The Perfectionists Read online

  But then that night happened with Parker. The night when keeping her secret nearly cost Parker her life. After that, they started being honest with each other.

  Ashley was still staring at Julie eagerly. “Uh, so crazy,” Julie finally said flatly, pretending to look at something on her phone. It was just about the unfriendliest she could be.

  “Red alert,” whispered Nyssa Frankel, who grabbed her arm and yanked her to the left. “Let’s get you out of here before that psycho cuts off your hair and pastes it on her head, okay?”

  Julie giggled and let Nyssa pull her away. She glanced at Ashley over her shoulder; she was standing there, frowning, clearly aware she’d been dissed.

  “I wish she’d find someone else to copy,” Julie murmured into Nyssa’s ear as they sauntered back outside.

  Nyssa lit a cigarette, and the scent of tobacco wafted through the air. “Oh, style stealing is the highest form of flattery,” she said as she exhaled, shaking out her brown curls. She offered Julie a drag, but Julie shook her head. “Anyway, everyone knows she’s a loser.” Nyssa squeezed Julie’s arm. “Want me to put an ugly picture of her on Instagram? Or start a rumor about her?”

  “That’s okay,” Julie said, but she appreciated Nyssa’s standing up for her. Ever since Parker had stopped being Parker, Nyssa had become Julie’s second in command.

  Nyssa looked around, hands on her hips. “This place is bananas, huh?”

  “Seriously,” Julie answered. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she could see a cluster of kids dancing wildly in the den, jumping up and down in rhythm to the music. A boy in a Seahawks jersey had another guy in a headlock, both of them laughing. A potted lily lay broken on the covered patio, and people had obviously walked through the spilled soil, tracking it into the house. James Wong, Zev Schaeffer, and Karen Little were playing quarters on a foldout table in the backyard.

  “Everyone made it out tonight,” Nyssa murmured, elbowing her way through a cluster of kids.

  Julie glanced around, spotting Ava, looking model-perfect, holding tight to Alex’s hand. Caitlin was here, wearing a no-nonsense striped dress and her shiny black hair pulled into a ponytail, laughing with some girls on her soccer team. Even Mackenzie was here with her friend Claire and Claire’s boyfriend, Blake. But not everyone was here. Nolan wasn’t. And neither was Parker.

  Julie hadn’t actually thought Parker would come. It was awesome that she’d shown up at Nolan’s bash—but then, that wasn’t because she’d wanted to socialize. She felt a pang. Parker had been through so much—of course she’d changed, and of course she was having a hard time adjusting. And after the Nolan thing, Parker seemed more tormented than ever.

  Jessa Cooper and Will Mika, two of the newspaper editors, stood next to Julie and Nyssa, speaking in hushed tones. “You can still find them online if you look hard enough,” Will whispered.

  “So you’ve actually looked at the photos?” Jessa’s eyes were wide. “Of Nolan dead?”

  Julie’s stomach swooped. She knew what photos they were talking about.

  Will shrugged. “A lot of people did.”

  Julie cleared her throat. “How do you know he was actually dead when those photos were taken?”

  Both kids turned to her. Their expressions grew reverent and respectful—she was Julie Redding, after all, and they were juniors. “Uh, I guess I don’t know for sure,” Will admitted. “But, I mean, why else would the school demand they be taken down?”

  “Maybe because Nolan had mean shit written on him?” Jessa piped up. “I wonder who wrote those things on his face.”

  Nyssa snorted. “My money’s on Mark Brody,” she said, referring to Nolan’s friend on the lacrosse team. “Don’t guys always pull stupid pranks like that on each other?”

  Julie’s heart was thudding fast. She knew who had written on Nolan, and it wasn’t Mark. She turned away and instantly collided into someone. Cold beer spilled down her back and onto her shoes. Julie cried out, jumping away.

  Julie turned around and found herself face-to-face with Carson Wells, the new boy from Australia. He was something of a mystery to everyone at Beacon. The only verifiable fact was that he was drop-dead gorgeous, with coffee-colored skin, a close-shaved head, olive-green eyes, and a killer accent.

