A sour taste welled in Hanna’s mouth.
Liam closed his eyes. “I’m sorry to unload that on you. I just don’t have anyone else to talk to about it.”
“It’s okay.” Hanna touched his leg. “I’m glad you told me.”
“They hate each other now. It’s a horrible thing to watch. I remember when they only had eyes for each other. I learned all of my lessons about love from them . . . and now I feel like they were all lies.”
“People fall out of love,” Hanna said sadly.
Liam looked at his phone, then tossed it back into his pocket and took Hanna’s hands. “I have an idea. Let’s get away from all this for a while. How about South Beach? I bet you look gorgeous in a bikini.”
Hanna was surprised at the abrupt change of subject, but did her best to play along. She ran her hands over Liam’s shoulders. He had the strong, taut body of a swimmer or a tennis player. “Sounds great. I love the ocean.”
“I could book us our own private bungalow right on the water. We could have a private butler who serves us all of our meals in bed.”
Hanna blushed and giggled self-consciously at the word bed. But even though it was crazy, she was half tempted to take Liam up on the offer. Not only was he gorgeous, Miami was a zillion miles away from A.
Suddenly, as if on cue, her cell phone beeped loudly in her bag. Irritated, she reached into the pocket to silence it, but then she noticed the alert on the screen. ONE NEW TEXT MESSAGE. Her heart began to pound. She glanced around the bar to see if anyone was watching. A bunch of girls giggled in a nearby banquette. The bartender handed a guy a drink and some change. And then she noticed a figure slipping behind the curtains at the back of the room. Whoever it was wasn’t very tall, but Hanna could sense that he or she had been watching.
“Just a sec,” Hanna murmured, tilting away from Liam and opening the text. Her stomach sank when she realized it was from the person she dreaded most.
Hannakins: Before you two get too comfy, better ask to see his driver’s license. –A
Hanna frowned. Driver’s license? What the hell would that tell her? That he wore corrective lenses to drive? That he was a resident of New Jersey, not Pennsylvania?
She slipped the phone back into her bag and turned to Liam again. “Anyway, you were talking about South Beach?”
Liam nodded, sliding closer to her. “I want to have you all to myself.”
He bent to kiss her. Hanna kissed back, but A’s message needled her. A was horrific and scary, but Hanna knew better than anyone that A’s information was usually right on. What if Liam had herpes sores all over his mouth in his picture? What if he had a different nose? Or what if—horrors—Liam was freakishly young-looking for his age and was actually in his forties?
She pulled away. “You know, I technically have a rule,” she said shakily. “Before I go on vacay with a guy, I have to see his license first.”
A bemused smile appeared on Liam’s face. “Luckily my license picture is awesome.” He reached into his wallet. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Deal.” Hanna grabbed her Louis Vuitton wallet from her bag and handed him the new license she’d gotten only a few months ago. Liam handed Hanna his license in exchange. When Hanna studied his image, relief flooded her. He looked gorgeous. No herpes sores. No altered nose. And he was two years older than she was, not in his forties. Her gaze traveled over the rest of the license. When she noticed the name, her eyes skimmed right past it. But then she stopped and looked again.
Liam Wilkinson.
Hanna’s heart leapt to her throat. No. It couldn’t be.
But when she looked at Liam, the evidence was all there. He had the same brown eyes as Tucker Wilkinson. The same lazy, people-love-me smile. Even his thick eyebrows were identical.
Liam’s head shot up, Hanna’s license in his hands. His face went pale. Hanna could see the connections forming in his mind. “You’re related to Tom Marin,” he said slowly. “That’s why you were at Hyde last night.”
Hanna lowered her eyes, feeling like she was going to vomit all over the velvet couch. “He’s . . . my father,” she admitted, each word filling her with pain as it spilled out of her mouth. “And your father is . . .”
“Tucker Wilkinson,” Liam finished dolefully.
They stared at each other in horror. And then, over the sounds of the frat boys chanting Chug chug chug, the music, and the ice clacking together in the martini shaker, Hanna heard a far-off giggle. She turned and stared at the long glass window that faced the street. There, plastered on the window, was a ripped, neon-green piece of paper. It didn’t take Hanna long to realize it was a piece of a Tom Marin flyer her dad’s aides had passed out at the flash mob last night. The edges were raggedly torn so that only her father’s face and a single letter from his name remained.
A lone, bold A.
Chapter 14
SPENCER FREES HER MIND
The following afternoon, which was gray and cold, Spencer pulled a plaid scarf around her neck, stepped onto the curb on a side street in Old Hollis, and stared at the rambling Victorian house in front of her. Frowning, she checked the address on the drama club call sheet one more time. She was standing in front of the Purple House, aptly named because of the brilliant purple paint that covered every inch of its siding. The house was an institution in Rosewood—when Spencer was in sixth grade, she, Ali, and others used to ride bikes up and down this street, whispering the rumors they’d heard about the people who owned the place. “Someone told me they never bathe,” Ali said. “The place is crawling with bed bugs.”
“Well, I heard they host orgies,” Hanna added. Everyone let out a collective Ew, but then a face had appeared at the window of the Purple House and they’d all quickly biked away.
Murderer.
Spencer paused from climbing up the front steps, her heart shooting into her throat. She stared at the quiet, almost vacant-looking houses on the street. A shadow slipped behind a pair of metal garbage cans in the alley.
She shivered and thought of her most recent note from A. Maybe her friends weren’t convinced that Kelsey could be their new evil text-messager, but it was the most logical answer. Spencer had ruined Kelsey’s life. Now Spencer had to stop her before Kelsey ruined hers—and her friends’, too.
Over the summer, Spencer and Kelsey had become fast friends. Kelsey had confessed that after her parents had gotten divorced, she started acting out and fell in with a wild group of girls. She’d gotten into pot, and then started selling it. During a locker search at school, security found her stash. The only reason she wasn’t expelled from St. Agnes was because her dad had recently donated a science wing, but her parents threatened to send her to a super-strict Catholic school in Canada if she stepped out of line again.
“I decided to turn things around,” Kelsey said one night as she and Spencer lay together on her bed after a night of studying. “My parents refused to pay for it, saying it would be a waste after all the trouble I’d gotten into, but amazingly, a nonprofit I’d never heard of swooped in at the last minute and gave me a scholarship to go to the Penn program. I want to show my parents it was all worth it.”
In turn, Spencer told Kelsey about her troubles, too—well, some of them. Like how she’d been tortured by A. How she’d stolen her sister’s paper and passed it off as her own for the Golden Orchid prize. How she wanted to be the very best all the time.