awyer, I could hug you.” Standing on Lillian’s back porch, where I’d pulled my cousin to talk the moment she and Sadie-Grace had arrived after school, Lily seemed on the verge of losing her characteristic composure.

“Let’s not get carried away here,” I replied. “We don’t know that the key from Campbell’s locker fits her father’s safe. Ooof.” I had to fight to keep my balance. Unlike Lily, Sadie-Grace didn’t threaten hugs. She hugged with a vengeance.

“You have no idea what school’s been like,” Sadie-Grace whispered fiercely. “Campbell makes me wear plaid.”

“She makes me wear ponytails,” Lily added gravely.

“I feel for you both,” I replied dryly. Right now, I really didn’t think that Campbell playing fashion dictator was anyone’s biggest problem. The fact that she could still out Lily as the person behind the now-defunct Secrets on My Skin and leak the footage of the kidnapping?

That was a much bigger issue—for all three of us.

“With a little luck,” I commented, “Campbell will be off all of our backs soon.”

“Will I?” a voice asked behind me. Campbell loved to make an entrance, and for someone who preferred heels—the taller, the better—­she walked with surprisingly light steps as she sauntered out the back door.

In all likelihood, Aunt Olivia had let her in and sent her back.

I turned to face the enemy head-on and found, to my surprise, that Campbell wasn’t wearing heels. She was wearing tennis shoes, patterned leggings, and a long-sleeved, slightly oversized T-shirt. In her hands, she held a large cardboard box.

“Help yourselves, ladies.” Campbell dropped the box on the porch. Sadie-Grace peered inside. Based on the expression on her face, I deduced that she was likely expecting a box of snakes.

“Shirts,” Sadie-Grace said, frowning and perplexed. “Like yours.”

“Presents,” Campbell declared. “For my favorite fellow Debs.” Campbell gave a little spin so we could take in the 360 view. Her name was written on the back of the shirt in block letters, with the number 07 underneath. On the front, written in script, were the words Symphony Ball.

“There are ball caps beneath the shirts,” Campbell continued blithely. “I hope y’all don’t mind that I took lucky number seven.”

She was acting like we were actually friends, like she hadn’t spent the past month blackmailing the whole lot of us.

“You made us shirts,” I said slowly. In the grand scheme of Campbell’s modus operandi, making us personalized clothing seemed remarkably undastardly.

“It is possible,” Campbell allowed, “that I am a wee bit competitive. I like to win, and I like to be color-coordinated when I do it. Try on the leggings. I swear, they’re like butter on your legs.”

There was waiting for the guillotine to fall, and then there was hearing the eek, eek, eek of the blade creaking downward. Campbell being nice was downright terrifying.

We tried the leggings on. They were made of the softest fabric I’d ever touched.

“I told you,” Campbell practically purred. “Heavenly.”

I felt like I’d fallen into the Twilight Zone. “Far be it from me to ask questions,” I said, “but what, exactly, are we meant to be winning?”

“Far be it from me to provide answers,” a male voice intoned, “but I know this one!”

We seriously needed to put a bell on the door—and Aunt Olivia seriously needed to stop letting people into Lillian’s house and sending them back.

“Boone,” I greeted.

“Skeptical one,” he returned, bowing his head slightly. He shot Lily a brief smile and then tripped over his own two feet when he attempted to do the same with Sadie-Grace.

It had not been difficult, over the past few weeks, to ascertain that Boone had a crush. Sadie-Grace was the only one he didn’t try to flirt with, and she was the only one who didn’t realize how head over heels for her he was.

“Tonight is the Symphony Ball scavenger hunt.” Boone tried to recover his cool, a task which would have been monumentally easier if he’d ever had it. “Teams of five, must be coed.” He gestured to the four of us. “Co.” Then to himself. “Ed.”

Campbell reached down into the box and pulled out a T-shirt with her cousin’s name on it. “I decided you didn’t need leggings,” she told him.

“Always the bridesmaid,” Boone sighed. “Never the bride.”

“All of this is for a scavenger hunt?” I said, waiting for the catch.

Campbell met my gaze and batted her eyelashes. “What else would it be for?”