Dangerous Girls (25 page)

“What’s up, baby doll?” Elise collapses beside me. I blink.

“I . . .” I stare at her, the smudge of black glitter liner on her lids, the gentle pink swell of her lips. “I don’t . . .”

Her forehead creases into a frown. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Come on.” She takes my hand.

I don’t move.

“Anna? Come on, you just need some fresh air, then you’ll feel better.” Elise smiles, reassuring me, “It was the fifth shot, wasn’t it? What am I always telling you? You’ve got to pace yourself.”

I nod, and follow her out toward the exit. She grabs a bottle of water from the bar as we pass, and then the night air is cool against my face. I pause, disoriented, as the blast of music and voices recedes behind the closed doors, replaced with the hum from other bars on the main street—traffic and passers-by, and the distant crashing of the ocean.

“Easy there,” Elise murmurs, steering me carefully across the concrete walkway and onto the sand. “Give me some warning if you’re going to barf, okay?”

She bends, undoing the straps of my wedge sandals in turn and gently lifting my feet out of them as I lean on her for balance. She straightens. “Rule one: Suede and vomit don’t mix.” She grins at me, and I blink back, still dazed. In the dark out here, her eyes are almost violet, large and luminous.

Elise rolls them good-naturedly. “Man, you really went hard tonight.” She kicks off her own shoes and then scoops both pairs in one hand, taking my arm in the other. “You good to walk?”

I nod again, and we slowly strike out across the sand, heading toward the dark stretch of ocean.

“Nik texted me again,” Elise chatters, swinging our sandals back and forth. “I swear, it’s like the tenth time tonight. Wanting to know where we’ll be, what time I’ll get there . . . It’s kind of tacky, I mean, he seemed kind of cool to begin with, that whole ‘lord and master of all he surveys’ thing, but I don’t know, he kind of gives me the creeps now.” She pauses. “You know he did this weird role-play thing, when we were hooking up? He got off on the whole domination thing, you know, holding me down, trying to make me beg. I mean, I like getting thrown around as much as the next girl, but this was different. I don’t know . . .”

We come to a stop just on the shoreline, where the soft, cool sand turns damp from the slow sweep of the waves. Elise crumples to the ground, her legs folded beneath her. I sit, hugging my knees to my chest. “Feeling better?” she asks, concerned. “Here.” She unscrews the cap and passes the water bottle to me. I take a sip. It’s warm but clear in the back of my throat.

“So . . .” Elise pauses. She sifts sand through her fingertips. “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“What?” I flinch. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Elise fixes me with an even gaze. “C’mon, Anna. You can’t pull this with me. Something’s been up with you all day. You
barely said a word on the beach, and then you took that nap all afternoon—”

“I had a headache!” I protest weakly.

“And now you’re drinking like you want to pass out,” Elise finishes. “I know you, remember? Better than anyone. This isn’t you.”

I don’t speak for a minute, watching the dark shadows of the waves. The words are there, jumbled up in my mind, but I can’t bring myself to say them out loud. To accuse her, based on what—a bad feeling in the base of my spine, a mixed-up necklace, a shiver? It’s crazy. They wouldn’t do this to me.
She
wouldn’t do this.

“I guess I’m just stressed,” I say at last, looking down. I trace circles in the sand, pushing the grains into spiraling shapes. “College, and school ending. What happens after, you know?”

“That’s ages away.”

“It’s not.” I shake my head. “Graduation’s in a couple of months, then we all go off in different directions. This could be the last time we’re all together like this.”

Elise reaches out and squeezes my hand. “It’s okay. Some things aren’t meant to last.”

My eyes must have widened in horror because she laughs and says, “Not us. We’re set, remember? You and me, doddering around an old estate somewhere in our nineties.
Grey Gardens
-ing it up.”

“Turbans and paste jewelry,” I agree quietly.

She grins, “With fifteen cats. And a hot pool boy.”

I laugh. It feels like a release somehow. Relief. And I realize the worst part of my stupid suspicions wasn’t even Tate, and his terrible betrayal, but the idea of losing Elise. Of her being gone from my life, cut away and buried for good.

Elise squeezes my hand again. “It’ll be okay, I promise,” she tells me. “It’s you and me. I don’t know about the others—maybe Mel, and Lamar, and AK and everyone come back every holiday, and we hang out and visit each other, and nothing changes. Or maybe we drift apart and don’t speak until our ten-year reunion. Shit happens, you know? You can’t control it. But us? We’re forever.”

