Nick freezes for a moment and then his eyes widen. “Are you tryin’ ta ask if I’m responsible? If I killed her?”
No one rushes to respond, and Nick doesn’t wait. Instead, I watch in horror as he reaches again for the gun at his side.
“Hey, hey,” Josh says gently.
“You come onto my property and accuse me of things you have no idea about. It’s about time yous all leave,” Nick growls.
Declan steps forward. “I think if we could just—”
But Nick doesn’t listen to Declan’s proposal. “Leave,” he grunts. “Now.”
So we do, rushing back to our respective cars, before Declan and Kyan step on the gas.
As we drive away, I turn back around, watching Nick, the rifle still in his hand, his face like carved concrete.
“Well, that certainly wasn’t successful,” Ellery says with a laugh that comes out too high.
But I disagree. Because I noticed Nick’s caginess in answering Adrien’s questions. His refusal to admit where he’d been this past week or what he’d been doing the night of Phoebe’s murder. The flash of something in his eye that I’m only just now recognizing.
Panic.
Nick Gould knows something he’s not telling us.
And I’m going to find out what.
13
Phoebe
Then
The tropical air hits our faces as soon as we step out of the airport. It’s a different feeling from Sydney, where the sea was just a note on the horizon. Here, in Cairns, the proclaimed gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, it’s the first thing you notice. The air drips with moisture, every breath salt tipped.
Energy buzzes through me, and I grasp Claire’s hand in mine. She shoots me an excited smile. The last few days have been magic. We traipsed through Sydney behind Nick Gould and Hari, taking in the opera house, the botanical gardens with their screeching birds, and the downtown barracks that held the British convicts who later came to inhabit the country. Then we spent a full day in the Blue Mountains, hiking, visiting small mountain towns, taking a cable car to the summit. But, despite what Nick said, this wasn’treallyan educational trip. Every night included a stop at either the NottinghamHotel, which we made our local bar, or a downtown nightclub. And most of those ended with me stumbling into Kyan’s bed.
The only drawback, aside from Nick—who seemed to be avoiding me after our awful confrontation—was the willowy blond South African that no one asked for: Adrien.
She lingered whenever I was around Kyan—which was pretty much all the time—like a bad smell. And the worst part was, Kyan would lap it up.
I’d catch them exchanging looks at something Nick Gould said before devolving into laughter or see Adrien’s mouth pressed against Kyan’s ear at the nightclub, trying to tell him something over the thrum of the bass.
It had turned into something of a competition that I had no interest in playing. But at the same time, I knew I was winning. It was me he was taking to bed at night, so suck on that, Adrien. But with every victory, the attacks continued. Dirty looks shot at each other, words muttered just out of earshot. A cold war on the brink of explosion.
I don’t know if it would bother me so much if Kyan was interested in anyone other than Adrien. But the fact that it’s her, with her mean girl energy and her unwavering confidence, brings me right back to my freshman dorm. The girls who talked openly about me as if I wasn’t even there. Who wrinkled their nose when I walked by. The overly loud whispers that greeted me whenever I walked into a room.
Did you hear what she did?
I have been trying to ignore Adrien as much as possible,appreciating instead how close the rest of us have become. It only took a matter of hours really. By the time we left the bar that first night, we were a family, the only dependable thing we could cling to in a country where everything was foreign.
And there isn’t anyone I’m closer to than Claire. Ever since that first afternoon back in our Hamilton dorm when we talked as I applied her makeup, we’ve been inseparable. We’re always laughing over something. Despite her meek first impression, it turns out the girl has a sneaky sense of humor.
We were out the other night when a guy offered to buy me a drink. Kyan was in the bathroom, and I made a point to let the guy know I wasn’t interested.
“Bitch,” he muttered as he walked away.
That word, that one word was all it took. And suddenly I was back there, in front ofhim,his hot breath on my face.
You’re just a little bitch. No one will ever want you.
