Chapter 26

"What do you mean you're sorry?" But I ask the question like I'd rather not know the answer.

Jacey tugs on my arm again.

Grant's hands go to his temples, and he backs away from us. "I found Piper in Mr. Davis's office after school. She was in bad shape. Honestly, I thought she was out of her mind. She was mumbling and panicky. Talking about the soccer drug scandal."

So, Piper was working on the story. I'm an idiot. Deep down, I knew she hadn't joined Survival Club out of some sudden urge to become more adventurous. But after laughing at her, I never pressed her on it.

Even before the chemistry tests, I was a terrible sister.

"Mr. Davis wasn't there," Grant continues. "I guess she was snooping around, looking through the soccer files. She found the random drug tests, and some were missing, including mine. So she went all journalist on me, trying to get more info." He shrugs like that's all there is to it, and I want to take one of these tent stakes and bludgeon the rest out of him.

"What did you tell her?" I grip the tent pole nearest me like I might collapse without it.

"That Mr. Davis was having some of us retested because we…cheated."

"Cheated?"

"I wasn't using, Savannah, I swear. But I did help some of the other guys pass. It didn't work, though. So Mr. Davis didn't send the tests to the athletics association." He presses a knuckle to his jawline. "Maybe it was shady—I don't know. I just saw it as our coach being there for us. It definitely doesn't mean he had anything to do with Piper's accident."

"It does," I manage to get out, my mind on the audio recorder zipped inside my jacket pocket. On the tape and the rope. "I found Piper's hair matted in Mr. Davis's roll of duct tape."

"What?" Grant shakes his head.

"It was a long, wavy blond hair."

"Mr. Davis has a blond wife," Grant says, forcing my next argument back down my throat. "They go camping together all the time. He told us that at the first meeting."

A wife. Of course Mr. Davis has a wife. He mentioned her the first day of chemistry. I've never seen her photo, though. Never even tried to picture her. I guess with the way the girls at school admire Mr. Davis, it's easy to forget that his heart is at home with the woman he married.

"So, what happened after you told Piper about the drug tests?"

"She sort of…blackmailed me into giving her more information." Grant's gaze shifts to the mountaintops in the distance. "So I told her the only thing I knew: the name of the dealer the guys on the team were buying from." His voice drops even lower, forcing me closer, though every nerve in my body resists. "I had no choice. She was going to write the story either way. She said she was backed into a corner and this was the only thing that could save her."

"And did she try to track down the dealer?" Jacey asks timidly.

"I don't know," Grant says, lifting his hands in surrender. "But, I mean, if Piper wanted to talk to him, she wouldn't have had to go very far. He was right there in the parking lot when I left her."

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" I ask.

"Because, Savannah! I knew it was my fault for leaving her! I knew she was all messed up. What was I going to do? Tell you I saw her right before she threw herself off a cliff but didn't call anyone or do anything to prevent it?"

"Yes! Then maybe we'd have known she didn't try to kill herself! She said the wrong thing to the wrong drug dealer and nearly got killed for it."

"Savannah," Grant says, reaching forward like he might grab me. "I told you to keep your voice down."

"We're in the middle of nowhere. This drug dealer's not going to hear us all the way down the mountain, I can assure you."

Grant scratches his head, moves his hand down over the stubble on his chin, and breathes steadily, in and out. "The dealer's not down the mountain," he says so quietly I can barely hear him. He lowers his hands and checks behind the tent before he says, "The dealer is Sam."

I take a second, letting that settle. Jacey's jaw drops, and she stares at Grant. But I'm so tired, it's like my face won't work properly. So I smile.

Jacey catches it. "What's wrong with you, Savannah?"

"I'm sorry," I say, still fighting a grin. "It's just—Sam? He's so… flannel ."

Grant blinks, confused. Even though he got sleep last night, unlike the rest of us.

"He's not flannel ," Jacey snaps. "He's a knife-wielding psychopath. I don't know why we didn't consider him earlier. He's got ‘killer' written all over him."

