The Stranger Inside (34 page)

“
Hey
,” I typed.

Instantly she typed back: “
What were you and Kyle talking about?”

What? Who was Kyle? I didn’t have a clue. I texted: “
???
”

“
Kyle Ryan. The boy you were talking to
.”

I’d never talked to Kyle Ryan in my entire life. She was seeing things. Weird. “
I was talking to creepy Mr. Daniels
.”

“
I’m not sure about Kyle
,” she went on doggedly, making absolutely no sense. Why did she keep talking about Kyle? “
He
might
be able to help you. But he also might be on Ethan’s side
.”

Reading that made my stomach knot and my heart go spastic. “
What are you talking about?
”

“
Kyle Ryan—be careful of him. He’s part angel … but he’s also part demon.
Something
like that
.”

“
Kyle Ryan? From school?!
”

“
He might be able to help because you can both be near him—you and Kenzie—because he’s a little of both—angel and demon. But Jodi, he’s spooky.
”

Oh really? Hanna thought someone was spooky?

“
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
”

“
Forget it. You won’t remember anyway.
”

“
Remember what?
” I asked as I accidently cleared the conversation I’d just been having on my cell phone. What the …?

***

After school, Sawyer and I were trenched at his computer, scrounging everything we could find about Lindsey’s murder. Well, I was scrounging. Sawyer was trying to get me to stop obsessing. But I couldn’t. I felt responsible for Lindsey’s death. If I had just tried to help her, let Sawyer help her….

Ugh! I desperately wanted to discover that I was wrong—it wasn’t my fault, we couldn’t have prevented her murder. I needed to find that out. Had to. So I could breathe again.

Stuff about Lindsey was on everyone’s social pages. People blogged about her—her death, her life, her saintly-ness, her slutty-ness. Everything. We couldn’t decipher what was rumor and what was real. People were saying she was pregnant. People were saying it was Brody’s baby. People were saying it wasn’t Brody’s baby, that she was seeing another guy. People were saying she wasn’t pregnant at all. People were saying Brody did it. People were saying he didn’t do it, that he was at Lauren Jennings’s party that night. People were saying he left early. People were saying he didn’t leave early, he was in the back room with Tessa Stevens. People were saying Tessa Stevens is a slut.

It went on and on.

But Krista Harper, Lindsey’s best friend, blogged like she was an authority, saying Lindsey wasn’t pregnant, but she was seeing another guy besides Brody. “I don’t know who the guy was,” Krista wrote, “but I know he killed Lindsey. I know it.

“But the police! Geesh, they’re so clueless,” Krista went on. “They kept asking me about Lindsey’s earrings. Her earrings! I couldn’t believe it.”

Krista blogged on (and on and on), “This is what I kept telling them, when I could get them to listen: Lindsey was all irate that the guy broke up with her. (And I swear, she was scared of him too.) Only she told me she had some sort of ‘incriminating evidence’ on him. I don’t know what that was about—she wouldn’t say. But she was going to
blackmail
him. The afternoon before she died, she said—and these are her exact words—‘I’m going to make him pay through the nose.’”

The hairs on my arm stood on end and my heart started beating wild. I looked up at Sawyer. “Lindsey had information for you too. She was going to tell you that night—when we jumped her car. Did she?”

Sawyer looked away, rubbing his neck. He seemed disturbed. “No. She didn’t. I don’t think she really had anything. I really don’t.”

I got a weird, panicked feeling. ‘Cause Sawyer was acting dodgy. It had me sort of freaked. Because back at the beginning of the school year, Sawyer had thought Lindsey wanted money from him.

Did she?

What had that all been about—
Come and get it out of me, k?

“What?” Sawyer asked nervously. He got up. “Look, kids’ blogs aren’t going to tell you anything. They don’t know anything—the police don’t even know. If they had a clue, they wouldn’t be asking you about a stupid fight in the bathroom. They’d be picking up the guy—making an arrest.”

I just stared at him.

“Look, no more blogs, okay? Just news articles. Or better yet, just drop it.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Can’t you just drop it?”

“No, not really.” I bit my thumbnail, still unsettled. “Sawyer, it seems like we were the last people to see her alive. She was going to Dover’s Ridge to meet the guy. She was
murdered
at Dover’s Ridge.” Tears welled in my eyes. “We could have stopped it if we had just gone with her—if I’d let you go.”

Sawyer took me in his arms. “We couldn’t have stopped it.”

