Page 3 of Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets

Mr. Davis looks surprised. “What about soccer?”

“It’s preseason. My parents want me involved in something now.”

“Even with things…” His eyes drop to his mug.

“I could probably use the distraction,” I mumble over the noise drifting in from the hallway. “I should keep busy. And I think Piper would want me to join this club. Sort of, like, in her honor.”

“I understand.” His voice is warm.

The truth is, my sister would want me locked in a cell after what I did to her last month. “The only problem is that I might have a scheduling conflict.”

“Well, you’re here now,” he says, tilting his head, “when we meet.”

“I know, but Piper said you sometimes have extra skills sessions on Wednesdays.”

“Extra skills sessions?”

“Yeah, like, on Mount Liberty or whatever.”

He shakes his head. “We only meet on Mondays. There’s a biannual backpacking trip, but that’s it. Could you commit to that?”

I pause thoughtfully, even though my heartbeat accelerates with each lie. I unzip my backpack and tug out the letter I typed up in the computer lab at lunch. “I think so. Can you do me a favor and sign this? My mom is making me bring it back to prove I made an effort to get involved in something.”

Mr. Davis quirks a brow as he takes the note. “Shouldn’t I be signing thisafteryou attend the meeting?”

“Please? I promise to at least stay long enough to find out how boring it is.”

He grins, letting out a too-exhausted-to-care sigh as he grabs a pen from the desk and scribbles his name. Before releasing the note, he leans in and whispers, “We’re all really pulling for your sister.”

I freeze for a moment before forcing out, “Thanks.”

I head to the circle of chairs. Jacey is still looking at me like I’m a bug she’d like to squash, so I plunk down into a seat as far away from her as possible. Then I pull my backpack into my lap to block Jacey’s view and hold the fake note from my mom beside the one I found in Piper’s locker.

My pulse throbs in my neck as I glance from one signature to the other.

They don’t match.

Mr. Davis is telling the truth about not holding an extra skills session the day Piper fell.

So why would someone forge a note from him?

I glance around the circle of chairs, taking in the setup of the place Piper’s been spending her Monday afternoons. When my sister told me she was joining Survival Club two weeks into the school year, I laughed. “Good one,” I said. Piper does not do outdoors.

But she wasn’t joking.

My gaze darts from Jacey’s glare to a girl with braces and amazing curls: Alexandra Martinez, a sophomore. She’s always trying to interview me for some piece or another for the school’s online newspaper. Homecoming. Prom. Soccer. The articles were always about things I’d won until a couple of weeks ago, when she did a piece on the vigil the school held for my sister.

Next to Alexandra is a hand-holding couple wearing matching hiking boots and creepy smiles. Oh, and red flannel shirts. They look like members of some sort of mountain cult. I’ve seen the scruffy-looking lumberjack guy around, and I know the redhead as Miss Humsalot. She’s some sort of musical prodigy who sings to herself in the halls like we’re all just side characters in her Disney movie.

The guy two seats to my right is dressed like Halloween incarnate, wearing black from the clunky boots on his feet to the hair on his head. Metal chains tumble from his belt loop, rattling whenever he moves. I’ve never seen him before, but he’s the furthest thing you could find from a mountain man.

The rest of the chairs are empty. I pull out my phone to look occupied until Grant arrives, but it doesn’t work. Mr. Halloween shifts closer. “Hey, I’m Tyler.”

“Savannah Sullivan,” I say, though everyone at this school knows who I am. He’s probably going to ask me about Piper next. The thought sends an image of her lying in the hospital spiraling into my mind, and now I wish I’d sat next to the mountaineer couple.

But instead, he asks, “You’re joining the club?”

“Just auditing today.”

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