"So, what do we do?" I ask. "We don't even know if Piper spoke to him that day, since Grant abandoned her at school."

"I'm sorry, Savannah," he says, voice worn. "I wish I'd said something."

Then a thought lashes me like a whip. My stomach curls up on itself. "Did you write the threat in Piper's pack? To keep her from finding out about the drugs?"

Grant's feet shift in the dirt, and I can't even look at him. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust him again. Not after the way he backed me into the tent. Not after I looked into his eyes and saw that darkness, something more sinister than I ever imagined, lurking beneath the bewitching surface.

"No wonder you didn't want me investigating that threat. You knew it would lead back to you, so you took the pack from the athletics locker."

"I only wrote it to protect her," Grant whispers. "Jaime Sanderson saw Piper spying on him and Coach. When she showed up in Survival Club a few days later, I knew why she was there. I had to send her a message before someone else on the team decided to handle her."

A cold wind whips through the trees, riffling the tent along with my jacket. I tug my hood up over my head to warm my ears. "And what about the note on our tent, Grant? I suppose that was to protect us too?"

Grant reddens, and pain pierces my chest. I don't want to be here anymore. "Savannah," he pleads. His fingers run through his hair, leaving it standing on end.

"Hey, guys."

I startle, my sneaker sending a rock skidding toward Grant's foot. Alexandra skirts the corner of the tent, her pink notebook tucked beneath one arm. She smiles brightly until she takes in the tableau: Jacey, Grant, and me. Not the prettiest picture any way you try to paint it.

Jacey smiles back, extra wide, and tugs at the neck of her pullover. "Hey, Alexandra. What's up?"

"Mr. Davis is wondering why this tent is still standing. He's antsy to head back down."

"I'm on it," Grant says, looking relieved to get off the topic of Piper.

I watch him as he bends over, yanking the last stake from the earth. Alexandra mouths, What's going on? I tip my head toward the woods and motion for her and Jacey to follow me.

I proceed to fill Alexandra in on Grant's version of events as she jots things down in her notebook. When I finish, she looks up at me, biting her lip. "It fits. Piper was following the story, and it led her to Sam."

"One thing doesn't fit," I counter. "In what universe would Piper approach a drug dealer, expecting him to spill?"

Alexandra shrugs, shutting the notebook. "She was desperate after what happened with the chemistry tests. She decided to throw herself into this story despite the risks. Maybe she thought getting a statement from Sam on the record would seal everything."

"I don't know." I run my tongue along my gums, feeling the grit on my teeth. "I can't picture it."

"Maybe it wasn't Sam she spoke to," Jacey offers. "Maybe she tried to get info from Abby. They were close, remember? And Abby didn't hesitate to throw me under the bus when Savannah questioned her. Maybe she was trying to get everyone to look at me instead of at her and her boyfriend."

Ah, Abby the walking musical. She certainly seems like the more approachable of the pair.

"So, they could've done something to Piper together," Alexandra says. She scribbles away in her notebook, teeth clamped on to her lower lip.

"It's a possibility," Jacey says.

I scratch at my hairline, scalp itchy now beneath the hood. "What do we do?"

Alexandra caps her pen. "We should try to find his phone so we can prove there's a connection between him and some of the soccer guys. And maybe we can track his activity if we see his texts from the day Piper fell."

"What if he wiped his texts from that day?" I ask.

"Then I would find that extremely suspicious, and I think the cops would too."

"How do we get his phone?" It won't be lying around. Pretty much everyone's wearing their packs, ready to hike back down.

"We should create a situation," Jacey says. "Something to distract Sam and Abby."

"Hmm, and what would distract our friendly neighborhood drug-dealing murderers?" I attempt to finger comb my hair, wincing when it snags on a broken nail.

A tangle of mischief and pride lights Jacey's eyes. "I think I have an idea."

After the way she totally screwed me over with her last plan, I naturally say, "Fine."