Julie slammed her car door shut and ran up Ashley’s driveway. The front door was wide open. As she dashed through it, Julie heard a scream.
Adrenaline pumping through her body, she followed the sound upstairs, down the hall, and into a bedroom. Ashley’s room had the exact same bedspread that Julie’s had, but in the queen version—Julie didn’t even stop to think of how Ashley had figured that out. She stepped farther into the room and saw steam billowing from the open bathroom door, where the shower was running full blast. She burst into the bathroom and took in the scene. There was a bottle of Aveda rosemary-mint shampoo—the same brand Julie used—lying on the tile. A toothbrush and a cup lay on the floor, too, as well as what looked to be a broken ceramic cow figurine. Had someone knocked them there? The shower curtain had been torn from the rod, but the shower water was still flowing at full blast. Then, Julie looked into the tub. And that was when she saw it.
Ashley.
Julie was pretty sure she screamed. Despite being in the tub, Ashley wore a fuzzy pink bathrobe, and she was soaked. Her wet hair dripped halfway down the drain. Her fingers were pruney. Her eyes were closed. There were scratches on her arms, and a bruise forming on her temple.
Julie’s mind went into warp speed. She squatted down next to her and pressed her fingers against Ashley’s throat, searching for a pulse . . . but there was nothing. She held a hand in front of Ashley’s mouth and nose. No breath—not even the faintest rustle.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Julie said, looking around. Had Ashley slipped? But the more she took in the scene, the more it seemed there had been a struggle—there were fingernail marks in the wallpaper, magazines were strewn all over the floor, and, of course, there was the fact that Ashley was lying in the tub instead of on the bathmat.
Had Parker done this?
Don’t think like that, she told herself, but all Julie could think of was Parker’s determined face the other day. Just say the word, she’d said. Only, Julie hadn’t said the word . . . had she? Her thoughts felt muddled suddenly. All she could think of was that crazy dream she’d had, the one where she’d cried out for Parker’s help. She’d been holding her phone when she woke up—had she called Parker while sleeping? Then she thought of Ashley’s Instagram again. What if Parker had seen it and just . . . snapped? What if Parker had done this for her—killed for her?
And then, with a flash, Julie was back in film studies that day in class. Parker had smiled at the group and said, Or Ashley Ferguson. I’d like to see her slip and crack her head open while she’s in the shower washing her copycat hair.
No. It couldn’t be.
Julie snapped back into the present. If Parker had done this, then her fingerprints were probably all over the room—and now so were Julie’s. She couldn’t call the police, because she could never do that to Parker. She knew what she needed to do, and she felt a surge of strength from deep within her that was going to let her do it.
Julie took a few steadying breaths, then got up on her knees and scooted forward. She folded Ashley’s heavy arms across her chest and straightened out her legs. Then she looked around the room for the tools she’d need. Julie was going to get rid of all the evidence—every drop, every fingerprint. Even the body.
That was what you did for best friends.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAC PULLED into the school parking lot and grabbed her phone. She’d been thinking about a certain song the whole drive here—a remix of Rossini and Rihanna, her favorite composer and her favorite guilty pleasure music—and she wanted to watch the YouTube clip again. But when she finally found the email that contained the link, she realized why she might have been thinking about that particular song: Blake had sent it a few weeks before, when they were sort of seeing each other. Thought you’d like this, he’d written, punctuating the email with an XO.
“Stop!” she said to herself aloud, slamming her hands onto the steering wheel for good measure. She had made up her mind that she wouldn’t give Blake another chance, and she had to stick to that. Why was it so freaking hard?