This is WAR (26 page)

So it was Madge who pulled her long gold chain off her neck and twisted the key in the tiny lock. It was Madge who gasped first when she opened the box to find it empty except for a single hundred dollar bill and a note scratched on a sheet of notebook paper.

“What the hell?” Lina’s voice bounced off the marble floors of the booth.

If I managed to get the key, why would I leave the money? Better safe than sorry, girls
.

“Now what?” Rose looked like she was going to be sick.

“I could probably get my parents to give us some more money.” Sloane twisted her own key thoughtfully.

Lina collapsed into a worn leather club chair. “They’ve had their fun; we gave it our best shot, I think it’s time to call it a day. At least now we can all stop faking it and get on with our lives.”

“You’re kidding right?” Madge could barely even process Lina’s words. “You really think they’re just going to leave well enough alone now? That they’re not going to do everything in their power to make it look like I killed my sister?” Her chest was tight and her legs went numb. It wouldn’t be hard to make her look guilty. She’d been so angry with Willa. She’d said so many awful things. She’d left her on that boat with both Gregorys. Madge’s lungs tightened and her chest heaved. No air. There was never enough air. Willa. This was what it must have felt like when she went under. When she couldn’t breathe.

“Oh my God, what’s wrong with her? What’s happening?” Madge heard Sloane’s voice but she couldn’t see her.
She was too focused on getting air to her lungs to realize that her eyes were squeezed shut.

“I think it’s a panic attack. Move back, you guys! She needs to sit down.” Rose’s voice was insistent.

Arms guided her carefully into a chair and forced her head between her knees. Madge felt the weight of her friends’ hands on her shoulders, rubbing her back and holding her hand. They fixed her, pieced most of the broken parts back together. Her lungs opened. This was it. There was no turning back. The money was gone. Madge closed her eyes and let herself swim in the blackness a little longer.

“I know what we can do,” she said.

The words were out of her mouth before she could even lift her head from her lap. When she was finally upright and the room settled back into focus, three sets of eyes sized her up.

“You can’t be serious. This is over. We’ve lost everything.” Lina’s voice was incredulous, her tattooed arms twined together to stave off the chill of the air-conditioned bank.

“Exactly. Listen to yourself. We’ve lost everything. There’s nothing left to lose. They’re going to come after me anyway. Now is the time to strike.”

“But there’s no money.” Sloane stared at the empty deposit box.

“We don’t need money. We have information.” A slow smile twisted Madge’s lips. “Does that one guy you’re always bitching about still do web design? Jude What’s-his-Face?”

“Uh, yeah, but I don’t think it’s a good …”

“Call him.” Madge sat straighter, tugging at the key around her neck.

“But are you sure? I mean he’s kind of—”

“Call.” Madge held out her cell phone to Sloane. Rose and Lina leaned in, softening.

“But we only have a hundred dollars, and I’m sure it costs way more …” Sloane looked around the walls of the bank desperately searching for some kind of out.

“Call!” This time the voices of all three girls rang out in unison.

Sloane stared at them for a minute and started to giggle. It was so unexpected. So out of place in the stodgy bowels of the bank that Madge felt a laugh bubble up in her throat. Pretty soon they were all at it. A tear-streaming, stomach-aching kind of laughter echoing off the close walls.

“Everything okay in here, ladies?” The bank manager knocked on the door to their tiny room, but none of them could pull themselves together enough to respond.

Madge knew it was hysteria, gallows humor, but it was laughter all the same. Madge couldn’t remember the last time it had felt this good.

Chapter 29

When it came to Sloane, Jude Yang always said yes. Madge reminded herself of this as she paced the attic floors. Sloane occupied her normal seat by the window, forehead meeting the glass. Lina’s legs were pulled to her chest, her cheek resting on a knee. Rose sat ramrod straight in a chair, her crossed leg shaking rhythmically.

When he knocked, everyone stopped. Madge rushed to the door, but Sloane beat her to it, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll open it.”

Jude was bathed in Yale paraphernalia as usual, his computer bag slung across his body. Madge started talking the second he set foot in the room, taking him through every step of the plan and swearing him to secrecy. He stared at Sloane the whole time, the way he always did, with a mixture of clumsiness and infatuation. Madge knew then that secrecy was a given, that they had this in the bag. She fought back hope, though. Hope was too dangerous. Better to cling to desperation.

“Let’s do this,” he said simply.

For the next several hours, the girls hovered over the screen as he typed mysterious codes into his computer and asked questions about color, font, and format. Lina emailed Jude the pictures she’d gathered from social sites, or scanned from the pages of the yearbooks and newspapers that were still stacked in the corner. The website began to take shape and chronicled the sordid true story of the Gregory brothers. James naked on the beach. Videos of drug deals. Close-up stills of tiny white pills. They dug up photos from the boys’ casino parties, stacks of money, and hordes of alcohol. Violet Garretson’s picture was uploaded as well, along with a statement she’d sent Madge in response to an email about her experience with James and her subsequent exile from the Club. But most importantly: Willa. Her picture and their first-hand accounts of what transpired on July Fourth all told Willa’s story with unflinching honesty. Their War published on the Internet, for the world to see.

“You sure about this?” Jude shifted in the uncomfortable chair to acknowledge each of the girls. He looked greenish. Madge couldn’t blame him. It was a lot to swallow.

Three heads bobbed up and down. Not Madge’s. Hers shook.

