Page 10 of Shark Cove

Camille had dealt with this by going shopping at a discount superstore with Malia, and making herself a ‘favorites’ section way in the back of her closet. She’d hung pairs of Seven7 jeans, simple tanks, and a couple of colorful zip-front hoodies back there. Underneath those clothes rested three pairs of bright Converse sneakers that Camille liked better than any of the designer shoes nested like art objects on a nearby tiered shelf.

Someone had gone through the closet, pulling out clothes and leaving gaps of rattling hangers—but that someone wasn’t Camille.

“I have to find the note you left.” Malia’s voice sounded small and scared in the big, luxurious room. “But where is it, Camille?”

Malia backed out of the room, erasing her footprints with one of the pillows, until she realized, at the door, that the pillow was supposed to be on top of the pyramid on the bed. “Crap.”

No help for it. She’d have to vacuum when she was done searching.

Malia padded across the room, set the pillow in its proper place, and glanced over at the phone. The little icon with “messages” pulsed in the corner. Probably Malia’s own messages, and if Camille was declared missing, they’d be listened to by law enforcement.

Had she said anything incriminating? Perhaps a mention of the Wallflower Diaries website, but that could be explained away. Could the phone tell her something? Since she was going to have to vacuum her tracks now, she might as well see if Camille had been talking to someone.

Malia sat down on the bow-backed desk chair Ms. William had covered in peach fabric to match the bed. She inputted Camille’s password—but now she was really getting into her friend’s privacy, and her fingers paused above the phone’s screen.

Camille’s favorite clothes left behind in the closet decided Malia: someone who didn’t know Camille had packed her things and tried to make it look like Camille had done it. That couldn’t be good.

Malia checked Camille’s text messages, and immediately spotted one from Blake:“Hey Cam, did you see that nasty post about me on that damn Wallflower website? Don’t believe everything you read! I can’t handle one girlfriend, let alone three!”

Malia’s stomach wound tighter than a Boy Scout knot. For whatever reason, Camille hadn’t told her she and Blake were anything but friends, but Blake’s messages, as she scanned them, sounded like he had feelings for her.

Blake and Camille had something going. Malia had a responsibility to find out more, since she, the Wallflower, had passed on unfiltered intel about Blake from potentially unreliable sources.

She would answer back as Camille and put Blake out of his misery—after all, Camille had believed that he “wasn’t the type” to be a man-slut.

“Hey Blake, it’s all good. You know I don’t believe everything I read, and the Wallflower has been known to get it wrong once or twice. Ha, ha.”Malia hit Send.

Malia moved on to check e-mail, but Camille hardly used it. She saw a few“Dear daughter, how are you?”stiffly worded e-mails from her father, with no mention of a visit. She then checked her friend’s social media page: no new posts since yesterday. Camille posted up positive thoughts or little arty photos she took with her phone and then wrote things like “Have a great day!” next to them.

Nothing. And no hidden boyfriend except whatever had been going on with Blake.

Malia powered down the phone. Now her fingerprints were on it. She pulled some tissues out of a rhinestone-covered box and wiped down the phone and the area.

Had she forgotten anything?

A spike of panic that the maid would come, or the yard guy, or God forbid, Regina William herself, accelerated Malia’s heart rate again. She pushed the chair in and ran out and down the hall to the utility closet, getting out the vacuum. She’d have to vacuum the hall too, because there were her footprints leading in and out of Camille’s room—and she still hadn’t found the note.

She abandoned the vacuum and hurried into Regina William’s gigantic bedroom.

The room ran the length of the whole upper floor of the house and was separated into sections with screens and furniture groupings: a seating area in front of French doors leading onto the deck in front of the house. A dressing area with one of those “vanities” where you sat down to primp, a TV and exercise bike, and a walk-in closet. Finally, at the back, the inner sanctum where Regina William’s bed was robed in ivory satin with—Malia’s eyes goggled—a white fur throw that looked like real mink draped over one end of it.

The whole expanse of fancy shag carpet had been recently vacuumed, and Malia’s footprints showed as clearly as if they’d been left in sand on the beach.

Malia spotted the note on the bedside table, in an envelope with ‘Mom’ on it. She ran over—and stopped. What if they found her fingerprints on the note? She grabbed a tissue from a dispenser and eased the folded cream paper out, holding it with the tissue.

“Dear Mom: I’ve had it with all the beauty treatments. I’m running away to somewhere where I can be myself. Don’t bother looking for me and don’t worry, I’m safe. Love, Camille.”

Malia rocked back on her heels. It was Camille’s writing all right. There was even the little heart she dotted the ‘i’ in her name with.

Camille really had run away, and she hadn’t told Malia a thing. Where was this place where she ‘could be herself’? Wherever it was, Malia wanted to go there too.

Malia had to find more clues, and be back at school by two o’clock, which was going to be challenging. She slid the note back into the envelope and set it back the way it had been, scanning the unfamiliar space.

She’d only ever been in Regina William’s room as far as the seating area, where a couch and armchair were grouped with a standing lamp.

Maybe there was some evidence of what was going on in the bathroom.

Malia padded into that area, and, using a tissue, opened the various cabinets. She found bottles and bottles of pills, everything from things she recognized like Xanax to things she didn’t, like dextroamphetamine. She used her phone to take pictures of the bottles in their rows, and then opened the cabinet under the sink.

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