The girls looked at one another and smiled. “All right, then,” Ava said, stepping out into the crowd, toward Nolan. “Let’s do this.”
Like any good party, the bash at the Hotchkiss house lingered into the wee hours of the morning. Leave it to Nolan to have an in with the cops, because no one raided the place for booze or even told them to cut the noise. Shortly after midnight, some party pics were posted online: two girls kissing in the powder room; the school’s biggest prude doing a body shot off the star running back’s chest; one of the stoners grinning sloppily, holding several cupcakes aloft; and the party’s host passed out on a Lovesac beanbag upstairs with something Sharpied on his face. Partying hard was Nolan’s specialty, after all.
Revelers passed out on the outdoor couch, on the hammock that hung between two big birch trees at the back of the property, and in zigzag shapes on the floor. For several hours, the house was still, the cupcake icing slowly hardening, a tipped-over bottle of wine pooling in the sink, a raccoon digging through some of the trash bags that had been left out in the backyard. Not everyone awoke when the boy screamed. Not even when that same someone—a junior named Miro—ran down the stairs and screamed what had happened to the 911 dispatcher did all the kids stir.
It was only when the ambulances screeched into the driveway, sirens blaring, lights flashing, walkie-talkies crackling, that all eyes opened. The first thing everyone saw were EMT workers in their reflective jackets busting inside. Miro pointed them to the upper floor. There were boots on the stairs, and then . . . those same EMT people carrying someone back down. Someone who had Sharpie marker on his face. Someone who was limp and gray.
The EMT worker spoke into his radio. “We have an eighteen-year-old male DOA.”
Was that Nolan? everyone would whisper in horror as they staggered out of the house, horrifically hungover. And . . . DOA? Dead on arrival?
By Saturday afternoon, the news was everywhere. The Hotchkiss parents returned from their business meeting in Los Angeles that evening to do damage control, but it was too late—the whole town knew that Nolan Hotchkiss had dropped dead at his party, probably from too much fun. Darker rumors posited that perhaps he’d meant to do it. Beacon was notoriously hard on its offspring, after all, and maybe even golden boy Nolan Hotchkiss had felt the heat.
When Julie woke up Saturday morning and heard the news, her throat closed. Ava picked up the phone three times before talking herself down. Mac stared into space for a long, long time, then burst into hot, quiet tears. And Caitlin, who’d wanted Nolan dead for so long, couldn’t help but feel sorry for his family, even though he had destroyed hers. And Parker? She went to the dock and stared at the water, her face hidden under her hoodie. Her head pounded with an oncoming migraine.
They called one another and spoke in heated whispers. They felt terrible, but they were smart girls. Logical girls. Nolan Hotchkiss was gone; the dictator of Beacon Heights High was no more. That meant no more tears. No more bullying. No more living in fear that he’d expose everyone’s awful secrets—somehow, he’d known so many. And anyway, not a single person had seen them go upstairs with Nolan that night—they’d made sure of it. No one would ever connect them to him.
The problem, though, was that someone had seen. Someone knew what they’d done that night, and so much more.
And someone was going to make them pay.
FIVE DAYS LATER
CHAPTER ONE
ON A SUNNY THURSDAY MORNING, Parker Duvall fought her way through the crowded halls of Beacon Heights High, a school that handed out MacBooks like they were, well, apples, and boasted the highest average SAT scores in all of Washington State. Overhead, a maroon-and-white banner read CONGRATULATIONS, BEACON HIGH! VOTED BEST HIGH SCHOOL IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FOR THE FIFTH YEAR IN A ROW BY U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT! GO SWORDFISH!