Here’s a secret: Jesse knew I lied about Anton’s alibi.
He was working security at that party where Rose died and I had my moment with Anton. He knew that Anton wasn’t with me all night.
The real story starts the same as the one I told Grayson and Erin. Anton’s hand on mine and his soft snores. Me drifting off to sleep with his head against my shoulder. But that’s not how it ends.
I woke up close to midnight, curled up on the sofa. Anton was gone. The summer house was silent and dark. I ran through the maze, the path lit by strings of fairy lights tangled in the hedges. When I found my way out, most people had disappeared inside the house. I didn’t join them though. There was too much on my mind.
I sat in a swing seat, the warmth of a patio heater already chasing off the scariness of waking alone. I hid in my imagined stories until I fell asleep. In the morning, everywhere was crawling with police cars and an ambulance. Someone had found Rose in the pool. She was dead.
“Charlotte, where the hell have you been?” Matthew called out, running to me. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night, and he smelled of sweat and stale alcohol. “You can’t wander off alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” I said. “I was with Anton, actually, but he—”
Matthew interrupted me with a laugh. “Anton? You spent the night with Anton? Yeah, right.”
“I did! We went to his summer house in the middle of the maze and fell asleep, and it was lovely.”
At that moment, a man in a cheap suit strolled over to join us. He had a notebook in his hand and smelled like coffee, so I figured he was one of the police officers.
“I couldn’t help but overhear,” he said, pen poised above the notepad. “Do you remember what time you and Mr. Frazer left the party together?”
“About ten o’clock, I think,” I said.
“And he was with you all night?”
I was torn. I could only account for Anton’s whereabouts for the hour we were awake. But I couldn’t backtrack with Matthew standing there. He’d have thought I was even more of a loser than he already did. I just nodded.
The rest of the morning was a confusing whirlwind. There were more questions, and my mom came to pick me up, yelling at Matthew for taking me to a party where a girl died. But no one questioned my story.
I went home and I waited for Anton to call, but he never did, and Matthew refused to pass on my messages. It was for my own good, he said. I couldn’t give up, so I went to the house. Anton was gone. Jesse was there though, collecting a box of stuff from the studio. I asked him where Anton had moved to. I told him we were friends, but he laughed at me.
“Oh, you’re the girl who told the police Anton spent the night with you.” He sneered. “Except I saw him leaving the maze before midnight. Busted.”
A surge of nausea washes the memory away. I lean out over the bridge wall, thinking that I’m going to throw up. But I don’t. There’s nothing left inside me. I’m empty, physically, emotionally, morally. The things I’ve done and the lies I’ve told make me ashamed to call myself Anton’s number one fan. I don’t deserve him.
I can’t stop shaking, and it’s not just the cold from being soaked to the skin in wet clothes. It’s fear and guilt on top of hypothermia. I’m feeling as terrible as it’s possible for a girl to feel when Rose’s avatar appears through my smart glasses. Turns out it is possible to feel more terrible after all.
“Change of plan,” Rose says. “Look who’s here.”
She clicks her fingers, and a video of Anton plays. Anton is tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth. He’s struggling, and the chair’s bouncing all over the place. Then it topples to the side. The gag loosens enough for him to start yelling.
“Help me,” he cries. “A million pounds if you help me.”
His eyes widen at something off-screen. He wiggles around, attempting to shuffle away, but he’s too slow.
“The ghost’s not—” The video cuts off.
I stagger off the curb and accidentally step into the road. A bus horn blares out, startling me into leaping aside.
“Do you want him back?” Rose purrs. “The winner of my game gets Anton to do whatever they please with. Take his million pounds, throw him in the Thames, marry him for all I care. It doesn’t matter to me as long as the truth comes out. Find my killer and I’ll let him go.”
“You’re a monster,” I whisper, my teeth chattering.
So many of my daydreams have started this way, with Anton being kidnapped and me—well, Lola—the only one who can save him. But Lola always knows what to do. Whereas I don’t know where to start.
“All you have to do is keep on playing, and Anton’s yours,” Rose continues. “And if no one wins him or one of you tries to call the police? Well, I guess I’ll take him with me.”
I clutch a hand over my mouth. She’s threatening his life. Anton’s life. The city flows around me, noisy and smelly and oblivious. I want to yell at everyone. Make them stop and listen. Anton is in danger. Why don’t you care?
“I’ve narrowed down the players to a select few,” she says. “Are you ready to play, Accomplices?”
