“Someone must have taken your dad’s tie. Do you remember leaving it at the party?”

“No. But there’s something else that also looks kind of bad.”

Taylor thought she saw some movement on the door of the last stall, but she put it aside.

“What is it, Beth?”

The bathroom door swung open. It was a freshman named Sassi or Cici or something like that.

Beth pointed an index finger stacked with four silver rings she’d made from her mother’s flatware service in the seventh grade. “You have to leave,” she said to the intruding girl. “My friend here might be pregnant.”

Sassi or Cici looked at Beth, and then shot a judgmental gaze at Taylor before turning around and leaving.

Taylor’s jaw practically skimmed the floor. “Beth! Why did you have to say that?”

Beth brightened a little, but only for a second. “Just came to me. Never mind. No one will think it’s true.” She waited a beat. “No offense, you know, but for obvious reasons.”

Taylor wasn’t sure what obvious reasons she was talking about. The fact that she didn’t have a boyfriend? Or was it that she couldn’t get one?

“Do you think you’re a suspect?” Taylor asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, there’s the tie business. And we had a big fight. Me and Olivia. Queen Bree summoned Olivia to the party early. We got into it. Words were said. It was, well, not good. I was so angry about her wanting to hang out with Brianna. They’d gotten so close, and I felt left out.”

Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Actual Beth Lee tears. Until the last few days, that had been a rare occurrence.

“It’s okay,” Taylor said reaching over to the tissue dispenser and offering one to her friend.

“You don’t get it,” Beth said, taking the tissue. “Of course you don’t. You’ve always had someone. I had Christina, and then she died. Then my dad died. I just thought that Olivia would be mine, you know? My mom and I arranged for her to come. We Skyped all summer. I thought we were getting kind of close.”

Taylor hugged Beth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m sure that the police know you didn’t have anything to do with, you know, the stabbing.”

Beth pushed away and looked at the mirror, her eyes still tracking Taylor’s. “You must think I’m pathetic,” she said, dabbing her eyes and turning the tissue black with mascara.

“I don’t. And I do understand. Lately with Hayley always hanging out with Colton, I’m alone most of the time too. I don’t like sharing Hayley with him. I really, really don’t. But Colton is a decent guy and, well, I know that relationships change.”

“I said some awful things to Olivia that night about British food—yuck—Pippa’s overrated butt, and something mean about Nicki Minaj. I told Olivia that I wished she’d go back home on the Titanic and hoped it would hit another iceberg. I don’t think she heard me, but I might have said something to the effect that I wished she would drop dead.”

“No! You didn’t!” Taylor said, her voice rising. Her mind reeled, wondering who, if anyone, had heard Beth say those scary, prophetic words.

Taylor grabbed another tissue and provided it to Beth, who took it with a quick nod. “Who knows that you fought with Olivia?” she asked.

Beth ignored the question. “I had it out with Brianna at the party too.” She stopped herself. “Do I look like I’ve been crying? I don’t want anyone to think I’m a big baby.”

Taylor patted her softly on the shoulder. Beth liked everyone to think she was aloof, tough, sardonic, and above all of the stuff that teenagers obsess over. She wasn’t, of course. No one at Kingston High was. No teen anywhere was.

“No, you look fine. No one will know. Now, please, answer me. Who knows about the necktie and that you fought with Olivia?”

Beth looked directly into Taylor’s eyes. “No one but the police,” she said. “You’re the only other person I’ve told.”

“All right, I swear to keep it confidential. You and me, Beth, we’re like sisters.”

Just then Beth gave Taylor a quick hug, which surprised her. Beth had never spontaneously hugged her before. Sure, it was a quick, hard little gesture, but it was Beth genuinely letting her guard down. Letting someone on the inside. It made Taylor smile.

Beth gathered herself together, put her earbuds back in, and the two of them went for the door.

“What are you listening to?” Taylor asked.

Beth shook her head. “Nothing. I just don’t want to talk to anyone. It’s a defense mechanism, I guess.”

“I’m glad you talked to me,” Taylor said, her own blue eyes glistening with emotion. Not tear territory, but the kind of dampness that comes when something good happens.

“I’m glad you’re not pregnant,” Beth said.

STARLA LARSEN PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR to the very last stall. She had chosen it because it was the farthest away from the well-used bank of mirrors, and she didn’t like anyone to hear her pee. As she sat there, she took in every word Taylor Ryan and Beth Lee had been saying. She understood why some musicians said they’d practiced singing in the bathrooms. In a place where no one really wants to hear what the next person is doing, it was the ultimate irony that one could hear the sound of a pin drop against the tiled floor of a girls’ bathroom.

And one could certainly overhear Beth Lee spill her guts about Olivia.

Starla went to the mirror, her crystalline blue eyes focused not so much on what she was doing as she washed her hands, but what she was thinking. Starla reapplied some cinnamon gloss to her lips and fidgeted with her halo of blond hair. When Katelyn’s death was tied to her mother and brother last year, it was more than embarrassing. Starla had to work double-hard to maintain her in-crowd status. Like her mother, Mindee, Starla was looking for a little redemption. Served with that? A side of revenge, of course.

As she threw a million-dollar smile at her reflection, Starla thought about what to do with this tantalizing tidbit. Her mother had already gone to the police. So scratch that. Going to the police was so yesterday.

LATER, WHEN HER KILLER REPLAYED the night Olivia Grant was stabbed to death, it brought a sense of euphoria that hadn’t been expected. Murderers had long talked about the thrill that came with stealing another person’s life. There was something darkly magical about seeing the eyes of a human being move from fear to anguish and then to peace. It was like being God, creating a storm of terror and letting it wash over another person, and then, just as quickly, allowing the terrified to find complete and final peace. The killer liked that. No, loved that. It was a rush better than any pharmaceutical could provide. It was far above the mix of adrenaline and laughter that comes from the scariest and best amusement park ride. Tower of Terror in Disneyland? Forget it. Skydiving with an unreliable parachute? Not even close. Skiing down a mountain in front of an avalanche’s white wall? Nada.

Even better than sex.

The murderer had a specific intent, a purpose that really had nothing to do with the rush that came with the act of doing it. That had been a surprise. As the water ran in Brianna’s bathroom sink and the blood flowed downward into the swirling cyclone of the drainpipe, the feeling was undeniably good.

The sensation of being all-powerful on that Halloween night had been an unexpected bonus.

Chapter 14

THE WASHINGTON STATE CRIME LAB IN OLYMPIA, the state capital a hundred miles south of Seattle, was a kind of way station for all major criminal court cases—the midpoint between the crime scene and the courtroom. All of the evidence collected by Annie Garnett and her team from the Connorses’ house at 2121 Desolation View Drive in Port Gamble in the early morning hours of November 1 was processed at the county’s lab in Port Orchard and then sent to Olympia for further analysis. The fact that the victim was from another country had flagged the case as one with “special sensitivities.”