Kate

---

I’d laugh, if he wasn’t so pale. Max is like a big kid, stumbling through the foyer half-asleep, whining when I try to coax him up the stairs. It’d be easier to dump him on the couch, but I’m not letting him out of my sight. Not while he’s like this. If Carson was around, he’d be getting a piece of my mind right about now.

“Come on. Lift your foot.”

Max snorts and reaches for the banister. “Coming—I’m coming.”

“Well, come a little faster. I’m tired.”

He breaks out in a loud guffaw. “In another context, that kind of remark could crush a man’s ego.”

“Uh-huh....” I roll my eyes and keep moving. Max picks up his pace as well, and soon we’re stumbling into his bedroom.

“Gimme a minute.” He blinks and rubs his eyes. “Got to check my e-mail. Work....”

“Can’t that wait?”

“Nope.” He kisses me on the forehead. “Just take a second.”

“It better.” I’ve heard that before. I’ve said that before. If he’s not in pajamas in the next ten minutes, I’m confiscating his laptop. I shrug out of my own jacket and start unbuttoning my top. It’s ruined, smeared with blood and snot—Wes really wiped himself all over me. Goddamn—

“Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“You should, uh....” Max turns around, pale and tense. “You need to come look at this.”

What now?

Max steps aside as I lean over the desk. The bottom drops out of my stomach. His desktop background’s been changed to a still of the seven of us on the beach. It’s from the night of the fire: our sickly, pinched faces leave no room for doubt. And there’s text over top, three lines, all caps—

---

DON’T THINK THIS IS OVER.

I STILL KNOW EVERYTHING.

AND NOTHING MATTERS ANY MORE.

---

I take a breath to slow my racing heart. “He can’t hold Matt Danbury over our heads, after tonight. He did that, just him. We couldn’t have known we were accessories to murder.”

Max gulps loudly. “There’s the felony murder law....”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Are you sure?”

I shrug—not really.

“And even if he can’t use Matt, he still has everything else. Didn’t you steal something pretty expensive?”

I feel my face go hot. “A necklace. Almost five thousand pounds.” My knees wobble, and I sit down before I fall down. “Don’t even know why I did that. It was just there, on the—on the... There was a whole tray of them, and the saleslady turned around—I didn’t even think. I just snatched it like a magpie. Kept expecting the police to come knocking, but they never did.”

Max covers his mouth, obviously hiding a snicker.

“What, like your secrets are any better?”

“Uh, nope.” He sobers up quick. “Let’s see: I pissed on my ex-boss’s desk, keyed his car, and sold his dog on Craigslist. I drove through a shop window and left the scene. I fired some guy for—”

“Wait! Stop—you sold your ex-boss’s dog?”

“I saw him smack it one time.”

“And you drove through a window?”

“There was a bee in my car.”

“A bee?” I raise a brow, unconvinced.

“And I was drunk.” He looks away, shamefaced. “I’m just saying, even without Matt, we’ve all done things that are questionable, at best.”

“Won’t argue with that.” I lean over and close Max’s laptop. “We have to find him. That’s all there is to it. Find him and... I don’t know. Stop him, somehow.” I can’t think. I’m tired and overwrought, in dire need of sleep.

Max’s hands come to rest on my shoulders, massaging gently. “We will. Now we know it’s him, we can deal with this.”

I sigh, letting the tension ebb away. “He swore blind he didn’t kill Dev. That he sneaked in before we did. Planted the flash drive to scare us.”

“Do you believe him?”

I exhale harshly. “I don’t want to. He said... He said it was my fault he did this.”

“Your fault? How?”

“He tried to use Dev’s death to get...to—I don’t know.” All the tightness Max rubbed out of my shoulders comes rushing back. “I couldn’t even remember what he was talking about, at first. It was right after we got the news—Wes said he almost kissed me, once. I guess I laughed, and he took that as him handing me his heart, and me ripping it to shreds.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Shouldn’t I have seen the signs, somewhere down the line? I let him into my life, trusted him—

“He’s scum, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no excuse. No shifting the blame.” Max’s hands tighten on my shoulders. “Kyle’s blood’s still on his hands. All of our blood. There isn’t one of us he hasn’t hurt, physically or otherwise.”

I reach up and touch the barely-knit gash on my cheek, a reminder of my night on the runway. Wes did that, too. And he didn’t stop once he had. Whatever his idea of love is, I don’t want to find out.

“We should get some rest.”

I nod. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow promises more of the same.