  “I am so sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” Julie breathed, and Carson scuttled for some napkins and began to blot Julie’s shoes. “Oh my goodness,” Julie said, suddenly embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it. You hardly got me.”

  “Are you sure?” Carson stood up again. His eyes were still apologetic. “You’re Julie, right?”

  “That’s right,” Julie said softly.

  “I’m Carson,” he said. Then he looked at the now empty beer cup. “I guess I’m due for a refill, huh? Can I get you one, too?”

  Julie felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I suppose it’d be the least you could do.”

  They walked to the back of the keg line, which led through the living room to the bathroom. Music blared, and an enormous flat-screen TV was on but muted.

  “So is this your first party in Beacon?” Julie asked.

  Carson shook his head. “Actually, the one last week was. Nolan’s.”

  “Oh.” Julie looked down. She hadn’t noticed Carson there—of course, she’d had other things on her mind. “That wasn’t a great start to the year, unfortunately.”

  “Seriously.” Carson shoved his hands in his pockets. “I should have stuck to my planned evening of chamomile tea and Jane Austen novels.”

  “Right.” Julie laughed. “So how do you like it here so far?” She almost slapped her forehead once she’d said it. That’s a question your grandmother might ask!

  “Not too bad,” Carson said. “Aside from the fact that the first question most people ask me is either what I got on my SATs, how many APs I’ve already taken, or, when I tell them I’m a runner, what my mile PR is.”

  Julie snickered. “That’s Beacon High for you.”

  Carson grimaced. “And the weather’s awful. I don’t know how I’m going to get through six months of rain.”

  “Try nine,” she said with a laugh. “Yeah, it gets to me, too. I used to live in California.”

  “You lived in California?” He perked up. “Man, I’d love to live there. Dad almost took a job at USC, but UDub offered him a better deal. I was kind of bummed at first. But it’s all good. If I were in California, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.” He smiled. “Why’d you move?”

  “Uh, family,” she said vaguely. “My mom wanted to be closer to my grandmother.” It was partially true, after all. “She passed away,” she added, in case Carson asked if they still saw each other.

  “Sorry to hear about that.” Carson’s voice was gentle.

  Julie’s throat began to feel itchy, which it always did when she lied. She wondered what he’d say if she told him the truth: that they’d had to move. That her dad had abandoned them years ago. That even her grandmother couldn’t deal with her mother.

  This was why she’d never had a boyfriend. She could get away with not telling her friend about her home life, but a boyfriend would be a different story. There would be questions she couldn’t answer, the “meet the parents” her mother could never manage. Only Parker knew the truth about Julie’s mom, and Julie had only told her after the accident. By then it was clear that Parker’s home life was worse—and more dangerous—than Julie’s. Now Parker had her own key to Julie’s place, and she protected Julie’s secret fiercely. “To the grave,” Parker had vowed, and Julie couldn’t imagine trusting anyone else like she trusted Parker. Someday, in college maybe, when she’d gotten the hell out of here and was on her own, then she could consider falling in love and baring her soul. But not now. Not when she risked so much. Not when someone could see . . . everything.

  And now there was an even bigger secret to hide.

  Just like that, a crack formed in her mind, and Julie was suddenly back in the film studies classroom on
the day everything started. In all other respects, it had been a completely ordinary day. Nolan Hotchkiss had made fun of three kids in rapid succession in the first minute of class—first Laurie Odenton, who had a lazy eye; then Ursula Winters, who had ham-hock legs and was, Nolan said, basically undateable; and then Oliver Hodges, who was gay and proud and pretty much immune to teasing at that point. Mr. Granger had put on a movie called And Then There Were None, the third movie in their mystery series.

  The movie was in black and white, with a booming, old-fashioned sound track. It was about eight strangers who were all called to an island by a mysterious host—but when they arrived, their host was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a recorded message accused each of them of murder.