“Maybe we could have. Sawyer, I could tell she was scared. If I hadn’t been such a spaz—jealous that she was after you—you would have gone with her and the guy wouldn’t have killed her.”

Sawyer held me a while longer, and I let him. His arms were comforting, always comforting. But after my shivering stopped, I sat up, desperate to go back to task, find out what happened to Lindsey. I had to. I had to find out it wasn’t my fault she was dead.

But the news articles about Lindsey’s death were all pretty much the same. The police found remnants of Lindsey—blood and guts—at the rocky bottom of Dover’s Ridge, indicating she had been pushed off the cliff, splattered at the bottom, and then her body was moved.

Picked up and moved.

The article speculated that the perpetrator might have felt he needed to get rid of her body if he had any sort of physical altercation with her—afraid she might have proof of his identity on her body, such as his blood and skin in her fingernails, or his hair on her clothes.

But the thing was, Lindsey wasn’t dragged. It wasn’t a wild animal. She splattered to the ground, and then she was picked up and moved.

The more I read, the sicker I felt. I mean, I was nauseously ill. Who would do that? Push her off a cliff, then
pick up
her splattered, bloody body and move it?

Sawyer kept trying to lure me away from the computer, tempt me with food, a back rub, anything I wanted. But I couldn’t leave the computer … until Kenzie decided to do it for me.

Suddenly, the world was twirling out of focus, spinning away.…

***

“Did you tell her?” Zack asked as he straddled the chair at my desk.

“I’m not even sure she’s Jodi yet,” Sawyer said smoothing back my hair.

I squinted my eyes open. “It’s me,” I said groggily. “Tell me what?”

All the four of the guys were in my room. They looked so grave. It had me sweating. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Sawyer sat protectively beside me on my bed taking my hand.

“Tell her, man,” Zack said.

I looked at Sawyer, waiting, but he looked away, instead studying our entwined hands. My stomach knotted. The last thing I remembered was researching Lindsey’s death … then I must have turned into Kenzie. “Tell me what?”

Sawyer shook his head, looking lost for words. Finally, he let out a breath. “Okay,” he said to Zack. “Get out and I’ll tell her.”

I watched the guys file out of my room. Jeremy was the last to leave. He gazed at me, his eyes full of pain and sympathy as he shut the door, leaving Sawyer and me alone.

“What’s going on?” My voice was unsteady. I knew by the way Sawyer was acting—the way they were all acting—I didn’t really want to know. But I asked again. “What’s going on?”

Sawyer exhaled slowly. “Remember Lindsey’s car—at the hotel? How it seemed we started it up? Well, we didn’t. It kept dying. But you changed into Kenzie by then—so you didn’t know.”

My stomach knotted. “Sawyer, what are you saying?”

He stared out the window a minute, then back at me. “We took Lindsey to Dover’s Ridge.”

I let out a gasp. No! “What are you saying?”

He shrugged. “We took her.” He stared up at the ceiling, then back at me. “But we stopped at Zack’s house on the way and raided his dad’s booze. Then we took Lindsey to the Ridge, to wait for the guy she was going to meet. She said she was scared to wait alone, but we wanted to leave. So she said she’d pay us to stay, she’d give us each a hundred bucks to wait with her—to hide while she talked to the guy. So we waited. And while we waited, we drank—a lot.”

I clutched my stomach, felt sick.

Sawyer watched me double over for a moment, then shook his head slightly, his eyes sad. “Sorry, but you need to know.” He hesitated, but then went on. “We built a fire. We sat around it, passing around a bottle of vodka. Except Kenzie—Jeremy wouldn’t let her drink, and he didn’t drink any either, so he could watch her, you know, make sure she didn’t get into trouble.”

Tears welled in my eyes. Jeremy had kept his promise—he tried not to be alone with Kenzie and he didn’t let her drink. I didn’t know that.

Sawyer went on, sounding monotone, tired. “Lindsey didn’t drink the vodka, either. She said it makes her sick. But she was drinking beer after beer. And we were getting loaded and … things got out of hand.”

I gasped. “What are you saying?” I asked in horror, remembering the scratches on Sawyer. On Zack too. My stomach turned, ached so bad I had to clutch it, doubling over again. “Are you telling me you guys killed Lindsey?”

Sawyer shook his head, looking haunted. “We didn’t kill her,” he said. “Kenzie did.”

CHAPTER 39

“I killed Lindsey?” I gasped.

