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anyone. Don’t you think that’s a lot more likely than some high-school kids planning a murder?”
    “It may have been just one high-school kid.”
    “Look, I know a lot of people didn’t like Katherine,” he says. “But why would anyone want to kill her? You’re talking about Soundview. There hasn’t been a murder here in ten years.”
    And only one attempted murder … by my brother , I can’t help thinking bitterly.
    Slade leans back into the shadows. I can’t see his face clearly, can’t tell what’s on his mind. Maybe he’s thinking I’ll never be able to figure it out. Especially if at the same time the police are looking for me. Maybe he’s regretting that he came to get me. Maybe he’s wishing he never met me in the first place.
    “I’m sorry, Slade. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, and I understand why you don’t want to help me. You’ve already done way more for me than I deserve.”
    In the shadows, Slade doesn’t move or speak. I take a deep breath and reach for the door handle.
    Slade says, “Wait.”
    In early May, Katherine and Dakota weren’t speaking to eachother again. I’m not sure anyone at the lunch table gave it much thought. We just assumed they were having another one of their mysterious arguments. They both sat in their usual places at the table, as if neither was about to give up her position, no matter what. Both chatted and gossiped with the other girls. They just didn’t talk or gossip with each other.
    In fact, they didn’t even look at each other.
    But the next day Dakota didn’t show up. We’d seen her in school that morning, but now it was lunch and she wasn’t in the cafeteria. And that was how everyone knew that this fight was different.
    It happened during the final weeks of rehearsal for the spring PACE show. As the days passed, the situation at lunch grew stranger. How long would Dakota stay away? How long would Katherine preside over the table pretending nothing was wrong?
    “What’s going on?” Mia asked me one day as we walked down the hall toward gym.
    “Not a clue,” I answered.
    Mia had a habit of tucking her chin into her neck like a turtle when she looked at you. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. I mean, why would I know?”
    “You spend more time with them,” Mia said. “They invite you to do more things than the rest of us.”
    “Not more than Zelda and Jodie.”
    “Those two are in a world of their own,” Mia said with a shrug. “I just wish I knew what was going on. Are you sure you don’t know? Or are you just sworn to secrecy?”
    “What?” I asked, surprised.
    Even though we were in the hallway, surrounded by moving bodies and loud chatter from a dozen sources, Mia moved closer and dropped her voice. “The inner circle. Don’t pretend you don’t know. They make you swear an oath, right?”

Chapter 11
    Sunday 1:53 A.M.
    “You may be my closest friend, but that doesn’t mean you know everything about me.”
    “I know you better than you know yourself.”
    “I hate you when you say things like that. I’ll never be like you.”
    “Too late. You already are.”
    “It was Mia who invited me to the kegger,” I tell Slade in the pickup. “But it was Dakota who told me Katherine was missing and that everyone was looking for her. She even told me to check behind the dugout. And it was Dakota who led everyone else to me just moments after I found Katherine’s body. And you know what the first thing she said was? ‘You killed her!’ But how could she have known that? It was too dark to really see. Katherine still could have been alive. I was the only one who’d checked her pulse. Do you know what that means, Slade? Dakota already knew that Katherine was dead. She got Mia to invite me to the kegger and told her to tell me Katherine wouldn’t be there. That’swhy she told me to look near the dugout and then led everyone there. So it would look like I did it!”
    “You think Dakota killed Katherine?”
    “How else could