  One by one, the guests on the island started to die: the general who ordered his wife’s lover into a suicide mission. The servant who’d killed his crippled employer. The crusty old maid who had her nephew locked away in the reformatory until he committed suicide. Someone was punishing them for their crimes. By the end of the movie, Julie was perched on the edge of her seat, wide-eyed. It was weirdly satisfying to watch each person get what he or she deserved. Could you even call it murder?

  When the lights finally came up, Julie had blinked in the sudden brightness. Granger assigned the discussion groups immediately, and she’d found herself facing Parker, Mackenzie, Ava, and Caitlin. Besides Parker, she barely knew the others except in passing.

  Caitlin had stretched her muscular arms over her head. “That was kind of intense.”

  Ava opened her notebook to a blank page, pushing her dark hair off her face. “But it makes sense. It’s all about the rule of law, right? How dangerous it is for judgment to come from a vigilante.”

  Mackenzie chimed in. “I didn’t think some of those people deserved to be punished. What’s-her-name, Miss Brent? She didn’t kill anyone. She just had her nephew put in jail. It wasn’t her fault he killed himself.”

  “Sure it was.” Caitlin’s voice was sharp. Her lips were a straight, rigid line, her jaw tight. Julie thought about her brother’s suicide—everyone knew Nolan had teased him relentlessly, and then her brother had killed himself.

  The other girls seemed to remember Taylor at the same time. Mackenzie wrapped her chunky knit sweater tighter around her body. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “In fact, she’s one of the worst of them,” Caitlin went on. “Because she didn’t even care. She didn’t even feel bad.”

  An awkward silence fell. Mackenzie stared miserably down at her hands. Julie glanced from one girl to the next. Ava clicked her pen, again and again.

  Then Parker took a deep breath. “I know it’s kind of sick,” she said, her voice low, “but sometimes I think the judge was right. Some people deserve to be punished.”

  Tears almost formed in Julie’s eyes—it was the first time Parker had spoken in class in ages. But then she glanced around at the shocked faces. Okay, maybe what Parker said was a little harsh, but Julie didn’t want her to recede into her shell again.

  “Right?” she piped up. “I mean, I know some people who deserve punishment. Personally, first on my list would be Parker’s dad. The judge let him off too easy.”

  The girls’ muscles stiffened, the way everyone’s always did when Parker’s accident came up. The whole school knew what Parker’s dad had done to her that night—the evidence was all over her face, for starters, plus he’d ended up in jail, which never happened in a place like Beacon.

  They continued talking, mentioning people in their lives who’d wronged them—each of the girls had someone who had hurt them, too—when suddenly Caitlin leaned forward.

  “You know who I’d get rid of?” Her eyes glinted as she looked across the room, toward another group’s table. Nolan Hotchkiss leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He laughed loudly at something, a mocking sneer on his handsome face. “Him,” she said in a dark voice.

  The table went silent again. Admitting that Nolan was a jerk seemed dangerous somehow. If he ever found out, they’d be his next targets.

  “Nolan is an asshole,” Ava breathed. “He started rumors about me. Awful ones.”

  Mackenzie’s cheeks were blazing red. She stared down at her hands, picking at the edge of her cuticles. “He’s got . . . something he’s been holding over me, too.”

  Julie nodded. She hated Nolan for his role in Parker’s incident. If it hadn’t been for him, maybe none of it would have happened. Parker would still be her old self.

  Ava scratched her pen along the table. “How would you do it? If you were going to kill him, I mean?”

  A light came on behind Caitlin’s eyes. “You know how I’d do it? Oxy. Everyone knows it’s his drug of choice.”

  “And then he’d be . . . gone,” Parker said wistfully.

  “Or cyanide,” Caitlin had continued. “Just like in the old movies. It’s completely odorless and colorless. Difficult to detect. He’d be dead in minutes.”

  Mackenzie had snickered. “That certainly would do it.”

  “Finally.”

  Julie looked up. She and Carson had reached the front of the line, and Carson was pumping beer into a red Solo cup. He handed it to Julie. “Well, cheers, Julie Redding,” he said, touching his cup to hers. “I hope to get to know you better.”