I lace my fingers through hers in response. “I know it’s stupid,” I say, feeling as foolish for the things I haven’t said as the things I did. “It’s high school. We always couldn’t wait for it to be done. But now, everything so close . . . I like how it is, right now. I don’t want anything to change.”

“But it does,” Elise says softly. “Everything changes. But it can be better. Think about it, if we both get into USC . . . you and me, California. We can hang out on the beach like this all the time, and not die of hypothermia.”

I smile, leaning to rest my head on her shoulder. I never told her I’ve spent these last weeks split, wavering between schools on the East and West Coasts, between proximity to
her or to Tate. Now I’m glad I didn’t make a big deal of it, because it doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. Of course I’m going with her. Of course.

“Do you love me?” I ask, repeating our familiar refrain.

“You know I do.”

“How much?”

“Miles and miles.”

•  •  •

We sit on the beach until the world slowly stops spinning on its axis, then head back across the sand to the bar. I’m almost not surprised to find Melanie waiting outside the back exit, pacing back and forth and clutching her phone.

She sees us approach, and rushes up to meet us. “Where were you guys?” she demands, “I’ve been texting and calling. Why didn’t you tell me you were going somewhere?” she adds, a whining note to her voice. “I thought something happened.”

“Jesus, we were gone ten minutes,” Elise says, and sighs. “Do you want me to wear a tracking chip?”

Mel blinks. “I was worried, that’s all.”

“So don’t be.” Elise pushes past her to head back inside the bar. The blast of music swallows her up, and I make to follow but Mel moves to block my path.

“Why do you have to keep doing this?” She glares at me fiercely.

I step back. “What?”

“Dragging her off somewhere, always coming between us.” Mel’s eyes are wide and almost tearful in the dim light, and her words pour out in a furious torrent. “I know you hate me, but she’s my friend too, and you won’t let her spend any time with me at all.”

“Let her?” I repeat slowly, caught there in the doorway. I don’t have space for Mel’s desperate insecurities, not after days of her sighing and whining and moaning, tagging along in the background for everything. “For fuck’s sake, since when does Elise do anything she doesn’t want to do?” I demand, “If she’s not hanging out with you anymore, that’s her choice. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

Mel’s mouth drops open. “She would never . . .” she manages, as she starts to cry. “We were friends first! Until you stole her from me. Everything was great until you came along—”

“What are we, stuck in grade school?” I cut her off, my anger blazing now—at her or myself, I’m not sure. I just know that Mel is pouring all her fear and insecurity out onto the dark asphalt in front of me, when I’ve fought so hard to keep mine hidden.
This could be me
, I realize in a terrible flash.
This could be my future
. Without Elise: abandoned and alone. “Grow up. It’s not finder’s keepers, okay?” I tell her, my voice ringing out, harsh. “Maybe if you were less of a whiny, needy brat, she’d still want you around.”

Mel recoils, as if I’d hit her. “You’re such a bitch!” she cries.

“Hey, those are Elise’s words, not mine. You think she’s your bestie?” I add. “You should hear what she says when you’re not around. ‘Mel’s such a baby,’ ” I mimic, “ ‘She’s, like, obsessed with me.’ ”

“Stop it!” Mel yells, her mascara running in two pathetic streams down her cheeks. But I can’t, not with the anger flooding hot in my veins.

“She makes fun of you, how clingy you are,” I continue, relentless. “She doesn’t get why you don’t just take the hint and leave us alone for good.”

“You’re lying.” Mel sobs.

“I’m not. She didn’t even want you coming on vacation,” I tell her, “I was the one who said to invite you. I figured we could put up with you for another few months, until graduation, but God, look at you—you don’t know when to give it a break!”

Mel gives another sob, then whirls around and flees. I watch her hurry down the street, unsteady in high heels, and feel a sobering wash of shame. I shouldn’t have done that, I know it right away. I shouldn’t have been so cruel, but she just kept pushing me—acting like this was all my fault. And her naked desperation . . .

I shiver, turning back to enter the bar. It’s dark and loud inside, and I fight my way through the crowd, looking for the familiar faces of our group. Elise is up by the bar, a flash of red
and blond, and I duck past a group of drunken frat-boy guys, yelling along with the music.