The way she says that word—Accomplices—sounds like an accusation. There’s a new hatred in her voice that she was keeping masked before. This is no game. Games are playful and fun, not threatening and dangerous. Jesse is dead. Anton has been kidnapped. And I am totally, utterly, completely out of my depth.
“I’m sending you the coordinates for the next challenge,” Rose says. “Let’s say twenty minutes? Anyone who doesn’t turn up won’t get to play anymore, and you really don’t want to miss out on the fun we’re going to have. Take a bus if you want. But the old rules apply—go out of range for more than five minutes, and it’s over. Ticktock, ticktock. Don’t keep Anton waiting.”
She vanishes with a maniacal laugh.
My map activates, and I can see the location of Rose’s challenge. It’s not far from where the van dropped us off after the museum debacle. I can make it there in twenty minutes. I have something to focus on, something to take my mind off Jesse and his dead, staring eyes. I’ll have to face up to what happened in the water at some point, but right now, Anton needs me.
I flag down a taxi, giving the driver the address. It’s only after the taxi drops me off that I realize exactly where I am. I was here earlier, watching Erin meet up with Jesse. I follow the spot on the map to an abandoned building fronted with scaffolding and blue plastic netting that obscures most of the facade. The ground floor is boarded up, but there’s a gap through which I can make out the closed front door.
There’s a group of people outside. Grayson, Matthew, Beatrix, Erin Love and Erin's mother, Amber. I shuffle across the road, trying to keep my shivering at bay. Everyone falls silent and stares at me, except for Amber, who is engrossed in her phone. I can smell her perfume from yards away.
Matthew has a look of injured confusion on his face. “Was it true?” he asks in this small voice unlike his usual bullish shout. “You’re the one who posted those mean comments about Rose?”
“It was a joke,” I say very quietly.
Erin laughs. “It is kind of funny.”
Everyone gapes at her, and she holds up her hands, backing away.
“I can’t believe that I defended you every time people said you were a loser,” Matthew says.
“Who said I was a loser?”
He shakes his head at me. “Unbelievable. You only care about yourself, don’t you?”
I shrink under the intensity of his disgust. I never thought I’d care if Matthew hated me. Turns out, I do. And he only knows half of what I’ve done.
A bright flash briefly wipes clean the rest of the world. When I blink away the light, I realize it’s Emma and her camera.
“Stop taking my picture!” I hurriedly wipe at my eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Beatrix says. The look she gives Emma is pure hatred. Emma did nearly destroy Matthew and Beatrix’s relationship, I suppose. Seems unfair to blame the messenger though.
“Refusing to slink off with my tail between my legs,” Emma says resolutely. She sounds more in control than she looks. The bump on her head is horribly bruised and half her hair is free of its ponytail. “Someone needs to get to the bottom of all the lies.”
“And a teenage reporter for St. Bernadette’s School Press is clearly the right person for the job,” Matthew says. “Go home, Emma. You’re out of the competition and in over your head. Again.”
“This isn’t one of Anton’s parties. You don’t get to throw me out this time, and I don’t see any of your fancy lawyers around to scare my parents. Besides, Rose texted me an invitation, so…I’m staying.”
“Ghosts don’t send text messages,” Erin says, quietly enough that not everyone hears.
“What now?” Matthew makes an exasperated face.
“I said, ‘Ghosts don’t send text messages.’ Whoever summoned us here, it’s not Rose.”
Matthew shakes his head. “I never believed it was.”
“No, it has to be her,” Grayson says.
“Who are you really, Gray26?” Matthew snaps. “Why are you even here?”
Grayson clamps his mouth shut and doesn’t say anything else. Matthew has a point. Rose—or whoever it is hiding behind her computer-manipulated face—invited us here for a reason. We all knew Rose. We were all at that same party where she died. Except for Grayson. So who is he?
A distant bell chimes on the hour. “Are we going in or what?” Amber barks, looking up from her phone.
The others traipse up the steps toward the hotel entrance. Matthew tries the handle, and the door swings open. I wait down on the sidewalk though. This whole situation is so, so wrong.
Erin pauses on the threshold, and I think she’s going to say something mean. But for once, her voice is missing its usual sharpness. “We’re in this together, Charlotte. We can’t back out now,” she says, then ruins what was almost a nice thing by continuing to speak. “Basically, we’re all fucked.”
I take a deep, wobbly breath; then I follow her through the door. It doesn’t matter why the others are here or what they think of me. Anton is the only one who matters. He’s literally all I have left.