“I can’t believe Avery could be a killer.” I worry my bottom lip and think about what he wrote on one of the cards, about Avery being jealous. My gaze flicks to Tyler, assessing, trying to picture them together. Avery swore up and down there was no way, but of course she would, as cover.
“We tried to keep it a secret,” Tyler says quietly. “We hooked up once or twice, long before our parents—” He cuts himself off, looking pained.
Holy shit. Avery was sleeping with her stepbrother.
I stumble back, as if the room has tilted on its axis. Maybe it has. I steady myself with a hand on Tyler’s desk, feel for a swaying, in case it was some freak earthquake. But no, it’s only me, my blood pumping so hard I’m shaking.
“Are you okay?” Tyler reaches for my arm, but I evade his grasp. I cast a weak smile, back up for the door.
“I’m fine! Drank too much. See you later.”
On the contrary, I am suddenly feeling very sober. My feet push me up the stairs, back up into the kitchen, where I scan the immediate area for my quarry. When I don’t see her, I push through the crowded great room, then into the front hallway. She’s here somewhere.
And then I see her. Margot is in the living room, queuing for another turn at karaoke.
“I need to talk to you,” I bark. It’s an order, not a request. For good measure, I grab her by the arm and tug. Margot protests but nonetheless trips along after me. There’s a line for the bathroom in the hallway. Emboldened by liquor and murder, I cut in front of a girl with wild auburn curls, offering a curt apology. There’s shouting, some pounding at the door once we’re inside, but then it stops.
“Have you lost your mind?” Margot retreats against the sink, putting as much space between us as possible. In here, that means three feet. Everything in this house is huge except for the ground-floor powder room, apparently.
“Did Avery know about Emma and Mr. Tipton?” I say with no preamble.
“Uh, what? Are you drunk?”
I can tell she is; her face is fully flushed, but she’s still savvy enough to misdirect. I huff out my annoyance.
“Margot, come on, I need to know.” The look she returns is full-on frost queen. “You don’t get to pretend to be Switzerland in this whole thing. You knew and didn’t tell anyone, which I’m pretty sure counts as obstruction. You don’t want me to tell Cataldo about that, right?”
“Why does it matter who knew? Or is your plan to rat us all out? You’re not one of us, Liv, and we know it. Why do you think we left you off the group text? You can’t be trusted. Always playing the victim.”
It’s a slap across the face that burns all the more because it’s true. I am a rat. Margot cheated on her SATs, and I told Cataldo about Emma’s scheme, which means I did snitch on my friends. With a jolt, I realize they’ll have their admissions rescinded. Margot’s not going to Princeton. Avery’s shot at any good RD school is scuttled because her name, highlighted or not, was on that list. I almost hope Avery is a murderer; there’s no way I’ll survive the wrath of the Ivies otherwise.
Suddenly I wonder if telling the truth was a mistake. Emma’s secrets are like shrapnel slowly slicing their way to our internal organs. Some of us won’t make it.
“Margot, please. Did you tell Avery? Or anyone else that night?”
“Fine. I told Aves. But I’m not an idiot. I didn’t spread it around. Sleeping with a teacher is bad news. And, well, look what happened.” She grimaces.
“What if he didn’t do it?”
“Of course he did it,” she snaps back, a little too fast. I catch a flicker of fear beneath her haughty sureness.
I have what I need. Avery knew it was him.
I fling open the bathroom door, storming out and nearly bowling over the girl from before. “Finally!” she exclaims as I pass, then just as defiantly but quieter: “Bitch.”
I am a bitch. A bitch on a mission.
The party, the house, blurs around me as I stalk about, room after room. And then there, standing casually at the kitchen island, chatting and smiling with some brunette who looks like a Wellesley College cliché:
“Avery!” I shout a little too loudly. Adrenaline is driving me now. Confronting a killer, even if she’s your friend, is a terrible idea, but I have to know. “I need to talk to you.”
“Uh, okay?” She’s mildly annoyed, I can tell, because I’m interrupting her conversation, but she approaches me at the far end of the kitchen island. I’m by the drinks. I take a bracing sip of someone’s discarded gin fizz.
“Were you blackmailing Tipton?” I ask plainly. She tilts her head, squints.
“What? Why the hell would you ask me that?”
“You knew about him and Emma.”
“So?”
“He didn’t kill her. Someone was blackmailing him. The police showed me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? You’ve been sitting on this all night?” Then Avery claps on my expression. My brows are raised precariously. It’s all there on my face. “You think it was me?” she hisses.
“I know about Tyler,” I say back. She blanches. The swatch of black eye makeup, now gone a bit runny at the edges, stands out in stark contrast to her pale cheeks, the firm set of her mouth. She’s a warrior turned scared.
“Olivia, you have to be careful.” Avery’s gaze darts all around us. “Keep your voice down.”
“Were you jealous? She got everything you wanted? Harvard, Tyler?”
Avery makes a choking sound deep in her throat. It comes out a second later, a strangled laugh. “Ew. No.”
“He told me about you two hooking up. You were the last one to see her alive. Avery, I know.”
“I’M NOT FUCKING MY BROTHER!” she screams, face now mottled red. A hush falls over the immediate area. The warbled wail of an Ariana Grande song glides down the front hall.
“Fuck.” She huffs, does a dramatic turn for the crowd, clarifies. “Stepbrother. I am not having sex with my stepbrother.” Then she grabs me hard by the arm, her manicured nails digging in painfully, and hauls me around the island, past the dining table, out onto the patio. I wrest free of her grip, tripping backward a few steps, the backs of my knees knocking into the edge of the unlit firepit. It’s fucking freezing, but she is nonplussed.
“What the fuck. We talked about this already. Do you seriously believe that I killed our friend because of Tyler?” She shudders, as if disgusted by the mere idea. “You’ve got it all turned around.”