Dead Girls Don't Lie Read online

  “Yeah,” I throw back at her. “If it weren’t for Rachel getting herself killed, this would be, like, the perfect summer.”

  Taylor freezes, her mouth wide open. “Jaycee, I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Forget it, okay, just forget it. I need to cool off.” I stalk across the beach to the end of the dock and dive in, deep. I stay submerged, opening my eyes to the green-gray world that surrounds me, pushing myself forward until my lungs feel like they’re going to burst. When I finally have to surface I keep swimming, ignoring Claire and Taylor yelling at me from the shore. I’m nearly to the middle of the lake and beyond any of the other kids before I realize it. I catch my breath and dive under again. I’ve never swum across the entire lake before. I’m not allowed to, even though it’s probably less than a half mile across. Now I feel like I have to. Like making it across will erase Taylor’s stupid comment, or the text, or even the last six months.

  Like it will bring Rachel back.

  I’m almost to the far side when my fingertips meet something dark and stringy. It feels like hair. It looks like hair too, long, dark, silky hair. Rachel’s hair. I’m surrounded by a sea of dark hair, waving back and forth, accusing me, pulling me under. It tangles around my wrists and ankles, dragging me down. I strike out against it and get more tangled. I picture Rachel’s face in the water in front of me, her eyes closed like they were at the funeral. Her hair swirling, swirling around me, holding my arms down so I can’t move. I gasp for breath and take in water. I’m freaking out. Drowning.

  Something grabs my shoulders, pulling me up instead of down. I’m fighting against the pull, too panicked to realize what’s happening. Strong arms wrap around my waist and jerk me upward. My face breaks the surface. I choke out lake water, my chest heaves with relief, but I’m still freaking out. His skin against mine feels cold, like a dead body. I fight to get away, but he’s holding me tight with one arm and untangling the lake weeds from my wrists with the other.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.” He’s lying to me. Nothing is okay.

  When I look up, my eyes meet his. They’re brown and deep and calming. As soon as I stop fighting him, I realize who he is. Rachel’s friend, the guy who watched me across the field earlier today.

  I push him away, hard. “Let me go!” But he holds me in a grip that feels like steel bands.

  “Calm down,” he says. “I saved you.”

  “I didn’t need your help!” I yell back. He looks at me with a mix of amusement and something like pity. Then I realize that if he’s standing up in the water, so can I, even if he is a good head taller than I am. I put my feet down and stand up; only then does he release his grip.

  He stares at me long enough that it’s uncomfortable. Finally he says, “You’re her friend, Jaycee.” He emphasizes my name like it’s important.

  “Was her friend,” I correct him. I feel horrible for the way that sounds.

  His eyes turn cold and hard, like they’re made of stone; all the comfort I saw before drains out of them. He nods stiffly, and his chin clenches with pain. I get the feeling if I could push past the stones in his eyes, I’d see pain in them as deep as mine.

  The lake weeds brush against my legs, and panic bubbles inside me again. “I have to get out of here.”

  Without looking at me, he takes me by the arm and drags me out of the water. As soon as I’m on dry ground, I sit down on a log and tear off strands of lake weeds that are still sticking to my legs. I’m so scared and confused, I want to slump forward and cry. If I were alone, I think I would.

  He sits beside me, leans in, too close, and whispers in my ear. “I have a message for you.” He looks around. “From her.”

  I jerk back, startled, my heart pounding as hard as it was in the lake. I shake my head. “What?”

  “From her.”

  I shake my head again, afraid, but I don’t move as he picks up a drawstring bag sitting by the log. He pulls out a piece of paper and presses it into my still-damp hands. I take it from him. I’m trembling with fear or cold or what, I’m not sure. He watches me as I unfold it, gingerly around my wet hands. I gasp as I realize what’s inside. It’s the loyalty pledge that Rachel and I wrote in grade school, signed in Rachel’s blood and mine.

  The paper is yellowed and creased, written in Rachel’s elegant handwriting and signed with my fourth-grade scrawl and two thumbprints of dried brown blood. I close my eyes so I don’t have to read the words, “We promise to always stay friends and always protect each other.”

