“Oh, hey Beck. Uh, my parents just called, sorry. Am I taking too long? I’ll be right out. Just need to change.” Her eyes are huge, her voice high-pitched. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Okay. We can skip the pool if you want.” Something isn’t right, that much is clear, but I can’t read her mind.

  Jordan throws her hand up when I take another step. “No, just give me a few minutes to finish talking to my mom and change and I’ll be right out.”

  Okay, so she doesn’t want me to come up, but why? “You want me to wait down here?” It’s a weird enough question that it will clue her in that I know something is up. Normally I’d just go right on up there. I’m not about to tell her about the car in the lot. I’ve got a feeling she’s also figured out Sydney’s in the house, and is afraid if I come up it will escalate the situation. My entire body goes cold, my limbs stiffening, as another possibility flashes in front of me.

  Jordan shakes her head vigorously at my suggestion of waiting downstairs. I take out my phone, trying to convey somehow with my eyes that I’m calling for help. I don’t know what else to do. Jordan’s smart, and she clearly thinks it’s better if I leave. Weirdly enough, my instincts are telling me to listen to her, even if it’s not easy to step away.

  “Okay, say hi to your parents for me. I’ll be waiting at the pool.”

  I walk backward to the door, holding her frenzied gaze the entire time. I’m fairly confident she knows I’m aware something’s up. The second the door to the condo shuts behind me, I hit 9-1-1.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jordan

  I turn on shaky legs back into my bedroom. “He’s gone.”

  “I heard,” she says, still standing in my closet, gun pointed at me.

  “I don’t know how long he’ll wait though before he wonders what’s taking so long.”

  “He won’t want to interrupt your phone call with your parents, we’ve got a few minutes to talk.”

  Fliss’s hands are remarkably steady. My entire body and my voice are vibrating with fear, but she seems entirely at ease. It’s her comfort with this situation that is the most alarming thing of all. The gun too, but the way she’s so calm is really unnerving.

  When we heard the door open a minute ago, she didn’t appear rattled. I opened my mouth to yell out but she immediately raised the gun, stopping me. Then she whispered in a steady voice, “Get him to leave, or I shoot both of you.”

  Message received.

  “As I was saying, it’s time for you to get out of the picture. I thought that had already happened after you crashed. And I’ve been patient ever since discovering you moved on to Beck this summer. But I’m done being patient. Especially now that I know why Griff has stopped his one-night-stand rotation.”

  “He told me why he stopped it,” I interrupt her, giving in to the urge to throw a wrench in her perception of events. “It’s because he’s been getting messages from razzleydazzles – you – and he’s afraid you’ll go after any women he dates.”

  Fliss scoffs. “He doesn’t date. He never cared about those women. He’s saving himself for the right one. And the right one is me.”

  So one-night stands constitute saving himself? I want to voice my little taunt, but I keep it to myself. Something’s come over me, and I’m no longer vibrating with fear. I know I have to play along, but I also recognize that if I let things go exactly how she’s planned it out in her head, it won’t be good for me. I’ve got to challenge her assumptions, stall.

  “He’s hung up on you. You’re still stringing him along, even if you’re public with Beck. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You need to be removed. Griff needs to be able to move on.”

  He needs to be able to move on from you! I want to shout, but instead I ask, “Removed? You want me to move back east?”

  “Yes, I’d love for you to do that and break up with Beck, but I don’t trust you to stay quiet about me. I can’t have that hanging over my head. So I need you to start moving.”

  “Start moving?”

  She gestures with her gun toward the door. “Yes, walk down the stairs.”

  “Why?” This is happening too fast. I need to stall.

  “Because I’m holding a gun and I’ll shoot you if you don’t. It will make things a little harder that way for me so I’d rather wait to shoot you until we’re in the car.”

  “But Beck’s waiting for me. He’ll see us.”

  “No, I know this complex and I know which way to go.”

  “They’ll know it’s you, Fliss. Don’t do this. Everyone already thinks you’re Razzle, Griff told me just yesterday he thinks it’s you. If something happens to me, they’ll figure it out.”

  “They won’t. I’m framing Sydney. Now, move.”

  I feel light-headed, and I try to think of some other way to stall her. Maybe I can wrestle the gun out of her hands?

  Before I can come up with a plan, Fliss says in that eerily robotic tone, “Walk now or I shoot you.”

  I walk. I believe her. She’s not bluffing. The girl has always come off as flighty and high-drama but right now she sounds totally different. Emotionless.

  I walk as slowly as possible down the stairs, knowing there’s a gun pointed at my back. I want to spin around and lunge for her, but it’s too risky, so I continue on this death march. I don’t actually believe it’s a death march though. Beck knows something’s not right. He might even be waiting outside the door. I freeze at the door handle with that thought. Would she shoot both of us?

  “What if we run into Beck? I don’t want you to shoot him.”

  “Then hopefully we won’t run into him,” she replies calmly.

  “Let’s go out the back then instead, we have a little deck and he wouldn’t come in that way.”