“Jodi, no.” Sawyer took me into his arms. “Not you, Kenzie.”

“But it was my body.”

“That’s why we weren’t going to tell you,” Micah said, he and the others had come back in the room. “We didn’t want you to have to know.”

“So, why are you telling me now?” I tried fighting back tears.

Sawyer held me tighter, trying his best to comfort me, but he couldn’t. I was beyond comfort.

Zack spoke up. “Kenzie’s trying to frame us for Lindsey’s murder.”

“Yeah,” Micah said. “She tried telling Jeremy we did it.”

I turned to Jeremy and he glanced away. He hadn’t collaborated their story. He hadn’t said anything.

“Jeremy, what happened?”

He shook his head, looking tormented. “Jodi, I don’t know, seriously. Kenzie and I, we weren’t drinking with them. We went out to my car and I fell asleep. I swear, I fell asleep. Lately, I’ve been so worried about you—at night, I can’t sleep. Then we were in the car—me and Kenzie—and seriously, I just fell asleep. I don’t know, maybe she put something in my soda. Maybe. Probably. Whatever. I fell asleep.”

He was quiet a minute, seeming to relive that night. A visible tremor went through him.

He looked agonized, haunted. “But Kenzie woke me up. She was hysterical. She was screaming, telling me the guys killed Lindsey—pushed her off the cliff. She showed me Lindsey’s body—shined a flashlight on it. Lindsey was at the bottom of the cliff—on the rocks, all smashed and mangled. And dead.

“And the guys, they were all passed out by the fire—totally gone.” Jeremy rubbed his face in his hands. “Kenzie called 9-1-1 anonymously, but I wouldn’t let her mention the guys. ‘Cause they wouldn’t do that. Jodi, you know they wouldn’t.”

Sawyer grabbed my arm, making me look up at him. “You know we wouldn’t, right? Right?”

I bit my lip, then nodded slightly. Because I knew they wouldn’t … pretty much. But I shuddered, remembering Sawyer and Zack’s scratches. I couldn’t get them out of my head. They both got the gashes the very night Lindsey was murdered. They were both so wounded—like there had been some sort of struggle. Like two very drunk guys doing something very wrong with a very drunk girl.

I felt sick.

“Jodi, we didn’t do it.” Sawyer sounded incredulous that I could even think otherwise. “We were drunk, yeah. But we passed out—all of us. Only, I came to a little bit. I sort of woke up and saw Kenzie fighting with Lindsey. I don’t know what about. And then she pushed her—pushed her right off the cliff.”

I stared at him, not really believing.

Sawyer looked incredulous. He shook his head in disbelief. Then, winced and slowly pulled something out of his pocket. An earring.

I stared at it a moment, confused. Then horror washed through me as comprehension dawned. I started to shake.

The earring was one of Mom’s dangling clip-ons. I’d been wearing the pair the night Lindsey died. I’d forgotten about them—until now.

“Lindsey grabbed your earring,” Sawyer said. “She was just grasping for something, anything, to keep her from falling. She pulled it off Kenzie, took it with her over the cliff.”

I drew my lips into a tiny, thin line, haunted by Krista’s blog—her ranting about the police interrogating her about an earring—my earring.

Sawyer went on, “The police have the other one. They must have found your earring on the rocks with Lindsey’s remnants. They have it as evidence.”

I swallowed.

“So we’re just keeping the earring,” Zack said. “For insurance. In case Kenzie tries pinning us for the murder.”

I glanced up at him, then at Sawyer. “But it’s me that would go to prison. It’s my body.”

“Right,” Sawyer said. “We won’t need to use it. Jodi, we won’t. She won’t try that. As far as she’s concerned, it’s her body too. The earring, it’s just to keep her from … being her.”

I glanced over at Jeremy and he shook his head. Gave me a grim look. “I really don’t know what’s going on.”

“I told you—Kenzie. Killed. Lindsey.” Sawyer stared into my eyes. “Jeez Jodi, why won’t you believe me?”

“Because you and the band have been acting all secrety since the night Lindsey died. And why would Kenzie do it? Why?” My eyes filled with tears. “She had no reason. But you—Lindsey had information about you. And you had scratches. You and Zack, both.” I gave out a tremendous sob, shaking. But I went on, full of reasons I didn’t believe him, reasons that made me tremble with grief and horror. “And Jeremy is the one who kept Kenzie from drinking—not you. But you said it was Kenzie that scratched you—for not letting her drink. You lied.”