  I hate blood, even the little dried fingerprints of blood on the note. The sight of it always makes me sick. Rachel knew that. Even when we were little kids and we cut our fingers, she knew that, but she still made me do it.

  He takes the note from me and turns it over. He looks around him again and points at something written on the back. It’s Rachel’s handwriting, but not from fourth grade. There are two lines that look like they were written at different times:

  Don’t trust anyone but E. And then, The cross has the answer.

  My blood runs cold. I know the message is for me, but it doesn’t make any sense. “The cross has the answer” sounds like something religious, but Rachel hadn’t gone to church for months before she died.

  He leans close to me, reading over my shoulder.

  I whip my ponytail around to face him. “Where did you get this?”

  “She wanted me to give it to you. She said you would know—”

  “I’d know what?” My voice raises with fear.

  “Shh,” he says. Then I realize why he was leaning so close. We aren’t alone. I turn around and look farther up the bank. It looks like I swam into some kind of party.

  Tan faces and dark hair, like Rachel’s, surround me. My eyes flit from face to face, but none of them are familiar, and they’re all watching me. I stand up quickly and shove the paper back into his hand, like it is evidence I shouldn’t be caught with.

  He leans into me again. “We can trust them. At least”—he looks around again—“most of them.” He stands up and turns his back on me. “Later.” Then he melts into the crowd of people. I’m alone. It feels like I’ve crossed the border into another world. I’m not sure if I should go back into the lake or how to get away. Maybe the reason my dad didn’t want me to swim across the lake didn’t have anything to do with the distance.

  Someone touches my shoulder and I jump. “Are you okay?” The girl talking looks like she can’t be much older than me, but I’ve never seen her at school.

  “Fine.” My voice sounds hoarse and shaky.

  “Hungry?” As young as she is, she’s hovering over me, the way Araceli used to. “There is plenty.”

  A few feet away, tamales wrapped in corn husks sizzle over an open fire. Next to them a woman is flipping fresh tortillas over a propane burner.

  “No, I’m okay.” But despite everything, the smell of fresh tortillas is making my mouth water.

  “Please.” She pushes a fresh tortilla into my hands.

  I accept it, still shaking.

  Another woman with a curved back and gray hair drapes a scratchy wool blanket across my shoulders. “To make you warm.” She chooses her English words carefully, like she doesn’t have very many to use.

  I roll up the tortilla and take a bite of a thousand afternoons in Araceli’s kitchen, telling her about our day while she made homemade tortillas and gave us advice on everything from makeup to boys—things I couldn’t ask my dad about. But when the tortilla hits my throat it changes to a dry lump that gags me. I finish eating it because everyone is watching me, but I want to throw it into the lake.

  The girl who gave me the tortilla bends back over her cooking. I glance around at this other world, still wondering how to escape, but at the same time fascinated. Men, women, and children are milling around, coming in from the fields and going back to them. The women cooking over the fire fill the tortillas with a mixture of rice and beans from the pans in front of them. Then they pile th
e tamales and tortillas on paper towels. They speak in quick Spanish, too fast for me to pick out anything but a couple of words. Everything has a hurried but close atmosphere. The word “community” flashes across my brain, but this is a different community than the rest of Lake Ridge.

  While I watch them, somewhere between frightened and fascinated, a cloud of dust rolls in, a big silver pickup in the center. As soon as I see it, I know it’s out of place, but I don’t recognize it until Skyler steps out. The men stop eating and look up at him with suspicion. A little boy steps forward and points at the truck, a little girl hides in the skirts of the old woman. Skyler glances around him, looking almost as nervous as the little girl. There are two other people in the truck, Claire and Taylor.

  Claire stays in the truck, but Taylor gets out behind him, hurries over and throws her arms around me. “Cee Cee, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I stiffen and can’t return her hug.

  She leans into my ear. “Why did you come here?” She emphasizes the word, like crossing the lake is equal to crossing into enemy territory. “I thought you were going to drown. And when that guy …” She looks around, maybe realizing that her voice is too loud.

