Kelsey remained on the bed, her shoes off. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“I can’t do this alone.” Spencer pulled her car keys out of her pocket. “It’ll take a half hour, tops.”
But Kelsey shook her head. “I’m fine without the pills, Spence.”
Groaning, Spencer stomped over to Kelsey and pulled her to her feet. “You won’t be saying that a few hours from now. Put on your flip-flops. Let’s go.”
Finally, Kelsey relented. They drove through the dark streets into a derelict neighborhood, passing boarded-up windows and graffiti-marred walls. Kids sat on stoops, glaring at everything. A fight broke out on the corner, and Kelsey whimpered. Spencer wondered if she’d been right—maybe this was a bad idea.
But soon enough they were back in the car, pill bottle in hand, heading toward campus once more. Spencer handed Kelsey an Easy A, and they both washed them down with warm Diet Sprite. As they rolled into a safer neighborhood, Kelsey let out a long sigh. “We’re never doing that again.”
“Agreed,” Spencer said.
They were pulling through the Penn gates when two bright lights hit the rear-view mirror. Sirens blared. Kelsey and Spencer turned around to see the campus police bearing down on them. “Shit,” Spencer hissed, tossing the bottle of pills out the window.
The police car pulled over and signaled for Spencer to do the same. Kelsey looked at Spencer, her eyes bulging wide. “What the hell are we going to do?”
Spencer stared into Kelsey’s frantic face. Suddenly, a calm feeling washed over her. Everything she’d been through with Ali, all those A notes and near-death experiences she’d had to endure, made this moment seem manageable in comparison. “Listen,” she said forcefully to Kelsey. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What if they followed us from the deal? What if it was a sting? What if they find the pills?”
“We—” A cop tapped on the window. She rolled it down and gazed innocently into his stern face.
The cop glared hard at the girls. “Can you two get out of the car?”
Kelsey and Spencer looked at each other. Neither said anything. The cop sighed loudly. “Get. Out. Of. The. Car.”
“Kelsey’s right. Let’s take a break, guys,” Amelia said. Spencer looked up, snapping instantly out of the memory. All of the orchestra girls rose from the couches.
Panicked, she stepped backward and slipped into the hall closet, which held winter coats, an old dog gate, and three different vacuum cleaners for various types of dust and pet hair. She waited until everyone filed into the kitchen, praying no one would open the door and find her here. Through a slit in the door, she could see the guests’ bags and coats piled on the wooden bench across the hall. Amid the Burberry trenches, J. Crew puffer coats, and Kate Spade satchels, was a shimmery gold tote that matched hers.
We’re twinsies! Kelsey had said a few days ago when she’d seen the bag.
Maybe there was a way to see if Kelsey knew more. Spencer waited until the break was over, then darted to the front door and grabbed her own Dior bag. Then she scurried to the pile of coats, set down her Dior bag in place of Kelsey’s, and lifted Kelsey’s bag into her arms. It smelled different from hers, like a fruity candle. It would only take her minutes to go through it. Kelsey wouldn’t even know it was gone.
She took the stairs two at a time, slammed her bedroom door shut, and upended Kelsey’s purse on the bed. There was the same snakeskin leather wallet Kelsey had used at Penn last summer and a pair of Tweezerman tweezers—she never went anywhere without them. Out tumbled an extra set of violin strings, a flyer for a band called The Chambermaids with a phone number for someone named Rob scrawled across the top, a tube of lip gloss, and a bunch of different-colored pens.
Spencer sat back. There was nothing incriminating in here. Maybe she was being paranoid.
Then she noticed Kelsey’s iPhone tucked into the front pocket. She yanked it out, scrolling through the sent-texts folder for notes from A. There weren’t any, but that didn’t mean anything—Kelsey could own a second phone, like Mona had. On the main screen was a folder titled “Photos.” Spencer tapped it, and several subfolders appeared. There were shots from prom, a graduation, and Kelsey with a bunch of smiling girls from St. Agnes, none of whom Spencer recognized from orchestra practice. But then she noticed a folder that made her blood run cold.
Jamaica, Spring Break.