  “I hope so, too. . . .” Julie was about to say more when something on the television in the den caught her eye. The chief of police stood at a podium in front of dozens of reporters, his face lit by camera flashes. Across the bottom of the screen, the text read: POLICE HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ABOUT HOTCHKISS DEATH.

  “Oh my god,” she said. Without thinking, she left the keg, grabbed the remote off the side table, and turned the volume up.

  More kids drifted over, too. “Cut the music,” Asher Collins yelled. Matt Hill did as he’d asked, and Rihanna was silenced mid-lyric. The entire room fell quiet, and clearly sensing that something big was happening, the kids from outside drifted in to watch as well.

  On-screen, the chief cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone. “The autopsy report on Nolan Hotchkiss is in,” he said. A flashbulb popped. A microphone moved closer to his face. “While we are not able to reveal the details at this point, evidence of foul play was found, and we no longer believe his death to have been caused by an accidental overdose.”

  “What the . . . ?” someone breathed.

  “Intense,” said Nyssa, her face pale. She had sidled up to Julie without her noticing. And Julie watched as Claire Coldwell clutched Blake’s hand, tears streaming down her face. Across the room, Mackenzie’s eyes fluttered rapidly behind her glasses. Caitlin and Ava exchanged horrified glances. Alex glared at the TV screen, looking dazed.

  Julie sat down hard on the edge of the couch, her heart seizing in her chest. No, she thought. This can’t be happening. She thought about the conversation in the film classroom. All those people around them. All those listening ears.

  The officer cleared his throat, staring stonily out at the crowd of reporters for a beat. When he spoke again, it was in a matter-of-fact voice, calm and deliberate. “We’re investigating all leads.” He paused for a moment, glancing at his notes. “At this time, we’re treating this as a homicide investigation. Someone—or someones—killed Nolan Hotchkiss. And we won’t rest until we find them.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS SUNDAY MORNING, AND the Beacon Heights Episcopal Church was filled to capacity for Nolan Hotchkiss’s funeral. Parker stood at the back, tugging at the black wool slacks she’d borrowed from Julie. The air was warm and pungent, the waxy smell of candles mixing with expensive perfumes. High overhead, the gilded ceilings and ornate columns gleamed in the murky light. In front of the altar sat a glossy wooden coffin, heaped with lilies, roses, and hydrangea blossoms. The funeral was closed-casket. Parker couldn’t help but wonder if that was because the marker hadn’t washed off Nolan’s skin.

  Now you’re as scarred as I am, she couldn’t help thinking, and then hated
herself for her bitterness.

  The pews were packed with kids, some sitting with their parents, others clustered with their friends. Everyone in school had turned up, especially now that the news had come out that Nolan had been murdered. All sorts of theories swirled. That Nolan had gotten in too deep with a bunch of drug dealers, and they’d offed him while people were partying downstairs. That Nolan had stolen a Mafia don’s girlfriend, and mobsters had crept through the window. That one of Mr. Hotchkiss’s disgruntled employees had finally gotten his revenge.

  Parker herself didn’t know what to think. She knew who’d drawn on Nolan, but as for who killed him . . . It hadn’t been her and the film studies girls. It couldn’t have been.

  Right?

  In the front row, Mrs. Hotchkiss gave a loud and anguished wail. Then Parker felt someone’s hand on her arm and turned. It was Julie. “Come on,” she whispered. “This is almost over. And we need to talk.”

  She tripped over her feet as Julie pulled her out to the lawn and around the corner to the parking lot, which was deserted. The flagstones were silver from the rain. A wet chill hung on the air.

  Ava, Mackenzie, and Caitlin were already waiting by an alcove lush with myrtle bushes and sedge grass. A weather-beaten statue of Saint Francis stood in the center, a bird feeder full of seeds in the palm of his hands.

  Julie unfolded her green-and-pink plaid umbrella, and she and Parker huddled beneath it. “Hey,” they mumbled to the girls as they approached. Parker yanked her hoodie over her head. These girls were nice—they looked at her directly without staring, as though there was nothing wrong with her—but still she felt uncomfortable around them.