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Then Noel swiveled around and grabbed his cell phone. “This is an Icelandic number, isn’t it? Is it from Olaf? Are you still in touch with him? You gave him my number?”
“No!” Aria cried. “I’m not in touch with Olaf. Olaf is . . .” She couldn’t say missing or dead. Noel would ask how she knew that, and then she’d have to bring up the newspaper article she’d found on her bed . . . or else she’d have to pretend she’d Googled him, which would make her seem like she liked him. Nor could she say who had really sent Noel that text just now—she couldn’t put Noel in jeopardy.
“I don’t know who that text is from,” she admitted. “Maybe Olaf, though I never gave him your number. I guess it was someone’s way of getting me to tell you the truth.”
“Look in Aria’s closet. She has something to show you,” Noel repeated nastily. “A skeleton.”
Tears pricked Aria’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.” She hated the way he was looking at her.
“Is that all you have to tell me, or is there something more?” Noel demanded.
Aria’s stomach swirled. “Th-that’s all. I swear.”
Noel raised one eyebrow, like he didn’t believe her. Then he turned and stomped out of the room.
“Noel!” Aria cried, chasing after him.
“I have to go,” Noel said gruffly as he thundered down the stairs. He grabbed his keys off the table near the door, whipped it open, and ran out onto the porch.
“Wait!” Aria yelled. By the time she was at the door, Noel was in his car. Its headlights snapped on, and he backed out jerkily, without bothering to look if anyone was on the road. The taillights disappeared down the street quickly.
Aria stood in the chilly night, rubbing her bare arms. It felt like there was a huge weight sitting square on her chest, preventing her from taking a full breath. Noel’s words swam back to her. Is that all you have to tell me? What did that mean?
Another memory flickered into her head, faded and almost forgotten. A Reykjavik cab had picked them up to go to the airport the morning of their flight home. As they drove out of the city, they passed the huge chateau on the hill. Police cars surrounded the place. Cops stood on the driveway, and sirens whirled. Aria slumped down in her seat, but Noel stared straight at it, fascinated. “Huh,” he had said in the croaky voice from a night of too much drinking. “I wonder what happened there.” And then he’d looked pointedly at Aria.
But he couldn’t have known. Right?
She swallowed a huge lump in her throat and went back inside the house. The stairs creaked noisily as she climbed back to her bedroom. She pushed open the door, nearly bursting into tears at the two unfinished plates of food on the table. She walked over to the closet, whipped the door open, pushed the sweatshirts aside, and stared at the rolled-up canvas. If only she could just burn it.
A square wallet on her desk caught her eye, and she straightened. It wasn’t hers, but she knew it well. She picked it up, tracing the embossed NAK—Noel Alexander Kahn. Noel always took his wallet out of his back pocket when they made out—it was much more comfortable that way. But he’d never forgotten it before. And Aria had never looked through it.
Don’t, she told herself. But her hands inched toward it anyway.
The wallet made a squeaky-leather sound as she opened it. Inside the pockets were two credit cards, Noel’s driver’s license, a couple of twenties, and some singles. His student ID was tucked into a back slot. So was a free pass to the Rosewood Go-Kart track and a receipt from Wordsmith’s Books for a coffee.
Aria stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling oily and gross. Noel wasn’t hiding anything. This was just A being A and ruining everything.
But then she noticed a faded ticket stub behind the bills. THE WOODS CINEMA, it read in purple ink. Aria had never heard of it before. The stub was a pass to a Spider-Man movie. Aria frowned. The latest Spider-Man had come out the last summer she was in Iceland—before junior year. Why would Noel keep this?
She turned the stub over. There was faded handwriting on the back, but Aria could still make out the words. Thanks for believing in me! Next time, I’ll get the popcorn.
The note was punctuated by a little doodle. At first, it looked like just a blob, but when Aria brought it into the light, it was of a girl playing field hockey, her hands curled around a stick, the ball shooting through the air. Aria sank onto the bed. She’d seen this exact doodle before—on someone’s piece of the Time Capsule flag. She’d been given it accidentally, and she’d hidden it in her room ever since.
It had been Ali’s.
20
The Sting
That same afternoon, Spencer, clad once again in her Britney wig and sunglasses, paced back and forth in front of a Philly brownstone near the Schuylkill River. Boats honked. A double-decker bus full of tourists in faux Ben Franklin glasses and Liberty Bell sweatshirts swept by. Rain had just fallen, and the air smelled like slick cement and exhaust. She checked her school e-mail on her old cell phone, piggybacking off someone’s unencrypted WiFi. A new message had come in. Dear Spencer, Perhaps our wires crossed. I was hoping to see you at your house yesterday, but maybe you didn’t get my message. Can we try for tomorrow? Sincerely, Jasmine Fuji.
Bile filled her stomach. Yesterday, she’d taken special care not to be anywhere near her house around four PM, when Agent Fuji said she was going to oh-so-casually drop by. She’d treated Mr. Pennythistle, her mother, and Amelia to ice cream at the King James Mall so they wouldn’t be home when Fuji came by, either. But Spencer couldn’t dodge her forever.