  I pull away. “I’m okay. The weeds at the edge of the lake kind of freaked me out.” I glance over and see Rachel’s friend watching me. He’s still wearing his gray tank top, soaking wet from going into the lake after me. Taylor shrinks against Skyler. He looks from me to my rescuer, his face a weird mix of fear and suspicion. Skyler says something under his breath to him in Spanish. It doesn’t sound like “thank you for pulling her out of the lake.” When Rachel’s friend answers back, it doesn’t sound like “you’re welcome.”

  I pull the blanket off my shoulders and set it on a log beside the woman who gave it to me. “Thank you,” I say. She smiles and nods as she fills another tortilla to give to the man waiting for it. I turn to thank Rachel’s friend, but he’s gone. I didn’t even find out his name.

  Skyler, Taylor, and I walk back to Skyler’s pickup. Claire is still sitting there, looking terrified. “Are you okay?” she says dramatically.

  “Fine.” I squeeze between Skyler and the gearshift in the cab of a truck that wasn’t made for four. Not wearing my seat-belt makes about the millionth of Dad’s rules I’ve broken today, along with no motorcycles, no talking to strangers, and no crossing the lake.

  “That’s so gross.” Claire points through the window. Next to the lake, two little boys, about two or three, are playing in the water, completely naked. Beside them, a woman is nursing a baby, her breasts only covered by the baby’s head. “They have, like, no shame at all.” Claire adjusts the straps on the tiny cups of fabric that pass for her bikini top. It’s the kind of swimsuit Dad would never let me wear. I stare at her, but she doesn’t catch the irony.

  I shake my head and look out the window, trying to catch another glimpse of Rachel’s friend.

  “I didn’t know you could speak Spanish,” Taylor croons to Skyler over the top of me. Maybe she’s in the market for a starter boyfriend.

  Skyler keeps his eyes on the road. “My dad has a lot of Mexicans that work on the farm. I picked up a few words.” He shrugs. “Most of them bad.”

  “What did you say to him?” Now Taylor is leaning so close to me that I can see the silver cross she always wears, crushed between her boobs. If he turned his head, Skyler could see it too.

  He doesn’t look, but after he shifts gears he sets his hand on my bare leg. “I just said hi.” The look on Taylor’s face tells me that she doesn’t believe that either.

  Skyler stops on the other side of the lake. Claire gets out, but Taylor lingers until Claire drags on her arm. When they finally shut the door, I’m left sitting next to Skyler, closer now than I need to be. I slide over, but not far enough that he has to move his hand. I’m not sure what I should say. The radio doesn’t quite cover our silence. Finally he says, “I need to get back to work. I drove over on my lunch break, to cool off.”

  “Oh,” I answer, moving toward the door.

  He grips my leg to keep me from leaving. “And to see you. Like I said I would.”

  “Oh,” I say again.

  “I got to the dock when you were about halfway across. I saw …” He grips the steering wheel with one hand and my leg with the other. “Where were you going?”

  I twirl my fingers around my wet ponytail, trying to figure out how to explain why I had to leave, why I felt so smothered by Claire and Taylor. “Nowhere, I just—”

  “Do you know that guy who pulled you out of the water?” His voice has a flash of jealousy, a flash of suspicion, or maybe just concern.

  “No,” I answer without looking at him, but the thought that he actually cares makes my heart thump. “But I think he’s one of Rachel’s friends, I mean he was—” I swallow.

  Skyler nods. “His name is Eduardo.” I look up quickly. Eduardo? Like the “E” Rachel told me to trust? “He worked for my dad last season. He’s kind of rough. Dad fired him after he caught a bunch of them smoking pot behind the silos.”

  “Oh.” I think about the headline I saw this morning. More than once I’ve heard people use the word “drugs” when I knew they were talking about Rachel. If he was a drug addict, why would Rachel tell me to trust him?

  “Anyway, not exactly the kind of guy you should be hanging around with.”

  If I were quick or brave, like Claire or Rachel, I would say something like, “Maybe you could give me an idea about the type of guy I should be hanging out with?” But I’m not them and anyway my mind is too full of other things.