“Wait, it’s missing something.” Her lips pursed as she thought. “We need a comments section. A place where girls can tell their own story. For every Willa, there’s a Nadia or a Kira. They all deserve to be heard.”

Jude nodded. “Easy enough.” He typed into the keyboard for a couple of minutes and then turned back around. “Good?”

“Good.” The girls echoed.

He hit one key with a final flourish.

• • •

As they exited the
attic, pushing open the great painting that hid the space, noon light spilled into the parlor in bright stripes. Jude refused to take the remaining hundred dollars. He said he couldn’t “in good conscience,” given what he now knew. He flushed when Sloane swept him up in an awkward hug, then he hurried off. Madge wondered if he’d ever come back to the Club again.

Rose steered everyone down one of the winding hallways toward her mother’s office, but Madge hung back a step. Her finger trailed the wall, almost as if to anchor herself to it. She knew in a matter of moments, her life would change once again.

No matter how many times she told herself that starting the War wasn’t going to bring back her sister, she still saw Willa swimming up to that sandbar. She would grab Madge’s hand and apologize for not holding it during the fireworks, for taking so long. Madge would let herself cry then, sobs wracking her thin shoulders at what could have been. But as she stared down the hall at her friends it was as though someone had flipped a switch forcing her to squint through the harsh light of reality. All at once, she knew Willa wasn’t coming home. She could wait forever, punish herself, fight, but Willa was gone. She had to let her sister go.

The door to Mrs. McCaan’s office was closed, but Rose didn’t bother knocking, she just threw it open and stormed right inside.

The office was empty.

“Mom?” The word echoed against the dusty walls. “Okay, we’re good.” Rose flipped the laptop open and pulled up her mom’s email system and selected the mailing list for the entire
Club. With trembling fingers she typed in the web address www.thisiswar.com and hit send.

It was done.

Madge was the first one to leave. The girls followed behind, their footsteps silent on the padded carpets that lined the Club’s halls. She led them outside, past the pool and then farther onto the beach. As she made her way closer to the edge of the water, she kicked off her shoes—the sand smooth on her feet, the water tickling her toes. The girls did the same. She sat close enough to the water’s edge that the tiny waves lapped at her feet. She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the sun. The heat felt good on Madge’s cheeks, but the weight of Lina’s head on her shoulder felt even better.

“For Willa,” Madge whispered.

“For Willa,” Lina echoed.

It didn’t take long.

By the time the girls had returned to the Club pool, there were over 100 comments on the site. (The pool was also conspicuously deserted.) All were from girls who had been abused, disenfranchised, or otherwise maligned by the Gregory family. Madge didn’t bother going home. She knew it was useless to hide. Instead she dangled her feet into the water and read the comments one by one, trying to guess who they belonged to. The girls sat behind her, sprawled out on various lawn chairs. Sloane snored softly while Rose kept checking her phone, no doubt waiting for the axe to fall from her mother. Lina followed the stories on her phone, reading the particularly scandalous entries out loud for everyone’s benefit.

Madge tried to savor what felt like a carefree moment. It wouldn’t last. Nothing did.

When she felt a shadow chill her skin, she knew it was over.

“Ms. Ames-Rowan, I’m afraid there’s a rather pressing issue we need to address in my office. Immediately. Do you mind?” The Captain’s rough hand gripped Madge’s bare shoulder. He glanced at the other girls, but there was no question in his eyes, only command. Madge nodded at her friends. The girls stood silently and departed, leaving Madge trapped beneath his calloused fingers. True, she didn’t expect them to put up a fight right then and there. She couldn’t help but feel abandoned. Then again, maybe she deserved it.

The Captain ushered her toward the massive mahogany doors of his office. She had no idea what lay behind them, but it didn’t matter anymore. Yes, Madge and her friends had lost the War. But with the birth of the website, Madge hoped the Gregorys couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. The Captain pulled the door open and Madge took one hesitant step inside. There, waiting in antique club chairs so old that the leather cracked and peeled around the edges was Trip Gregory, Detective McCaan, Carol, and her father. Madge felt her knees buckle as the Captain closed the doors. But it was the sight of Willa’s phone on his desk that finally sent her tumbling to the floor.

Chapter 30

All Madge could remember about the previous day were eyes.

The Captain’s were sharp and predatory, flicking around the room in search of a target, his aim impeccable. When they landed, it burned. Detective McCaan’s were tinged pink and puffy as though he’d been crying or hadn’t slept for weeks. He rubbed them repeatedly, which only seemed to make things worse, the corners pulled down in perpetual worry. Trip’s were a watery blue, the most attractive thing about him if you could ignore the way they sized you up, falling in all the wrong places. And from what she could see of her father’s and Carol’s, they were vacant, cloudy, unseeing. Of course much of that was speculation. They could barely look at her.

And now she was locked in the house. Whispers trailed down the hall from her parents’ bedroom and slipped beneath the crack of her door like ghosts.

“You saw the phone. The messages she sent to Willa. They found her out on that sandbar. Maybe that’s why they wanted us to stop the investigation. They must have known …”

So strange how Madge hadn’t regretted typing that text to Willa at the time. She’d wanted to say something even worse as her sister sped away with James. The anger had tasted bitter on her tongue.
i’m gonna kill u. i mean it
. Those words were the last she’d communicated to Willa. That is, if you didn’t count the way she screamed her name over and over again from the sandbar, eyes wild and burning as they searched the endless black.