The Cheerleaders(92)

Upside down. They were upside down. With trembling hands, Ginny unbuckled her seat belt. Next to her, her father was motionless, blood trickling down his face.

Ginny lowered the window and climbed out, the scene swirling around her. The truck had flown over the guardrail; the ground sloped below her, her feet sucking into the mud. The water from the lake below was rising with the rain.

She stumbled up the hill back toward the road, her sneakers sounding like suction cups in the mud. She walked through the pain in her shoulder, or maybe her collarbone. She had never broken a bone before, but she imagined this was what it felt like.

Help, I have to help them—

Ginny came to a halt when the other car came into focus. It was split in half, the front end wrapped around a tree.

When she saw a limb, completely detached from its body, lying on the grass, she stumbled forward and vomited.

Both of the girls—Ginny thought they were girls, at least—in the car were dead. That much was clear. They were dead because of her father—or maybe it was her fault; she hadn’t answered him when he asked what music she wanted to listen to, and he’d gotten angry and taken his eyes off the road.

In both directions, there was only blackness and rain. Why wasn’t anyone coming? Where were other drivers? Ginny ran back across the road, sliding down the embankment, grabbing on to branches as she went so she wouldn’t fall. If she could get to her father’s cell phone, she could call the police.

That’s when she heard him moaning her name. The film of vomit still sour on her tongue, Ginny climbed over the embankment. Her father had managed to lower his window. His face was purple from the blood rushing to his head.

“Ginny baby,” he said. “I need you to unbuckle me so I can climb out.”

Ginny looked from his arm, twisted at an unnatural angle, to the blood dripping from his forehead. She thought of Mom’s eye, purple and swollen.

Daddy’s voice cracked through the pain in Ginny’s skull. “Now, Ginny. I’m fuckin’ bleeding over here.”

Ginny touched her eyebrow and examined her fingers, stained with blood.

Her father’s eyes were pleading. “Come on, baby. You gotta help me out of here. I can’t unbuckle myself.”

All she had to do was reach through the window, undo his seat belt so he could wiggle out the driver’s window. The embankment was flooding, the truck teetering, threatening to topple into the lake—

Daddy was screaming her name now. Thunder sounded over the lake, and she knew no one in the houses, if they were even listening, could hear his screams. She watched, one arm around the tree, as the truck rolled into the lake.

Then she turned and headed back up toward the road, away from the sounds of the sirens approaching, disappearing into the rain.

Hours later, when her mother got home and wanted to know why Ginny was lying in bed with a bag of frozen carrots pressed to her fractured collarbone, Ginny said her father had done it before he left.

It was the truth, after all.

She knew the image of that wrecked car would haunt her for the rest of her life, but what was there to gain from admitting what had really happened? Hadn’t her father gotten what he deserved for killing those two girls, for hurting her mother, for destroying almost everything he touched?

No, Ginny decided. She wouldn’t tell anyone.

There are some things not everyone has to know.





This book was a team effort with my editor, Krista Marino. Thank you for responding to my brainstorming emails in the middle of the night. Thank you for your patience, guidance, and enthusiasm (as well as our shared love of dark and creepy things).

Thank you to my agent, Suzie Townsend, who has been by my side for seven years and counting. I’m also so lucky to have the team at New Leaf Literary in my corner: Sara Stricker, Joanna Volpe, Mia Roman, Kathleen Ortiz, Pouya Shahbazian, Chris McEwen, and Hilary Pecheone.

Thank you to the team at Random House Children’s Books: Monica Jean, Barbara Marcus, Beverly Horowitz, Cayla Rasi, Elizabeth Ward, Kate Keating, John Adamo, and rock star publicist Aisha Cloud.

Thank you to the Sleuthers, the best fans a gal could ask for: Mithila, Brittany, Gabriella, Ashley, Maren, Eileen, Natasha, Ryley, Olivia, Emily, Chelly, Anna, Angel, Jess, Joe, Lisa, Jordan, Inah, Rachel, Bianca, Kristen, Nicole, Alice, Bailey, Danielle, Diana, Emma, Sarah, Veronica, Whitney, Jeddidiah, Stephanie, Jessica, Hazel, Kaitlin, Tawney, April, Amber, Hallie, Krysti, Kat, Jessica, Troix, Desirai, Regina, Meigan, and Kester.

To my patient husband and family and my friends, especially my hags.