, but I had a feeling that Sadie-Grace was the kind of person who got ordered around a lot.

“Let’s see what else Campbell has to say,” I suggested.

I opened the door to the pool house and dragged a chair opposite Campbell’s.

Turning the chair around backward, I sat down, my legs spread to either side.

“I have some things that belong to you.” I held the tag up first. There was a brief flicker of something on her face, gone too fast for me to tell what it was. “You have to admit,” I said, taking my time with the words, “it’s a weird thing to be keeping inside a vitamin bottle.”

“You broke into my locker at the club?” Campbell meditated on that for a moment, then smirked. “However will I deal with the life-altering information you’ve surely acquired?”

When it came to sarcasm, Campbell’s delivery was several paces beyond Lily’s.

“I mean, you know what kind of tampons I use…” Campbell simpered. “For shame.”

There were many ways to bluff and many kinds of tells. Based on this performance, I was guessing that Campbell’s go-to maneuver was deflection.

“I called the number on the tag,” I said.

There. The flicker was back, for longer this time. I had no idea what this tag meant to Campbell, but I’d gotten confirmation that it meant something, and I was betting that she didn’t know the number was out of service.

Taking advantage of the moment, I removed the envelope from my pocket. I’d already seen what was inside, but let her think I was opening it for the first time. “Not a letter,” I observed, emptying the contents of the envelope into my hand. “Not even paper.” I brandished the object. “A key.”

Campbell tossed her hair back over one shoulder. “Did Dame Dance-A-Lot over there tell you that I am totally and utterly over kale? Forget my juice cleanse.” Campbell brandished her teeth. “If you don’t want me to starve in here, you’ll bring me a burger.”

“You don’t like hamburgers,” Lily burst out.

“And,” Campbell shot back, “I don’t like you. But I will like outing you as the downright indecent little flesh kitten you are. Really, Lily, in your position, I’d be less concerned with what our circle will think than what the elder generations will say. Your mother. Your grandmother. How will they ever hold their heads up in public again?”

“We were friends once.” Lily stared at Campbell. “Do you even remember that?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Campbell had mastered the art of sounding sympathetic. “I don’t have friends. I have people who’ve proven themselves useful and those who’ve outlived their usefulness.”

One guess which one you are, I could practically hear her saying.

I took my time standing up. Campbell wanted us to think she’d won this round, but I’d scored some points. We might not have had blackmail material yet, but this interaction had convinced me that Campbell did have a secret.

Maybe more than one.

When Lily extracted herself from the pool house, she retreated back inside the house. I followed her, and Sadie-Grace followed me. Lily didn’t say a word as she pushed through a thick plastic sheet over one of the doorways and began ascending a wooden staircase.

The second story wasn’t under construction. The decorating scheme was clearly Aunt Olivia’s doing—nearly identical to the one in the house where she’d grown up.

Lily paused in the doorway of a bedroom—hers, I assumed. After a long and painful moment, she walked over to the queen-sized bed and reached under the mattress to remove a tablet.

“I never used my computer for the posts,” she said softly. “It seemed safer to use something I could hide.”

I wondered what else Lily had used for Secrets. A camera? A tripod? A few packages of Egyptian cotton sheets?

“You have to disable the queue,” I told Lily. “Quit posting.”

Lily’s head was bowed. I couldn’t see her face, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Her hands were gripping the tablet so hard that they shook—or maybe she was holding on to it for dear life because she was shaking.

“Are you okay?” Sadie-Grace asked hesitantly.

“I’m fine.” Lily sounded hollow. She hit a few buttons on the tablet. “The blog is disabled. No more posts.” She paused, then drew in an uneven breath. “I should probably delete it, get rid of as much evidence as I can.”

You should, I thought. But can you?

I hadn’t really questioned what had possessed my cousin to start this project. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was anything other than a titillating little pastime, a chance she was taking because taking chances felt good. But right now? This didn’t look like someone who’d had to put a hobby on hold. She didn’t look like a girl who regretted doing something stupid.

She looked like she was grieving.

“Enough.” Lily snapped the cover to the tablet closed. “It’s done. It’s over.” She walked to the trash can and let the tablet fall from her hands. It landed with a clank. “Let’s get Campbell her freaking hamburger and go home.”