  “I need to get back to work. My dad will kill me if I don’t finish that field today. Do you want to stay here and swim, or should I take you home?”

  The thought of going back into the water freaks me out, and I don’t think I can stand listening to Claire and Taylor barrage me with questions again. “Do you have time to take me home?”

  “Sure. No problem.” He turns around to back out, but Claire comes to the window.

  She taps on it, and Skyler rolls it down. She passes Skyler my bag and towel. “I got your clothes. In case you need them or something.”

  “Thanks,” I reply. When Skyler turns to hand them to me, Claire makes kissing faces at us through the window. I think Skyler sees her when he turns around. I want to dissolve into the seat.

  Between shifting gears, Skyler keeps his hand on my leg for the short ride home, but when he pulls up in front of my house, I get out quickly and don’t wait for him to walk me in. I’m not sure if we’ve reached the point where good-bye requires a kiss. I’m pretty sure I want him to kiss me again, only not right now, and not in front of my house where Dad might see. I wave and yell thanks from the front porch.

  “See ya later,” he yells back. He peels out as he throws the truck into reverse. I cringe, wondering if Dad saw him, and count to ten before I open the door.

  Dad is waiting for me, my phone in his hand. I freeze, terrified that he’s seen Rachel’s text. “I heard your phone buzzing from your bedroom. You got a text.” He holds out the phone. “Would you like to explain it to me?”

  My hands are shaking, but I try to hide it as I take the phone from him. I look down, bracing myself to read Rachel’s last words again. Instead I read:

  We need to talk.—E

  Chapter 6

  “Who is E? And where have you really been? And why did Skyler Cross bring you home?” Dad’s questions come at me fast. I blink, trying to process what he’s saying and how to answer. “Well?” His voice is calm, but I hear shakiness behind it, like he’s really mad, or scared—maybe both.

  I choose the easiest question to answer right now. “I was at the lake. Like I told you.” I indicate my stringy, wet ponytail, evidence that I really was where I said I would be. “I didn’t feel very good, so Skyler brought me home.” That’s mostly true.

  “And the text?” I can feel Dad’s eyes searching mine for traces of guilt. I’ve never been a goo
d liar.

  “It must have been a mistake.” I pretend to study the message so I can avoid his eyes. “I don’t recognize the number, and I have no idea who E is.” That part is mostly true. Evan? Eduardo? Neither one has my phone number. It probably is a wrong number. But it makes me remember what Rachel wrote on the back of the paper Eduardo tried to give me.

  Don’t trust anyone but E.

  Could this be the same E? The idea that this is a wrong number slips away.

  Dad lets out his breath, like he’s trying to stay calm. “I guess it could be.” He doesn’t sound sure. “But with everything that’s happened with Rachel and with …”

  Now I’m trying to get him to look me in the eye, mentally begging him to keep talking, to tell me something about what happened. To give me the chance to talk about it. Maybe even tell him about the paper and the lake and Eduardo. Maybe even about the night at the old house.

  But he shakes his head. “It probably is a wrong number.” I reach for my phone, but he holds on to it. “However, since you came home with Skyler without telling me you had changed your plans—”

  “I told you I got sick, and Skyler offered to—”

  He holds up his hand. “If you would have called, I would have come and got you.”

  “I didn’t have my phone, obviously.”

  “You know the rules, Jaycee. I gave you that phone so I could get ahold of you when I needed to and so you could tell me where you are and what you’re doing. If you aren’t going to use it for the purpose for which it was intended, I might as well keep it.”

  I stand there, tried, convicted, and sentenced. I don’t usually argue with Dad, but I can’t let him take my phone. “That doesn’t make any sense. I couldn’t call you to tell you my plans changed because I forgot my phone, so now you take my phone away so I can’t call you at all.”

  “Ironic, but fair I think.” Dad’s voice has a “the discussion is over” edge to it.

  “For how long?” I’m trying not to panic. Dad has a standing rule: he can check my texts at any time, for any reason. Until now there hasn’t been any reason for me to worry about that, but I can’t let him read the text I got from Rachel.