She shut her eyes, feeling worn down. There was no way out of this. Mike knew he was right, and the look on her face surely confirmed it. The only thing to do to keep him from knowing more was to break up with him. Not only did Hanna hate the thought of that, it probably wouldn’t keep Mike safe, anyway. He already knew too much.
She took a deep, wobbly breath, and suddenly, the whole story spilled out. She told Mike how the new A notes had started coming, how they’d become more and more sinister, and how, on the cruise, the notes had focused on how Hanna had fled the scene of a car crash, leaving Madison Zeigler, Naomi’s cousin, for dead. “For a little while, I was afraid that Naomi was A,” she said. “That’s why I was looking through her computer. I thought I might find something to prove it. But Naomi told me that the crash wasn’t even my fault, in the end—someone ran me off the road. I remember someone doing it, but I didn’t see their face. That’s who she and Madison were trying to catch.”
Mike winced. “You were in a car crash last summer and you didn’t tell me?”
Hanna shrugged. “I couldn’t risk telling anyone. I’m sorry.”
She kept going with the story. When she got to the part where they’d concluded that A was Ali, Mike looked confused. “Are you sure? I thought she didn’t survive that fire.”
“Emily left the door open for her. She got out.” Then she lowered her eyes and explained the Tabitha part of it, too—how they’d feared Ali had followed them to Jamaica and was going to hurt them. “Tabitha followed us to the roof of the resort,” she told Mike. “And then she went after Aria. After that, everything happened so fast—Aria shot forward, there was a scuffle, and suddenly Tabitha was tumbling over the railing. She was alive after the fall, though—we’re sure of it. But when we ran down there, she was gone. We didn’t kill her, but someone is making sure it looks like we did.”
“Jesus,” Mike whispered, his eyes wide. “I was on that trip with you. I saw that girl. How could you have kept this from me?”
“I’m sorry,” Hanna said quietly. “I was just so scared. I wanted to pretend it had never happened at all. But when we started getting new notes . . .” She trailed off and covered her face with her hands.
Mike sat on the stone wall that surrounded Hanna’s house and stared into the distance. After a while, he said, “Let me get this straight. It was Ali—or her helper—who murdered that Gayle woman, too?”
Hanna nodded, thinking of Gayle Riggs, the wealthy woman who had wanted Emily’s baby. A had killed her.
“And it was A who set off that bomb in the boiler room of the ship?” Mike’s voice squeaked. Hanna nodded again, and Mike made a gurgling sound at the back of his throat. “And it was A who really killed Tabitha?”
“We’re almost positive, yes.”
“So, basically, Ali has tried to kill you and my sister, like, six times by now, and she’s framing you for shit that she did. We need to find this bitch. Now.”
Hanna glanced worriedly around the yard. “Spencer and Emily seem to think it’s a bad idea. The last time we looked for Ali, Noel ended up in the hospital.”
Mike kicked at loose gravel in the flower bed. “So we’re just supposed to sit around?”
Hanna peeked through the trees, hating how secluded her mother’s property was. Anybody could spy on them at close range, and they’d never know. “I’m just afraid that if we get any closer to where they are or who her helper is, someone else is going to get hurt. Maybe you. Maybe me.”
Mike’s icy blue eyes narrowed. “I promise you, Hanna, that she will never, ever get you. She’ll have to get through me first. I’ll stand guard outside your bedroom if I have to. Stay by your side at every class. I’ll even come into your dressing room at Otter if you want.”
Hanna gave him a playful shove. “You’d love coming into my dressing room at Otter.”
“Of course I would.” Mike leaned in and gave Hanna a gentle kiss on the nose.
Hanna tilted her head up and kissed his lips. Something broke inside her. Salty tears flooded down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you figured it out,” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m glad, too,” Mike said.
They kissed again, long and deep. Mike moved his hands up and down her back. She took small steps toward the side door, and in seconds, they were inside and lying on her mom’s couch in the den, making out furiously. The only thing Hanna wanted to think about was the feel of Mike’s lips on hers, the warmth of his hands, the weight of his body. She clung to him like he was a life raft, then found herself pulling her shirt over her head.