Her back is turned when I reach her. “I told you, it was just a one-time thing,” she’s saying. She shifts, and I see the guy beside her: Niklas.

“Everything good?” I ask, positioning myself between them.

“Just peachy,” Elise says, and nods, but I see the relief in her smile.

“The lovely Anna,” Niklas drawls. He grabs my hand, kissing it before I can pull away.

“Let me buy you ladies a drink.”

“I’m good, thanks,” I reply, but Elise beams.

“A margarita for me.”

As Niklas turns to order from the dreadlocked bartender, I lean in closer to Elise. “I thought he creeped you out,” I murmur.

She laughs back. “Doesn’t mean I can’t take his drinks. What did Mel want, anyway? Don’t tell me she was calling in a Missing Persons because we were gone five minutes.”

I sigh. “She freaked out, it was a whole thing. I’ll tell you later.” I glance around. “You seen Tate anywhere?”

“Yeah, I think he was fucking some tourist up against the bathroom wall.”

“Elise!”

“What?” She grins. “I’m just messing with you. I’m sure he’s sitting quietly in a corner, gazing at photos of you.”

I shove her lightly. “Don’t say shit like that, okay?”

“Why? Worried Prince Charming’s going to run around on you?” Elise’s tone is light, but I swear I see something flicker in her expression. Or maybe that’s just the five shots still spinning in my system, and the crash of the electronic dance beats. I shake my doubts away.

“No, of course not. I trust him,” I reply forcefully, but I can’t help adding, “He knows it would break my heart.”

Elise doesn’t flinch, just pulls me into a hug. “And then I would have to break his skull.” She laughs.

I rest my cheek against her hair for a moment, calmed. Behind her back, Niklas is claiming a margarita from the bartender, a vast, frothy concoction with fruit and a tiny umbrella balanced on the lip of the glass. I smile to myself for a moment—for all her bad-girl posturing, Elise will always choose the fruity, girly drink over a straight whiskey shooter—and then I catch a glimpse of something, out of the corner of my tired eyes. Niklas’s hand, passing over the drink. A flash of reflection, as if from glass, or a vial. And then it’s gone, back in his pocket again, and he’s turning to hand Elise the drink with a bland smile.

“Ready to get this party started for real?” he asks.

Elise takes the glass and raises it to her lips.

“So you saw the victim
at the bar, the night before she was killed, isn’t that right, Mr. van Oaten? Before the group left, around two a.m.?”

“Yes.”

“What was the nature of your interaction?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What did you do?” Gates clarifies, pacing in front of the witness stand. “You fought, did you not?”

“No.” Niklas slouches back, his arms folded. He looks utterly at ease, as if he’s relaxing in front of the TV, not in the middle of a tense and crowded courtroom.

“No?” Gates repeats. “But we have statements from several
people at the club; they all say you fought with Miss Warren. In fact, she threw a drink over you.”

Niklas smirks. “It was nothing. A lovers’ quarrel.”

He looks for me across the courtroom, and meets my eyes with that same smug, chilling smile I saw through the barbed wire of the prison fence.

I shiver.

The trial is winding down now. Dekker’s prosecution case went on for weeks, but now that it’s the defense’s turn, the list of people appearing on my behalf is painfully short. Gates has done what he could: attacking the flaws in Dekker’s case any way he can. He sent a parade of forensics experts up on the stand, arguing everything from how the time of death was wide open to how the crime scene was contaminated and the blood spatter suggests someone taller and larger dealt the fatal wounds.

But our strongest hope has always been Niklas. With Juan still vanished into thin air, Nik was the only suspect we can put up there on the stand, to show how he makes more sense as the killer: how he had motive, and opportunity, and practice climbing up to Elise’s balcony. All through the trial, I’ve been holding on to this brief shard of hope—that once they see him, sneering and slouching, cavalier in the face of Elise’s brutal death—the judge would have no option but to think twice about my guilt.

I sit forward in my seat, willing Niklas’s mask to slip, for some incriminating words to slip out.

“So, the night before the victim’s murder, you fought—wait, I’m sorry, you
quarreled
with her.” Gates layers on the sarcasm. “Why?”

Niklas shrugs, nonchalant. “She was jealous, of my . . . attention. You know how girls are.” He flashes a conspiratorial look at the judge. She glares back, unmoved.