33

4:15 p.m.

Devlin Residence

Twenty-First Avenue South

Birmingham

“Please, Tori,” Kerri pleaded, “tell me if there’s anything else we need to talk about? I can’t help if I don’t know.”

Tori sat on the sofa, her elbows resting on her knees, her face in her hands. Kerri had never seen her so desolate. To say she looked as if she’d lost her best friend was the understatement of the century. She had lost her best friend as surely as if she had died, but this went well beyond that kind of loss and pain.

This was the agony of betrayal. The level of betrayal only a best friend could wield.

Tori leaned back against the sofa. “They all believe her. And why wouldn’t they? We’ve been friends forever.” Her eyes closed in misery. “I just can’t imagine why she said such a thing.”

“Did Sarah ever talk to you about wanting to hurt Brendal? Or to Alice that you know of?”

Tori moved her head side to side. “She said she hated her. We all said that at one time or another. You know when you get angry, you say things you don’t really mean. At least not completely.”

Kerri nodded. Her back to the arm of the sofa, she pulled one knee under her so she could sit facing Tori. “I know exactly what you mean. There was someone in my freshman class who made me feel that exact same way.” Kerri sighed as the memories instantly tumbled into her mind. “My sort-of-hate girl was Lola Gray.”

“Lola?” Tori’s lips twitched as if she might smile. “Are you talking about Piper Knox’s mom?”

“She was a Gray back then,” Kerri admitted. “She was the mean girl that year. She’d come into her more grown-up assets earlier than most of us, and she had perfect skin and perfect teeth—no braces required. She lived to make the rest of us girls feel inferior—which was completely unnecessary, because we already did.”

“But she didn’t die.” Tori’s face fell. “And your best friend didn’t finger you for pushing her down the stairs.”

“No. But I did play a dirty trick on her once.” Kerri had never admitted this to anyone. Ever. Not even Diana or Jen.

Tori’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What did you do?”

“We were seated on the bleachers awaiting the start of the pep rally. Lola was on the row above me, her feet sort of between me and the girl next to me. Lola was always so full of herself and bragging to anyone around her that she never noticed me fiddling with her sneaker laces.”

“You did not?” Tori said in disbelief, her eyes even wider now.

“I did. I tied those suckers together. When the pep rally was over and it was our turn to leave, she took a tumble. She busted her lip and hit her nose, so there was lots of blood. Scared the heck out of me. Luckily there were no serious injuries. She was, at least temporarily, mortified with the swelling and bruising.”

“Did you feel like you’d made her pay just a little?” Tori asked, her eyes closely searching her mother’s.

“For about three seconds and then I felt like a total jerk. I kept thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened. She could have been gravely injured. I was lucky it wasn’t far worse.”

“Wow. I can’t believe you did something like that.”

“We all have our moments, Tori, where we say or do something we regret later. Maybe it feels or sounds right at that moment because we’re upset or hurt. But we realize in the end that it was a mistake.”

Tori seemed to realize what her mother was getting at then. “I didn’t do it, Mom. I didn’t push Brendal or tell Sarah to do it. I don’t know why she said I did. It’s not true.” She shook her head. “I didn’t do it.”

“I never believed you did,” Kerri assured her. “I just wanted you to understand that we all make mistakes. If the idea was discussed prior to what happened—”

“It wasn’t,” she cried. “I swear. We never talked about hurting Brendal. Never. We did talk about how we hoped everyone saw her for what she was one day, but we never—at least I know I didn’t—took any sort of step to make that happen.”

“Let’s talk about Sarah,” Kerri offered. “Have you noticed any issues with her recently. Depression? Anxiety? Anything going on with her parents?”

“No way. She was hurt by the things Brendal was saying and doing, but she knew it would pass eventually. Brendal never stayed focused on one person too long. Sarah and I knew she would move on eventually.”

“What about Alice? How was she in all this?”

Tori took a big breath. “She’s the one who kept saying Brendal needed to understand she couldn’t treat people so badly. She didn’t like her at all. Honestly, I think she was jealous of her.”

“She never suggested any recourse one or all of you should take?”

“No. She just kept bringing Brendal up. Rubbing it in, sort of. I didn’t consider that was what she was doing at first, but looking back, I can see how she wanted to keep the drama going.”

Kerri thought of all that Jen had seen in the Cortez home. “Did Alice talk much about the masks and the drawings she likes so much? The ones at her house, I mean.”

“They’re part of her beliefs.” Tori shrugged. “Like her religion. She thinks they give her magical powers because she’s a princess.”

“Did she ever try and prove this theory to you?”

Tori bit her lip as if she wasn’t sure she should tell this part.

“Don’t hold back,” Kerri urged. “It’s the only way I can help.”

“The last time Sarah and I spent the night at the same time, Alice talked about how if we were her real friends that we could become like her—a part of her. She said we’d be the most popular girls in school if we stuck with her. She told us this over and over. Kept reminding us of how amazing we’d be.”

“Was she attempting some sort of brainwashing?” This was sounding more and more like exactly that sort of pressure tactic.

Tori shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Kerri reached out and squeezed her hand. “Whatever she was attempting to do, I don’t believe you or Sarah did anything bad. We are going to get to the bottom of what did happen.”