Page 37 of Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets

Noah squints. “Who would want to hurt Piper?”

“That’s the question. It’s the reason I’m on this trip. I’m going to find out who wanted Piper out of this club and why.”

Noah turns to stare at the pine cones on the ground. He removes his glasses and cleans them on his shirt. My heart thumps as I wait for another lecture about my active imagination. But when he replaces the glasses and turns to me, his jaw is set. “Tell me everything.”

Chapter 15

I finish telling Noah about Alex and all of my failed attempts to identify them.

“Why not give Piper’s phone to the cops?”

Guilt flutters in my stomach as my last text message to Piper types itself out in my head. “I can’t explain how I got the phone. My parents think the hospital staff lost it.”

Noah cocks a brow.

“I stole it from the hospital as soon as I found the threat in her pack.” He doesn’t need thewholetruth.

“And Alex has been texting you?”

“Just to tell me to stop calling.” It’s cold in the shade beneath the pines. I draw my arms in tight, crossing them over my stomach.

Noah runs a hand over his chin. “What if this Alex person threatened Piper, and she didn’t quit the club, so he blackmailed her or something? Maybe Piper saw no other way out. Those calls could be really important.”

A bird swoops down through the brush, stirring the leaves. “I know. I’ll turn it in.” Just as soon as I’m certain the cops will take this Alex lead seriously. I’m not simply handing the phone over to my parents with a memo to look at Piper’s deleted texts.

“Well, you should talk to Abby.”

I squint at him. “The fairytale princess? That’s your great plan?”

“She and Piper were always off in corners, whispering. Especially the last few days before the accident. I saw them in Survival Club. And then on that Tuesday or Wednesday, I saw Piper coming out of the choir room.”

I give a skeptical head tilt. “Sure my sister didn’t develop a new talent? Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I’m just saying, if Piper was being threatened by someone, Abby might know who it is.”

I think of Abby’s face yesterday, her unfinished thought.You’re sort of in your own world. That’s why you didn’t know Piper was…

I didn’t know Piper was what? Being threatened?

“All right,” I say, standing up and wiping the muck and a trail of ants off my jeans. “I’ll talk to her. If she knows something, maybe she’ll agree to speak to the cops.”

Noah nods but doesn’t get up. “Savannah,” he says, voice threaded with grief. If this is an apology, I’m not sure I can listen to it. Not because what he did is unforgivable. If anyone should believe his actions are pardonable, it’s me, since I did the exact same thing to Jacey.

I can’t listen to it because I need forgiveness so much more…from a person who may never wake up to give it.

“I know,” I whisper, my eyes stinging.

Then Noah’s standing beside me. The same kid who used to toilet paper our house every Friday night. The same kid I always thought would end up with my sister one day.

Only now he’s grown. And I’m grown.

And neither of us can look the other in the eye.

***

When we reach the gorge, voices drift toward us from below. Down at the shallow part of the river, most of the group is goofing around with their makeshift fishing poles and climbing the rocks along the edge of the embankment. Sam stands and tugs, his line taking a sharp course through the water as everyone shouts excitedly, only to have it come up empty.

The guys begin splashing Alexandra and Abby, who trot away through the shallows, giggles trailing behind them.

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