Dangerous Girls (11 page)

Hands close around my waist, cool, and I squeal, whipping my head around. It’s Elise.

“You scared me!”

“Shouldn’t leave the door open,” she teases, hugging me tight from behind. “Anyone could walk in.”

“Most people knock,” I point out, but I’m smiling. My eyes meet hers in the mirror, our expressions full of delight. “Pretty sweet setup, don’t you think?”

“Fancy,” she agrees, kissing my shoulder. “You feeling better?”

“Miles and miles.” I agree, and it’s true. The stress of Boston and my dad and school is suddenly a world away, dissolving into the bright, clear sunshine that’s spilling all around us, warm tiles against our bare feet. “You were right about this place.” I hug her back. “And Tate seems better too.”

“You didn’t say he was down. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, everything.” I sigh. “School, family, the usual. But it’s fine now. We just needed to get away.”

“Told you.” Elise lets me go. “You better get moving! We’re heading to the market in ten.”

“Yes sir.” I mock-salute. She slaps me on the ass and exits
before I can protest, leaving me alone with my steamy-edged reflection in the mirror. I take in the sight of my own smile—relaxed and happy—and vow not to give another thought to my dad. For the next seven days, life in Boston doesn’t exist. The real world can wait.

•  •  •

We load up at the local market, piling snack foods and beer high on the tiny cart as if we’re shopping for a month, not just a week. The checkout girl doesn’t even ask for IDs, just swipes through the mountain of alcohol like it’s soda.

“It’s so weird we’re legal here,” Melanie glances back behind us as we emerge from the convenience store onto the bustling street. “The whole time she was ringing us up, I kept feeling like we’re breaking the law.”

“I don’t know why it’s such a big deal back home.” Chelsea sucks on a Popsicle. “When we went to Europe, kids were drinking wine with their meals all the time.”

“Ooh,” I tease. “Look at you, so continental.”

Elise joins me, mimicking, “That time we were in Paris . . . Oh, did I tell you about when we went to Rome?”

Chelsea shoves Elise good-naturedly. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Hey, you girls want to give us a hand with this?”

We turn back to find the guys struggling to manage our huge stash of groceries.

“No thanks,” Elise calls back sunnily. “I’m sure you big, strong men can handle it for yourselves.”

Max replies with an obscene hand gesture.

We leave them and stroll on ahead back toward the beach house. This section of the street is narrow and noisy, packed with garish storefronts advertising local handcrafts, cheap phone cards, and tacky gifts. Some local traders have market stalls set up along the sidewalk, selling beaded jewelry and small carved wooden figurines, and Chelsea and Mel slow to browse the trinkets on display. I fall into step with Elise, peeling strings of red licorice and dangling them into my mouth.

“Wait up!” Mel calls to us.

Elise doesn’t slow, just rolls her eyes.

“She’s being such a drag.” She sighs. “She was moaning at me about the room thing for years back at the house.”

“Years?” I laugh.

“Centuries. But like I’m going to cramp my style sharing. She’d probably watch,” Elise adds, smirking. “You know she’s obsessed with me.”

“Come on.” I give her a look. “She’s not so bad. She’s just . . .”

“Whiny? Clingy? Insecure?”

“Wound too tight,” I say diplomatically. “We just find her some guy when we’re out tonight, then she’ll be too distracted to bother us anymore.”

“You’re too nice.” Elise sighs.

“Hey, she’s your friend,” I point out.

“Fine.
I’m
too nice.” Elise catches sight of something on the other side of the street. “Ooh, cute.”

She suddenly veers out into the road, and there’s a blast of a horn as an old beat-up car swerves to miss her. Elise doesn’t slow, just bounds through the traffic to a stall set up on the corner. I wait for the cars to clear, then follow.

“We’re just here on vacation.” Elise is smiling up at the trader when I arrive. He’s tall and muscular, a linen shirt draped open over his dark skin, his hair in dreadlocks.

“You like to party? You come to the right place.” He flashes a wide grin. “My friend, he owns a bar down by the beach. I can hook you up.”

Elise flutters her eyelashes at him. “That would be great.” She turns to me. “This is my new friend Juan,” she introduces him. “He knows all the best spots.”

“Oh. Great.” I look dubiously at his stall. It’s not so much a stall as a plank of wood set up on two wooden crates, with jewelry and junk laid out on a dirty, frayed piece of blue cloth. Elise picks up a bracelet of metal links and black onyx beading. “What do you think?”

