“I’m not stupid.” Mattie’s voice was cold.
“It means it’s going to get traced back to you. You. Maybe us, but definitely, definitely you. Are you ready for that, Mattie?”
Mattie was silent again.
“Hello?” Cade asked. “Listen, I want to help—”
The line went dead.
Mattie didn’t want to hear it. Cade understood. He didn’t want to believe what Cade was saying. That Mattie could be blamed.
So he’d hung up.
Cade smiled and tossed his phone onto his bed.
It had gone perfectly.
He had watered the seed of doubt that was already there. And now it was taking root, deep and thick and irremovable.
Cade was not going to end up like his sister. Not ever.
Ivy
Monday, June 22
She was supposed to be in class. But she wasn’t.
She was supposed to be surrounded by friends. But most days she spent alone, trying to think of new ways to occupy her time that didn’t involve her friends or her minions.
And Garrett wasn’t supposed to be at her house, sitting next to her on a couch in the loft, drinking the weird espresso that he always had, smelling the way he did, like spicy deodorant and just a hint of patchouli.
But he was.
He was finally, finally, with Ivy, and her heart was beating a Crazy Hummingbird-Wing Rhythm, and she had a tiny tic of her eyelid that wouldn’t go away.
But he was here.
Ivy wasn’t sure who was happier: her, or her mother, who fluttered around them, offering them homemade toffee-chocolate balls and even alcohol before Ivy had finally shooed her into the backyard.
Mrs. McWhellen clearly thought she was getting her daughter back. Her real daughter, not the sullen homebody who’d shown up this summer.
“I’m glad you suggested this,” Ivy said. Garrett raised an eyebrow. “Coming to the house,” she amended. “It’s much more . . . personal than a coffee shop.” She sipped on the latte she’d made with her mother’s Keurig. It wasn’t as good as Starbucks, but she didn’t care.
“Well, I wanted it to be personal,” Garrett said slowly. His left foot was tapping on the hardwood floor super fast—tap, tap, tap, tap. It was a nervous habit, and Ivy was dying to know what Garrett had to be nervous about.
“You did?” Ivy asked, her breath catching. “Why?”
He took another sip out of the tiny cup of espresso. “Because I think I owe you an apology.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t I?”
Ivy’s hands felt sweaty, like they had the first time she and Garrett kissed.
“Why don’t you try it, and I’ll tell you how much I deserved it after?” Ivy asked sweetly.
Garrett laughed. He set his espresso on the side table and rubbed his hands over his jeans. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I kind of ruined your life, didn’t I?”
Ivy tilted her head. She wanted to say yes, to agree, but she wasn’t sure. In some weird way she felt better now, like she wasn’t expending all her energy on nastiness and hate.
Instead, she was plotting all her energy on getting away with being part of a murder pact. Which was arguably worse and more stressful.
But nothing had made Ivy reevaluate her entire life like giving CPR to a dead man.
And stuffing his body in a trunk.
And proceeding to throw said body in a river.
“I’m . . . okay,” Ivy managed. “Really. I am.”
It was a lie. But it needed to be.
Garrett took her hands in his. “It’s not okay, though. What I did wasn’t okay. You were the first girl who really took the time to look past my exterior and really like the real me, you know?”
Ivy nodded.
“I didn’t do the same for you, Ivy girl. I thought you were gorgeous, and you are. I thought you were perfect, and you are. But I realized . . . I realized that I never once tried to look past your exterior like you did mine. You looked past Garrett the hipster dork, and you liked him. But all I could ever see of you was a pretty, popular girl who I could never identify with.”
His words left tiny lacerations on her heart. Ivy stared at Garrett. She stared at his messy hair and his unshaven chin and the lips that had belonged to her. She stared at his band T-shirt and his un-ironic Converse sneakers.
“What are you saying?” she said finally. “Garrett, what are you trying to get across here?”
He took a deep breath, and squeezed her hands a little harder. “I’m going to try. I want to try. I want you to give me a chance to give you a chance.”
Ivy leaped into his arms, hugging him. She hugged him so tight she thought she might disappear into him. She held him like she’d never held anyone before.
And Garrett held her back, his arms encircling her, and he turned to kiss the side of her face.
That’s when she heard it. A rough, rumbling sound, like a chain saw drawn across concrete.
She knew that sound.
Ivy pulled out of her ex-boyfriend (current boyfriend’s?) arms, and rushed to the window that looked out over the street, where the sound was coming from.
It was the rusted car from the school.