  She doesn’t answer immediately and I turn around. She’s closer than I expect, brow furrowed as she contemplates my suggestion. The gun is still pointed at me, but I briefly wonder if I can move fast enough to disarm her. Is that stupid? Should I wait? Maybe Beck will have called for help or something by the time we get to her car? I don’t know where she’s parked, but it sure doesn’t seem like I’ve got much time left.

  “Fine, it’ll be messier if we run into Beck. We’ll go out the back. I know the path out there too and we’re less likely to run into anyone.”

  I nod, moving in that direction. This is it. I’m changing direction anyway, and she’s close. As I take a step away from the front door, I swing my arm up, going straight for the gun.

  Beck

  I’m waiting right outside the door to the condo and I can hear voices on the other side, but it’s too muffled to make out what they’re saying. My body is pressed against the wall, not wanting them to see me the instant the door opens. The police will be here any minute, but I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. A seriously unstable chick is in there with Jordan, and who knows what she’s planning to do.

  I’m straining to overhear any word that might clue me in when two cops appear beside me. I didn’t even hear them approach. Damn, that’s a good sign they at least took my information on the situation seriously enough not to come charging in with sirens blaring. I get about one second of relief that this might turn out okay, and then we hear the gunshot.

  The cops move at the same time I do, and the male officer cuts me off while the female one swings the door open, gun pointed.

  I can’t see anything, the male officer now blocking the doorway, his back to me. It takes all my willpower not to shove him out of the way as I hear movements, grunts, and what I think might be a gun sliding across the tiled floor. Suddenly, the officer moves and I’m able to see the scene before us.

  My eyes find Jordan first. She’s breathing heavily and kneeling on the ground. I go straight to her as I take in not Sydney, but Fliss, being restrained by the female officer while the other officer snaps handcuffs on her wrists. Fliss doesn’t say a single word, and her expression is eerie. Instead of the lovesick hero worship I’ve seen in the past on her face, she’s checked out, detached.

  I move my gaze to Jordan and when I see she’s fixated on the scene in front of her, I start to pull her up. I’ve got the sudden urge to get her away from all of this, even if I know she’s safe now.

  As I hold her by her elbows, my eyes scan her body, looking for injury. “You okay? Did she hurt you?”

  Jordan shakes her head. “No, I’m fine.” Her eyes finally seem to focus on me and her body relaxes a touch. “You were waiting right outside, weren’t you?” she asks.

  “I was against the wall because I didn’t know what was going on in here, but looks like the worst-case scenario I’d imagined. She had a gun on you?”

  “Yeah. But it was knowing that you were probably standing out there that might have saved me. I almost opened the door like she wanted, but then suggested we use the back door. She seemed to have no problem shooting you if you were in the way, so I turned around to change direction. She was so close, I decided to just go for the gun. Well, I didn’t decide, it just happened.”

  “Like the 720?” I blink a few times, reprimanding myself for asking such a dumb question when we’re talking about life and death.

  But it makes Jordan smile. “Yeah, like that.”

  “Is that when it went off?”

  “It took a little but yeah, eventually I knocked it out of her hand and it went off. Were the cops waiting with you?”

  “No, they arrived a second before we heard the gunshot.”

  I don’t even realize I’m walking her backward toward the kitchen until her back hits the counter. Needing to reassure myself she’s okay, my lips move over her forehead and cheeks, brushing kisses as I pull her against me. “You’re all right.”

  “So I know I was acting weird when you came in, but was it my fake phone call with my parents that tipped you off? I figured you’d know it was midnight there and they wouldn’t be calling so late.”

  “No, actually that didn’t really cross my mind. Or I knew immediately from your expression that whatever you said was going to be off. I came back because I saw Sydney’s car in the lot. I thought it was Sydney hiding in here somewhere. Wait, do we know for sure she isn’t?” My arms tighten around Jordan and I swing my head around, looking up to the second story for movement.

  “No, Fliss told me she was framing Sydney.”

  I can’t get Jordan close enough, as if I’m the one needing comfort. Two more officers come in then and approach us. They have to take our statements, and I realize it’s not quite over yet, even as I watch the other two officers leave with Fliss. But at least we’re safe. Jordan’s safe. And we can finally do a real toast soon to putting it all behind us.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jordan

  After making statements to the police on Sunday night, we drive to Jay Beach to sleep. I don’t want to be in the condo. Griff went in to the station to make statements and give over his Instagram data. Now I’m gathered with my roommates and Sydney, and she’s getting the opportunity to present her case against Fliss, which is of course unnecessary at this point. At least it will make the case even more airtight.

  “I think at first she was planning to blame Daisy if she ever got discovered,” Sydney explains. “She had another phone, and when I showed it to Daisy, she said it looked like her old iPhone from last year. It was cracked down the middle, so she’d gotten a new phone and never really thought about the fact she couldn’t find the old one.”

  “So she was using that for the Instagram account and taking pictures?” Lucy asks.

  “I think so. I found it in her desk but it was password protected.”

  “Then she decided you’d be a better person to frame?”

  “I guess once she got fixated on Jordan as the main block to Griff, I was a better fit for the role. I mean, when I met Fliss at the country club this summer I didn’t make it a secret I was jealous of you, Jordan. Sorry, at the time I felt like you’d taken my place.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, because in a way, I kind of did take her place amongst her friend group. “So she stole your car to spy on Griff?” I ask instead.

