“So what do we do now?” I ask. “How do we find out if there’s anything to this? We can’t just accuse her.”
“I don’t know,” Lyla says.
Shit.
Neither of us has anything else to say, so we end the call.
“Nikki Morgan?” Ethan asks as I drop my phone in my bag.
I nod.
“Jesus.”
“I know.” I feel the beginning of a headache pulsing at my temples. Ethan calmly switches lanes.
Nikki.
“I just wish I could figure out why,” I say, nearly whining.
Ethan blows out a breath. “Well, what do we know about her? She picked you four for a reason, and she wants you dead, so you must have done something to piss her off. Something big.”
“But I didn’t even know her before this game.”
“Maybe you didn’t even realize you did anything wrong.”
I scrub a hand down my face. Lyla’s sister pops into my head, and the puzzle pieces click together.
“Wait. Lyla’s sister committed suicide, and Lyla says her sister and Nikki were friends.” Before the plagiarism fiasco, anyway.
“Bingo,” Ethan says. “Nikki wants revenge for Lyla’s sister’s death.”
“All right….But what does that have to do with all of us? We didn’t kill her. She committed suicide.”
Because she was bullied. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Ethan says.
“Lyla told me her sister was bullied. It got so bad she had to be homeschooled.”
“Farrah?” Ethan says.
“Or Hartley.”
“But if you want revenge for your friend, why try to off your friend’s sister?” Ethan asks.
I remember the story Lyla told me about pushing her sister’s buttons. “They got in a fight before she died. Maybe Nikki thinks that’s what sent her over the edge.”
“This has to be it,” Ethan says.
My heart beats fast.
“We need to talk to the other girls.”
I pull out my phone and send a message to Lyla, Farrah, and Hartley:
We need to talk. Meet me at Norma Jean’s on Chartres in half an hour. It’s a matter of life and death.
The place is one of those fifties-style burger joints with black-and-white-checked tile and a row of steel stools against a long counter.
I don’t see them at first, and I think no one showed up, but when we round a corner, there they are, wedged into one of the bench seats by the back window. Farrah and Lyla.
“Hey,” I say as we approach. “Thanks for coming.”
Farrah shoots a suspicious look at Ethan.
“This is Ethan,” I say. “A friend of mine. He knows everything.”
Ethan gives them a little wave that neither returns. He sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets. We settle around the table. Lyla slides a saltshaker between her hands. Farrah grips a tube of lip gloss as if she’s punishing it.
“Hartley?” I ask hopefully, even though I didn’t get a response from her.
“She didn’t come to school again today,” Farrah says. “And she’s still ignoring my texts.”
Wow—she’s taking their fight harder than I expected.
Hartley hasn’t turned out to be at all the person I thought she was. She may act as if she doesn’t give a shit about anything besides having fun, but in reality she cares the most. All the crass jokes, the bad attitude, the complete disregard for the law—it’s a ruse to keep people from seeing how vulnerable she really is.
Hartley and Farrah are more similar than I ever realized.
It’s crazy, but I actually feel sorry for Farrah. It must be terrible to feel so scared to show people who you are that you’d be willing to hurt the ones you love the most to hide your truth.
Farrah must see the pity on my face, because she juts her chin up. “So are you going to tell us what this is about or what?” she says. “I have to get back to school.”
I take a deep breath. “Lyla and I figured out who’s behind the game.”
“Who?” Farrah asks.
“Nikki. And I think I know why.”
“What? Nicole Morgan?” Farrah answers.
“She was friends with this girl who died. Who killed herself, actually.”
Lyla looks up sharply. I meet her eyes.
“Your sister,” I tell her.
Lyla leans across the table. “You—you think this has to do with my sister?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I think this whole game has all been some sort of twisted revenge for her death.”
“Revenge?” Farrah says. “But I didn’t even know Lyla’s sister.”
“She was bullied,” I say, letting the implication hang.
“So what?” She sees my knowing look. “Oh, so you think I bullied her?”
“Hartley too,” I say. “And don’t look so offended. I didn’t forget about you laughing at my mom.”
“And what’s your connection, huh?” Farrah demands. “Did you bully her too?”
“I—” But I stop. It’s a glaringly obvious missing piece, and I have no idea what it could be.
“Who’s your sister?” Farrah asks Lyla.
Lyla shifts uncomfortably. “Her name is—was Sam.”
“Sam Greene?” Farrah says. “See, I don’t even know a Sam Greene. There goes your theory.”
“She was my stepsister,” Lyla says. “Her last name was MacNamara.”
Sam MacNamara.