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“I doubt Naomi did,” Aria said. “Why else would she still be threatening us? Why else haven’t the cops knocked on our doors to arrest us?”
Everyone stared at one another, not having an answer. Hanna’s hands shook. Emily wound the same piece of hair around and around her finger.
“Whatcha talking about, girls?” a voice boomed behind them, and everyone jumped and turned. Jeremy stood in the doorway, his eyes concealed behind his star-shaped glasses. Spencer shivered. How long had he been standing there?
Aria flinched. “Uh, nothing,” she said, shoving her phone back in her pocket.
Everyone ducked their heads and marched toward the exit, the meeting over. Jeremy watched them, a strange smile on his face. When Spencer passed, he pushed something into her hand. “You forgot this from the restaurant last night. I grabbed it for you before I left.”
She stared at the object in her palm. It was the Polaroid the waitress at the restaurant in Puerto Rico had taken when they were being serenaded. There was a sour feeling in her stomach; she hadn’t remembered Jeremy being there.
“You two make such a cute couple,” Jeremy trilled. “It’s so nice to see young love bloom.”
But as he shoved his glasses up his nose and did a military-style turn, Spencer’s body filled with dread. Reefer. She had to break it off with him—now.
There was no way she was stealing A’s guy.
Five minutes later, she stood just outside the sauna. The door was made of cracked wood slats that had darkened from moisture and time. Dry heat seeped from its pores, and the sharp scent of cedar hung heavily in the air. The smell would forever remind her of her Grandpa Hastings, who had loved saunas so much he built one in his house in Florida. She’d caught him lounging in there naked once and had never set foot in that wing of the house again.
Taking a deep breath, she adjusted the straps on her bikini and pushed the creaky door open. It was so hot inside that she immediately began to sweat. The only light in the room was from the glowing coals in the corner. She could just make out someone sitting on the bottom step. His dreadlocks hung limply on his shoulders, and he had a towel wrapped around his waist.
Her stomach flipped. This was going to be so, so difficult.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said flirtatiously, standing up.
“Reefer, I—” Spencer started, but Reefer slid his hands down her back and his lips touched her neck. Spencer shut her eyes and groaned. He smelled so good, like lemon and salt.
“Reefer, wait.” Spencer pulled away from him and caught her breath.
“What is it?” Reefer asked, panting. “Is it too hot in here? Want to cool off in the pool?”
Spencer swallowed hard. “I do, but … Reefer, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Reefer stared at her. The only sound was the small creaks of the sauna’s wooden beams settling. “Why?” he asked, his voice cracking.
Spencer wiped a bead of sweat from her eyes. “It’s Naomi,” she said.
“What about her?”
She sat down on the bench and stared into the darkness. If only she could tell him the truth. This is a girl who already wants to kill me, she wished she could say. She’s killed before. I have no idea what she’s capable of. And we’re in the middle of the ocean, with nowhere to hide, with no police …
But she couldn’t say any of that. Instead, she cleared her throat. “She really likes you.”
“But I don’t like her.” Reefer sounded puzzled.
Spencer picked at a scab on her knee, then looked up, realizing something. “You said you met Naomi at a Princeton party. When was that?”
“Months ago. Way before I met you.”
“Was she visiting any other times?”
Reefer thought for a moment. “Yeah. That same weekend you were in Princeton for the Eating Club thing. But it was just in passing—nothing happened between us.”
Spencer blinked. “Naomi was there that weekend?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Her heart thudded. “Was she at the party where … the brownie incident happened?” She closed her eyes and thought about all the kids stuffed into that off-campus house. She hadn’t seen Naomi there, but she’d been high, and her attention had been on Harper and the other Ivy girls.
“No, a different one,” Reefer furrowed his brows. “Why does it matter?”
“No reason,” Spencer said faintly. Her head was spinning. If Naomi had been at Princeton the same weekend she went to the Ivy Pot Luck, she could have been the one who laced Spencer’s pot brownies with LSD. Hadn’t Spencer heard a freaky giggle when she’d stepped outside the Ivy house? Hadn’t she thought she’d seen a shock of blond hair just like Naomi’s slip into the woods?
And was it possible that Hanna’s accident had started all this? Spencer had begged Hanna to come clean. After Jamaica, they didn’t need another secret on their hands. Hanna had shaken her head. “I can’t do that to my dad’s campaign,” Hanna said a few days later. She and Spencer had been sitting at Wordsmith’s, a bookstore near Rosewood Day.
“But it wasn’t even your fault,” Spencer said, jiggling her foot. “That other car swerved at you from out of nowhere, and then just disappeared.”
“I think that’s what happened.” Hanna shut her eyes, as if trying to replay the scene on the back of her eyelids. “But now I’m not sure. Maybe I was in the wrong lane. The rain was so heavy, and the road is so twisty, and …”