“I think it looks like it washed up on the beach. Come on, we should go meet the others.”

Elise stands firm. “I like it.”

“Your friend has taste,” Juan tells me. “Pretty bracelet for a pretty girl.”

“Elise.” I tug her arm, my voice low. “These guys are just trying to rip you off.”

“Juan wouldn’t do that, would you?” Elise flutters some more. She’s got her best free-drink face on, the one she uses to charm poor suckers into buying us round after round at the bars along State Street. I drift a few steps away, knowing she won’t quit until she gets what she wants.

“How much?” she asks, wide-eyed.

“For you? A gift.” Juan beams.

“Really?” Elise checks. “You’re not tricking me, are you? Because that would be mean.” Her voice is still flirtatious.

“No tricks,” Juan slides the bracelet onto her wrist and holds on to her hand. “Maybe we can get a drink. I’ll show you that bar, down by the water.”

Elise pulls her hand away. “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that.”

Juan clutches his chest, mimicking heartbreak. “You have a boyfriend?”

“Lots of them.” Elise grins.

There’s a piercing whistle from down the street. We both look over: Chelsea and the guys are waving to us from outside a beach store—inflatable rafts and pool toys hanging from outside the window. Lamar has a bright duck-shaped inner
tube around his waist, over his clothes, and Tate and Max are dueling with neon blow-up swords.

Elise laughs. “Could they get any more phallic?”

“Just wait until they start with the wrestling,” I agree. “We done here?”

“Yup.” She turns back to Juan. “Thanks for the bracelet.” She turns to go, but he catches her arm.

“Wait, wait,” he insists. “Where you going? We get drinks, tonight.”

“No thanks.” Elise pulls free.

“I meet you, at the bar,” Juan insists.

Elise’s smile drops. “I said no.” She turns to me. “Creeper,” she says, and rolls her eyes without dropping her voice.

Juan’s expression darkens. “So that’s how it is, you play me. You think this is all a joke? That Juan is your dupe?”

Elise and I exchange a look and start to walk away, fast.

“Fucking Americans!” His voice echoes after us as we quickly slip into the crowds. “You all whores!”

The minute we’re away from the stall, I turn to Elise, pissed. “Why did you have to do that?”

“What?”

“Flirt with him. You can’t go around talking to strange guys, it’s not safe.”

“Relax.” Elise looks unconcerned. “Anyway, it was worth it. Look!” She shows off the bracelet.

“Still . . .” I turn around and feel a sudden shiver of panic. Juan is behind us in the crowd, twenty feet away, but closing fast. “Elise,” I hiss. “He’s following us.”

She doesn’t turn. “Ignore him. He’s just some weirdo, what can he do?”

I’m not so nonchalant. I walk faster, dragging her along with me until we reach the rest of the group, waiting outside the store. “Hey.” Tate slings an arm around my shoulder. “Where’d you guys go?”

“Nowhere.” I glance back again, but there’s no sign of Juan. I exhale a slow breath.

“You okay?” Tate frowns.

“Sure.” I force a grin. “It’s nothing.”

•  •  •

We head back across the street to the beach house, toting groceries and new toys between us. Elise dances on ahead, telling the others the story of how she got her new bracelet.

“You sure you’re okay?” Tate checks again as we reach the house. AK unlocks the front door, and the others head inside, their chatter loud and carefree.

“What? Oh, yeah, fine.” I look behind me one last time, and freeze.

Juan is standing across the street, watching us.

“Anna!” Elise barrels back outside and grabs my hand. “Where did you leave your iPod? We need some tunes for this party!”

“Um, on the dresser, I think.”

When I turn back, Juan is gone. Maybe he was never there to begin with. I shiver and follow the rest of them into the house. The door slams shut behind us.

“Officer Carlsson, you were a
member of Judge Dekker’s investigative team on the murder, were you not?”

My lawyer leafs through a couple of the papers on his table, and then strolls closer to the witness stand. Carlsson is young, in his twenties, maybe, with cropped blond hair and an earnest expression. In a police precinct full of suspicious scowls and icy glares, he was a rare friend to me: the one to check if I needed water, or a bathroom break, or to simply speak to me like a decent human being instead of screaming at me for hours, the way Dekker did. Now, on the stand, he sends me a sympathetic smile before he answers.

