Page 91 of Deadly Little Scandals
“How did you find us?” I asked Campbell as we stepped into a clearing. The added moonlight now visible overhead cast just enough light that I was finally able to take in her appearance. “Also: nice robe.”
Beneath the scarlet robe, Campbell wore nothing but a thin white shift and long white gloves.
“When I was the only one of the four of us to show up for initiation,” Campbell said, “I was suspicious. When Victoria told me that Lily didn’t make the final cut, I assumed that you and Sadie-Grace had bowed out in solidarity, but then Victoria said that she’d heard from Lily—that Lily had said the White Gloves should expect both of you in attendance tonight.”
“She made us promise,” I remembered out loud. At the time, I’d been annoyed.
“How did you know we were on the island?” I asked Campbell again, wondering what strange alignment of the stars had caused Aunt Olivia to bring ushere.
“We knew you were here because once initiation wrapped up,” a new voice said behind me, “we asked Sadie-Grace’s little boyfriend to use the Find Your Friend app on his phone, and it told us your location was awfully close to ours.”
I turned toward the voice, nearly throwing Campbell off-balance. A moment later, two figures emerged from the woods—Victoria Gutierrez and a beaming Sadie-Grace Waters.
“I found help,” Sadie-Grace told me cheerfully. “And you found Campbell!” She paused for maybe half a second and then babbled happily on. “I’m wearing a smartwatch. Miss Olivia took our phones while we were unconscious, but she must have forgotten about my watch, so Boone was able to track it. You know, in a way, this means Boone found us. Very heroic.”
Even on the tail end of having been drugged, kidnapped, and thrown in a hole, Sadie-Grace glowed when she talked about Boone. I couldn’t help thinking that it would never occur to her to keep anyone at arm’s length. She didn’t protect her heart. She wouldn’t even have known how.
If I’d been the only one in that hole, there wouldn’t have been anyone to track me,I thought, the realization gumming up my brain like tar.Nick didn’t even know that I was gone.
“Yes, Sadie-Grace,” Campbell said with an elaborate roll of her eyes. “Boone is the real hero in all of this. Now, might I suggest we find Hope and get the hell out of here before the storm hits?”
“Hope’s here?” I asked.
“Everyone else cleared out after initiation,” Campbell replied. “But since Hope’s the one with good enough taste to have chosen me as her replacement, she hung back when I did.”
“She didn’t stay for you,” Victoria informed Campbell. “Hope lives on the edge. Shelikestrouble.”
“And she’s on this island,” I said. “Somewhere.”
I had no idea what, exactly, the person calling herselfOlivia Tafthad planned to do with us, or why she’d chosen this island as the place to do it, but given that we’d kept all things White Glove a secret from her, I had to believe that she’d expected this island to be as vacant and abandoned as advertised.
Thunder boomed in the distance. Victoria raised the hood of her scarlet robe and turned toward Campbell. “What do you think the chances are that Hope doubled back to the boats?”
“Only one way to find out,” Campbell replied. As we limped our way toward the east side of the island, I processed the fact that Victoria hadn’t asked a single question about why Sadie-Grace and I had missed initiation or why we were covered in dirt and still unsteady on our feet.
I wondered how much Sadie-Grace had told her.
I wondered how much of what Sadie-Gracehadtold her she’d believed.
The last twenty yards to the shore, I spent every step expecting “Aunt Olivia” to pop out of the shadows. Was she still on the island? Or had she left us, assuming that Sadie-Grace and I were well and truly contained?Or did she leave when she realized that we weren’t the only ones on the island?
“What the hell?” Campbell’s voice went up an octave as we arrived at our destination. “Where’s my Jet Ski?”
Even through the dark, I could tell that the gravelly beach on the east shore was bare.No boats. No Hope.
“My ride’s gone, too,” Victoria stated calmly. All four of us stared out at the water.
“Maybe they just floated away on their own,” Sadie-Grace said hopefully. “They couldn’t have floated far. We could wade out to find them?”
“We could,” Victoria allowed. “Or we could wait for daybreak. They’ll be easier to spot then, and worse comes to worst, we could just swim to shore.”
“I vote we swim for it now,” I said. “I know it’s dark, but Campbell’s cove isn’t far.” That idea was not met with any level of enthusiasm. “Night swimming,” I cajoled. “Gliding our way through pitch-black water with only the scantest moonlight to guide us. Seems like a White Glove kind of thing to do. Hell, we can do it naked, if that helps.”
“Or,” Victoria countered evenly, “we could find Hope and wait for daybreak.”
“Hanging around here isnota good idea,” I replied. “And for all we know, Hope left.” Something in my stomach twisted. “Did Sadie-Grace tell you…”
“I told her everything!” Sadie-Grace chirped. “Especially about the part where I got the feeling in my body back.”
