HAYLEY RYAN AND COLTON JAMES were right next door working on their AP math assignment in the cozy cream-and-blue kitchen of house number 17. Despite everything going on in Port Gamble and the unsolved murder that Hayley felt she and her sister could solve somehow, life was mercilessly still marching steadily forward—and that included homework. The couple settled on some Death Cab for Cutie as background noise and dug in. For a snack, Colton’s mom, Shania, had set out a plate of homemade Fig Newtons, which Hayley actually thought were pretty good. No small feat, considering that the store-bought version seemed like pastry wrapped around a disgusting brown jam.

“Who makes these from scratch?” she asked starting on another of the square cookies.

Colton grinned. “My mom does. You ought to try her homemade Oreos sometime.”

“Why not just buy them?” Hayley asked, flicking a crumb off of her boyfriend’s lightly stubbled chin.

“When you’re agoraphobic like Mom, your options are limited. You can’t order everything online or through catalogs,” he said. “If I wanted something and if Dad wasn’t around, Mom would make it from scratch. The first time she made Fig Newtons she used orange marmalade because it’s all we had in the house. If you think real Fig Newtons are bad, you should have tasted those.”

In midbite, Hayley sprang to her feet. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up, and her body tensed as if it were listening carefully. And responding.

“I gotta go. I just thought of something,” she lied and started for the door.

“What about our homework?” he asked, indicating the work they’d been doing.

“Later,” she said. “I’ll come back.”

TAYLOR HEARD THE FRONT DOOR SLAM SHUT. Her heart was in her throat. Hurried footsteps were coming toward her.

“Taylor! I got your message. What’s wrong?”

She looked up. It was her sister, looking frantic.

“You scared the crap out of me,” Taylor said. “And I hate to break it to you, but I didn’t text you. I was just thinking about you. How did you know . . . ?”

Hayley shook her head. “I just knew. You needed me here fast,” she said. “I knew it, even without a text. I ran from next door.”

Taylor knew that Hayley was telling the truth. In some peculiar, subconscious way, she had indeed sent a message and it had been flagged urgent. Like the night Olivia Grant died, she and her sister had talked to each other without words.

Taylor pulled the articles and the letter from Savannah out of the worn manila envelope and held them out for her sister to see.

Hayley’s blue eyes widened as she scanned each one.

“What does all this mean?” Hayley asked.

Taylor shook her head. She wasn’t really sure. She felt hurt and betrayed by their mother.

“It means there’s no doubt that Mom and Dad, but mostly Mom, has lied to us about our past,” she said.

“And hers,” Hayley said.

Taylor nodded and added, “Yeah. And do you know what else it means?”

“It means we have to confront her,” Hayley said.

Taylor refolded the articles into a neat bundle. “Yeah,” she said, “and you know I hate confrontation.”

“That’s all right,” Hayley said, managing a brave smile. “I don’t mind it. And this confrontation needs to happen.”

Chapter 16

ANYONE WHO OBSERVED STARLA LARSEN over a period of time knew that she was no quitter. She’d fought too hard to be the youngest cheerleader in the history of the Kingston Buccaneers, and having her mother and brother ruin everything by kinda, sorta causing the death of her former BFF, Katelyn Berkley, was not going to knock her off the top of the Kingston High social pyramid. That would be super humiliating.

Starla used the summer to lay low and keep her head held high at the same time. She even broke up with her BMW-driving boyfriend, Cameron Corelli. She’d planned on taking Driver’s Ed with Hayley, Taylor, Colton, and Beth, but Port Gamble’s disgraced It Girl backed out at the last minute. Her brother, Teagan, was still being evaluated by psychiatrists, and her mom was doing community service by going to schools and speaking about the dangers of the Internet and how cyberbullying had to be stopped. Kingston High was on the list of Mindee Larsen’s tour of shame, but Starla figured she’d do just about anything not to have her mom come and talk there. That would be the absolute worst. Starla knew a senior, a total marching band dork (tuba!) who she could easily persuade to phone in a bomb threat the morning of her mom’s school appearance.

Certainly, her brother’s and mom’s involvement with Katelyn’s death had knocked Super Starla down a bit, but she was far from finished. She thought of how Kim Kardashian married that what’s-his-name jock for five minutes, looked all tacky for breaking up with him, but was able to go on TV, tear up a little, and still keep all the cool wedding gifts. If Kim could hold her head up high, then so could she. Besides, when she made it big, Starla would be able to look Anderson Cooper in the face and tell him the backstory that made her pre-Hollywood misadventures seem like the boring middle part of a YA novel:

ANDERSON: You’ve had some challenges at home, haven’t you?

STARLA: That’s putting it mildly, Anderson. Basically, my mom and brother killed the girl next door—my bestie all the way back through grade school. It was devastating, for sure. I’ve dedicated my new CD in her memory.

ANDERSON: That’s great, Starla, but isn’t it true that you were involved with some of the cyberbullying aimed at your friend, Katelyn Berkley, which ultimately led to her death?

STARLA: I’m a little surprised, Anderson. This type of questioning seems more Maury or Inside E than I’d ever have expected from you. I’m the victim here, but I won’t be victimized anymore. I’m for empowerment. My first single, “I’m the Best Best (And You’re Not Not),” is about rising above it all.

“Starla?”

Starla snapped back into the moment and looked up as her mother breezed into the living room. Dressed in a headband-wide skirt and six-inch spiked heels that made the floorboards of house number 22 look like they’d been mauled by woodpeckers, Mindee Larsen smelled of permanent solution and her signature perfume, Poison. She’d just come home from Shear Elegance.

“What’s for dinner?” Starla said.

“Would it kill you to help out around here? I did fourteen heads today.”

“I still hate you for what you did to me,” Starla said, making a face and enjoying punishing her mom for the umpteenth time.

Starla got up from in front of the TV and went to the freezer. She opened it for a flash, and then slammed it hard, rattling its contents, before turning her gaze and glaring at her mother.

“There’s nothing to eat in this house!”

“I bought two hundred dollars worth of groceries yesterday, honey. The freezer and the refrigerator are full.”

“I don’t like any of that stuff,” Starla sniffed. “I want take-out.”

Mindee sighed. “Honey, I’m so tired.”

“Teagan is being evaluated by a team of shrinks. Your fault!”

Mindee picked up her purse and started for the door. “Chinese or pizza?” she asked.

Starla smiled. “Chinese, but not from Hot Wok. I want Mandarin Garden.”

Mandarin Garden was another ten miles away in Silverdale, but Mindee didn’t see that she had much choice. Starla relished her role as the consummate button-pusher, and Katelyn’s tragic death had given Starla the upper hand. Mindee felt so guilty over “ruining her daughter’s life” that she’d do anything for her—and Starla knew it.

Mindee had made her bed, so to speak, and her daughter, Starla, liked to keep the sheets up tight to her neck. So tight, that she couldn’t move unless Starla said so.

As Starla waited for her food to arrive she decided to call an old friend.