I Kissed Shara Wheeler(39)

She rips the key off, and when she puts it into the lock of the filing cabinet, it’s a smooth slide. She twists, and there’s the satisfying, hollow thunk of the lock opening.

“Perfect, this is the senior drawer,” Chloe says to Rory, already thumbing through files. “If it’s here, it’s probably in your folder, but we should check mine and Smith’s too. Come help me.”

Rory finally closes the desk back up and comes to hover at the side of the cabinet, staring at the tabs on the files. “Um.”

Chloe glances up. “What, this is your thing. Don’t get shy now.”

“Not that,” Rory grouses. “I—the letters are really small.”

“What?” Chloe slides Smith’s file out, moving forward to the G–H section. “Do you need glasses?”

“No,” Rory says. “I just think you should do this part.”

She pauses, holding Rory’s file, which is thick from what must be fifty pages of detention slips and complaints from teachers about how he doesn’t try in class. She remembers the way Rory wordlessly handed her Shara’s card in his room instead of reading the password to her, and the different inks in his songbook, like it took him days of fits and starts with different pens to get it all down. The directions in the ducts, the tape recorder—

“Ohhhhh,” she says, realizing at once. “You’re dyslexic.”

Rory stares at her. “What?”

“No time, explain later.” She spots the correct label sticking out of the drawer and points to it. “Mine is that one, with the purple tab.”

He passes Chloe her file, and she spreads all three out on the desk. As expected, the card is in Rory’s. Picture-ready pink, sealed in its envelope and paperclipped to a middling progress report.

Chloe opens it, and this time, she reads Shara’s words out loud.

Hi Rory (and also Chloe, I’m assuming),

Glad to see you’ve gotten this far. By my estimation, it should have taken you about a week and a half from prom night, based on when Dixon’s next house party was scheduled. Of course, that depends on if I’m right about Chloe being fast enough to find the note I left in the choir room before the party, but I know she is. And I know the card at Dixon’s house should have been exactly where I put it, because before I left, I texted him that if it was moved, I would tell Emma Grace and Mackenzie that he’s been feeling up both of them behind the other’s back.

And, well, I really do hope you’ve already found that one, because on Friday morning Emma Grace and Mackenzie are getting an anonymous Instagram message anyway. That’s one thing about me nobody knows: I don’t actually care about keeping my promises.

Keep going. You’re getting closer.

XOXO

S

P. S. I’ve heard you can take your heart back, but I don’t think you can. Up close, with the light in your eyes, all you can see is what’s right in front of you.

“She was blackmailing her own friends?” Chloe says as soon as she’s finished reading.

“I’m, uh, honestly more worried about how she predicted the exact day we’d be here,” Rory says.

“And sabotaging her friends’ relationships,” Chloe goes on. Vindication zips up her spine like a chill, and she can’t stop herself from smiling down at the card.

She knew there was a reason she didn’t like Shara, but she never had any concrete evidence against her, until now. And if this is the first piece, there could be more where it came from.

“I’m like, kind of starting to wonder if we should be … afraid of her?” Rory says.

Chloe ignores him, reading back over the postscript, zeroing in on the first line. She knows that phrase. But what does it—

From the front entrance of the offices, there’s the unmistakable sound of a door opening. The hum of a man’s voice carries through the walls, half-remembering the chorus of a Dave Matthews song.

“Oh my God.” Chloe is paralyzed on the spot. For the second time this evening, panic erupts in her chest like a Disneyland New Year’s Eve pyrotechnic show, whistles and flashes and sparklers spelling out YOU’RE SCREWED, CHLOE GREEN in the sky. “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod—”

Rory, who has already swept the files up off the desk and started cramming them back into the cabinet, whispers at her, “Don’t freak out.”

“What is he doing!” Chloe wheezes. “He should be home watching NCIS!”

“Chloe.”

“Oh my God, Smith was right, we shouldn’t have done this—”

“Chloe!” Rory says again, grabbing her shoulders. “The more you freak out, the more likely we are to get caught.” He gives her a little shake, and her anxious brain rattles unpleasantly. “Chill. This is the fun part.”

He’s got to be kidding. “The fun part?”

“We’ve all got our own ways to have fun in False Beach, right?” Rory pushes her up onto the desk. “You get horny for books—”

“Very reductive way to describe being interested in literature,” Chloe points out hysterically, reaching for the ceiling with numb hands. She can hear the jingle of keys in the hallway.

“—and I get away with shit,” Rory finishes. “So get up in that ceiling and get away with this.”