  “No, I let her borrow it. She told me hers was in the shop and she needed to run errands. By then I’d already followed her once when she was following Griff, and guessed what she was up to. It really didn’t occur to me she was trying to frame me for murder. Or that she would harm you, Jordan. I’m still kind of in shock here myself.”

  “I think we’re all kind of in shock,” Lucy says.

  “She seemed to be really good at spying, by the way. She had a wig and everything. Actually I found several wigs in her closet once I started snooping. But it’s harder than you might think to spy on people and I was afraid she’d spot me so I only did it one time. She just followed Griff from work to a skatepark, where he met his sister and Beck’s sister, then he went to a restaurant but I didn’t go in. I left after that. I was afraid she’d see me.”

  “Did you take photos of her spying?” Zora asks.

  “Oh yeah, she had binoculars and everything.”

  I almost laugh, thinking about Summer. But then I think about how Summer’s privacy has been violated too, and that those very binoculars might have been used to peer into the Perrys’ house. Yuck.

  Sydney takes a deep breath. “Look, Fliss played me well, but I screwed up big time. I knew who she was before I agreed to move in with her or come to the party. I just thought she was so great, it was impossible she was some internet stalker. So then I came up with the idea to find who the real stalker was, and Daisy was on board and Fliss of course pretended to be on board. Maybe that’s when she decided to frame me, or maybe she decided the day we met she was going to use me for something. Either way, I’m an idiot and I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not a total idiot,” Ellie reassures. “I mean, you did figure out it was her. And the police will be able to pull it all together and make an airtight case with what you’ve got.”

  “How’d you find out about me and Brie?” Zora asks. “Were you spying on us too?”

  “That happened before I was even thinking it was Fliss. She wanted to come up to Jay Beach one Saturday. It’s a fun beach so I didn’t think twice about it. Now I’m guessing she probably hoped to run into Griffin or saw on social media he might be there, but instead we saw Brie and Zora together,” Sydney explains.

  “Do we know how she broke into the condo?” Lucy asks.

  Ellie raises her hand. “I bet she took my key and copied it. I thought I lost mine a few weeks ago, remember?”

  A little shudder swipes through my body as the details of her plotting unfold, making us see just how long this has been going on. I’m not sure I even want to know the other ways she might have invaded our privacy that we’re still unaware of.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to stay here,” Sydney is saying. “I’ve broken your trust, and while I want to earn it back, I think another college transfer is necessary. Summerside might be permanently tainted for me.”

  I glance at my roommates, wondering if any of them will contradict her on the trust thing. Lucy stands up and gives Sydney a hug. “You’ve definitely made a big step toward making things right with us, but I’m not going to lie, Syd, all of us, even you, are going to be wary of people for a while after this. The kind of trust we used to have might be hard to return to.”

  And while Syd’s true colors might not be quite as dark as suspected, she only tried to find the stalker in the first place for selfish reasons. She might not be an outcast or an enemy anymore amongst her old friends, but I can’t see her getting a big warm welcome back into the group.

  Beck hasn’t left my side since last night. We even showered together this morning. He’s managed to stay quiet through this little meeting with Sydney, but now he asks her, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Why did you want to wait until tonight?”

  Syd’s eyes go to her feet. “I should have. I told the girls my suspicions when I first had a feeling, but I knew I needed more information. I guess I just decided yesterday I had enough and I wasn’t going to get any more.”

  I glance at Beck and I think we share the same thoughts. Syd might not have anything as sinister up her sleeve as Fliss, but her intentions in all this aren’t exactly pure. She wanted to be the hero, and was hoping to find the right moment for that. Maybe she got nervous when Fliss asked to borrow her car, and realized the window of opportunity was closing; who knows?

  “We should go get my parents at the airport,” I tell Beck. I tried to talk them out of flying all the way out here but realized pretty quickly they need to hug me as badly as I need to hug them.

  As soon as we’re in the van I lean my head back and close my eyes, giving in to the exhaustion. “How are you?” Beck asks for the tenth time today.

  “Ready to not think about what happened for at least a few minutes. I know my parents will want to talk about it but I just need a minute.”

  Beck starts to turn up the music. It’s one of my favorite bands, and I give him a smile. I’m sure he’s got a million things to say about Sydney’s revelations and everything else that’s gone down, but he lets me be. We’ve spent all day filling in family, friends, police officers, and really haven’t had much time together just the two of us.

  When the song ends, Beck asks, “Hey, I never asked how your conversation with Griff went about sponsors. Tell me about it.”

  I’m happy for the distraction. “Oh, he said the contract with Brazen is pretty standard. I can’t rep brands in direct competition with them. So, clothing, shoes, skateboards. But anything else is fair game. Sports drinks, food, sunscreen, sunglasses.” I laugh a little, remembering some of the other things he mentioned. “Cars, lingerie, alcohol, or beauty products are fair game too.”

  “No lingerie,” Beck warns with a smile.

  “Okay then, no underwear modeling for you either.”

  “Darn, Calvin Klein gave me a good offer.”

  “Did they really?”