“Yes. I was assigned to the case the morning after the body was found.”

“So you worked alongside the prosecutor, evaluating evidence and assessing leads, from the very start?”

“That’s right.”

“So you were present during Miss Chevalier’s questioning when she told you about this incident with . . . I’m sorry, I don’t have a surname for him. The incident with the man known as Juan?”

He clicks his pointer, and Juan’s photo goes up on the display screen overhead. It’s a mugshot, sullen and dark-eyed, and there’s a faint hiss of breath as the courtroom inhales. He looks dangerous.

“I’m sorry,” my lawyer adds to the judge, sounding anything but. “It’s the only photo we have on record for the man.”

Judge von Koppel doesn’t look impressed. She waves a hand, as if to say, “continue.”

“Officer Carlsson?”

Carlsson nods. “Yes. Miss Chevalier told us about meeting Juan at the market, and how he followed them back to the house. She said he was angry when Miss Warren rejected him.”

“An angry man, following the victim home . . .” My lawyer pauses for effect. “And you didn’t think this warranted any follow-up?”

“Yes, I did.” Carlsson looks from us over to where Dekker is sitting behind the prosecution table. “I believed we should have named him a prime suspect in the investigation.”

“Because of his threatening behavior?”

“Yes, but there was more,” he adds. “There were several break-ins in the area in the weeks leading up to the murder. Juan matched a description of a man seen fleeing one of those robberies.”

I look hopefully to the judge again, but she’s scribbling notes, her expression unreadable.

“So you believed him to be a criminal, known for robbing the houses along the beach. Houses like Mr. Kundra’s.” My lawyer pauses again. “Did you try to track him down?”

“Yes. I canvassed his known associates and asked around the neighborhood, but he had disappeared.” Carlsson shrugged. “It looked like he’d left the island.”

“He fled. So you stopped looking for him?”

“No,” Carlsson gave Dekker another glare. “I filed a request for more resources, to liaise with police departments on neighboring islands, and have a team go through surveillance video from the harbor and ports.”

“But this request was denied.”

“Yes. I was told it would be a waste of time.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” My lawyer is grandstanding, but I don’t mind, not when he’s doing it for my benefit. “Here you had a suspect linked to other break-ins—like the one that accompanied Miss Warren’s murder—and you were told not to pursue him?”

“Dekker said it was irrelevant.” Carlsson looks back to me with regret in his expression. “He’d decided that the break-in was staged, that someone from the group had killed her and just smashed the doors afterward. He ordered me to drop the Juan investigation and focus on Miss Chevalier and Mr. Dempsey. I tried to go over his head,” he added, speaking directly at Judge von Koppel. “I thought he was making a mistake. I still do. But they all just shut me down. He was fixated.”

Fixated.

My lawyer leaves the word hanging in the courtroom for a moment, and I have to keep myself from smiling. Carlsson was transferred to a precinct on the other side of the island two weeks after they charged me, Dekker and his team did everything to try to keep him away from the trial, but we got him here, and just having him up on the stand feels like a victory—for once, someone not talking about my mood swings, and jealousy, and obvious guilt.

“Let’s talk about that crime scene.” My lawyer clicks his pointer again, and the image goes up on the screen of Elise’s trashed room. He clicks on, to a close-up of the balcony doors and the constellation of shattered glass spread on the floor. “The prosecution has presented experts who testified that the window was broken after the attack, from the inside. Did you agree?”

“It’s possible,” Carlsson says reluctantly. “There was glass out on the balcony, too, which would fit with it being broken
from the inside. But there was glass everywhere,” he adds. “People in and out of the room for hours. These photos weren’t taken until after the paramedics left. There’s no way of knowing how much the scene was contaminated.”

“Yet you believe it was a genuine break-in?” My lawyer continues. “But Judge Dekker has told this court nothing was stolen, aside from the victim’s necklace.”

“That’s right,” Carlsson answers. “But that doesn’t mean the attacker didn’t intend to rob the house. He could have been disturbed by Miss Warren, and fled after killing her.”

“Like I said, there were others before the murder, and it would fit with the pattern, and this Juan guy.”

“So let me ask you, Officer Carlsson, having examined all the evidence—the same evidence that Detective Dekker was party to—what do you think really happened that night?”