Page 69 of No Place Left to Hide

Thewein her spiel echoes through my head. Who iswe? Who the fuck is helping her? Who would run me off the road and attack me in a forest?

“So you gathered some friends and decided to kill me?” I spit.

“No! We wanted to scare you into doing the right thing. So we left clues to make you think that someone knew what you did. Like the newspapers about the investigation, or the lake water in your locker, or the boat knife in your tires. Reminders of the party, reminders ofClaire. We thought you’d freak out and think someone was about to reveal the truth and you’d confess to get ahead of it. But you just acted like it wasn’t happening, like it meant nothing to you. You didn’t even tellmeabout it. You pretended none of it was real and kept fixating on Yale like that’s the only thing that existed.

“So we escalated things to get you to crack. We got someone to mention the beach party to Brandon so he’d get mad and show up screaming, like he always does. We thought he’d at least throw you off after your Yale announcement, but none of it got to you. None of it. It’s like you have no conscience at all.”

I can feel myself closing off, shutting down. It’s not even worthresponding, but I honestly don’t know what I would say. Jena is supposed to be my best friend in the entire world. I don’t even know the person sitting beside me right now.

The lights of Dallas loom closer. In another ten minutes, we’ll be back to civilization.

It’s like you have no conscience at all.

“Brooke, we didn’t have a choice. We had to force your hand. But the plan was to scare you, drive too close, freak you out with the stupid masks, and make some empty threats until you finally confessed. That’sit. Intimidation only. Rear-ending cars at a hundred miles an hour, smashing up police cruisers, andattackingyou in the middle of nowhere wasn’t part of the deal! You were never supposed to actually get hurt—”

I’ve had more than enough. “Who’s in the Bronco?” I shout.

Jena reels back at my volume, but she shakes her head. “Brooke—”

“Is it Felix? Did he do this?”

“Brooke, I can’t—”

“I want names. Right the fuck now, Jena.”

She gasps out another sob. “None of this was supposed to happen! We were only supposed to scare you into confessing!”

“I have nothing to confess! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I was there,” she snaps back. “Claire wasn’t driving the boat that night—you were. You’re the one who crashed it, and then you told the world it was her fault.”

Panic rockets through my stomach, and my fingers tighten on the wheel. That’s impossible. “You have no idea what you’re even talking about. You were passed out drunk in the back of the boat.”

“I was drunk, not dead. And. I. Remember.Everything.”

Twenty-Seven

Before

September 2nd

The lake is so cold it’s a shock to my entire body. It’s like plunging into an ice bath and it makes me gasp before my head has cleared the surface. Black water rushes down my throat and burns. I kick to the surface and choke it all back out as I spin around and around and around, trying to orient myself. I suck in mouthfuls of air.

What the hell just happened?

Everything is blurry and waves kicked up by the boat’s wake lap at my face, made larger by the impact of whatever we hit. It takes a few tries to blink enough water out of my eyes to sort out what I’m looking at. I’m about twenty feet from the boat, between it and the shore, but I can’t reach the bottom, even with the tips of my shoes. The boat is smashed up against a sandbar, a good forty feet from shore. The engine idles, slowly drifting the boat to the side.

“Shit.” The whole fucking boat is probably wrecked. How the hell am I going to explain that to my parents?

I start towards the swim platform at the back of the boat, butmy pink dress tangles around my legs with every kick, slowing my progress.

Something bursts from the lake in front of me.

Claire emerges from the water like a creature from the black lagoon, gasping for air. A strangled, panicked sound comes out of her mouth until she dips back beneath the surface and it turns into a flurry of bubbles.

Pathetic.

I try to swim around her, but she latches onto my arm and pulls herself back above the surface. I turn toward her, ready to tell her off, and reel back when I see her. She’s a fucking mess. Water and blood intermingle on her face. She’s got a nasty gash across the top of her forehead, so deep I can see the bone of her skull through the wound. The gash trails all the way down her face and beneath her opposite eye.

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