“So … did she die in the accident?” Hanna held her breath.
Naomi shook her head. “No. But she was messed up pretty bad—a lot of broken bones, and she was in a coma for a few days. She had to learn how to walk again. It was hard on all of us.” Her voice broke.
Hanna let out a huge mental sigh—Madison wasn’t dead. But hearing what had happened hit her unexpectedly hard, bringing tears to her eyes. Now she had a new image in her mind, one of Madison hanging on to one of those physical-therapy walker things, struggling to take a step.
Naomi set her empty cocktail glass on the table, sniffing once more. “In a weird way, though, that crash was the best thing for my cousin. It got her straight. She was a major alcoholic before that—drinking instead of going to class, drinking as soon as she woke up in the morning, drinking and getting behind the wheel and nearly killing herself. I mean, yeah, it sucked that she totaled the car and had to go through so much pain, but she hasn’t had a drink since. She seems much happier now.”
“That’s … good,” Hanna said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Yeah.” Naomi raised her eyes to Hanna and smiled so sincerely it melted Hanna’s heart. “It is.”
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the pounding bass inside the club. All of a sudden, Hanna wanted to reach across and give Naomi a big hug. Everything she’d worried about, everything she’d feared, suddenly went up in smoke. Their suspicions about Naomi were unfounded. Naomi wasn’t pissed Madison had gotten in a car accident—she was relieved because it had turned her life around. Whoever A was, it was someone who’d found out about Madison another way.
It was amazingly freeing. Now she could be friends with Naomi without worrying. She could trust everything Naomi said to be the truth.
Hanna stood up and offered Naomi her hand. “Are you ready to go back in and Not it some more?”
Naomi looked up at her and grinned. “Definitely.”
They strutted back into the club like they owned the place. They’d been wrong about A before, Hanna thought as she squeezed Naomi’s hand. They were wrong again this time, too. A probably wanted her to suspect Naomi—and, in turn, lose a potential friend. Hanna wasn’t going to let that happen, though. Not this time.
“Shhh!” Naomi scolded as they bumped clumsily down the hallway of the ship toward their room. It was a few hours later, and they’d gotten back onboard just before curfew, acting sober enough for a few minutes to fool the guards. “You almost took out that fire extinguisher!”
“It was in my way,” Hanna declared petulantly, then burst into giggles.
She hung on to Naomi’s back as Naomi inserted the key card into their door. The door opened, and the two girls tumbled inside. Hanna grabbed the door to the bathroom for balance. “It smells so good in here!” she cried, inhaling the fresh scents of baby powder and Kate Spade Twirl perfume.
“Mind if I take the bathroom first?” Naomi asked, her hand on the doorknob.
“Go for it,” Hanna said, flopping down on the bed.
Naomi shut the door, and water started to run. Hanna rubbed her feet on the soft, silky sheets, feeling satisfyingly exhausted.
Ping.
She opened her eyes. Her phone, which was sitting on the nightstand, wasn’t blinking. Her gaze fell on the open laptop on Naomi’s bed. A message in the corner of the screen said New e-mail from Madison Strickland.
She looked away. Who cared if Naomi had received an e-mail from Madison? Cousins contacted one another all the time.
But one little peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?
Hanna cocked her ear toward the bathroom. The shower was still running. Slowly, she eased her legs off the bed and tiptoed over to the laptop. The bedsprings squeaked as she sat on Naomi’s mattress. On the right-hand side of the desktop were two folders labeled School Papers and Princeton Application. Hanna scanned them, then exited. Next she waved the mouse over a Gmail icon. Taking a deep breath, she double-clicked on it. The program opened and launched right into her inbox. The new e-mail from Madison appeared. It was part of a thread titled That night. Hanna drew in a breath. The first e-mail in the thread was from early July of last summer.