As for Chloe … well, it’s not that Chloe forgets how to think about anything other than Shara Wheeler. But nothing else seems half as interesting, which isn’t her fault. Honestly, maybe other things should try harder.
“Are you coming tonight, Chloe?” Ash asks.
Chloe blinks, startled out of thought. She looks up at Ash two seats over on the choir risers, holding different sizes of fishing lures up to Benjy’s earlobes to test out which one they want to make into earrings while he begrudgingly sits still.
“What?” Chloe asks.
“Me, Georgia, foraging in the park by Winn-Dixie,” Ash says. “Georgia got that book about mushroom identification? I told you about it last week and you said you’d think about it?”
“Oh,” Chloe says. She honestly can’t quite remember that conversation, but she pretends she does. “Yeah, I can’t. I have too much homework.”
Georgia squints at Chloe over her lunch, and Chloe feels bad. She does. But there’s only one thing she wants to do right now. She promises herself that she’ll find time to hang out with Georgia over the weekend.
The rest of the week brings three more clues, one each day. Each one contains a new revelation, some evil deed Shara’s kept locked away. Chloe rips a sheet of graph paper from a notebook and makes a table to track them from memory.
Every single card is another pink shot of satisfaction. She collects them in the makeup pouch at the bottom of her locker like it’s a crime scene evidence bag, cataloging all the things she suspected Shara was—dishonest and calculating and fake—and a million others she never could have otherwise proven. Vindictive. Destructive. Mean. An absolute wrecking ball bitch, swinging in silence from a divertingly beautiful crane.
Card #
Location
Pertinent contents
??1
Shara’s desk
Password to burner email
??2
Smith’s locker
Instructions to check drafts
??3
Taco Bell drive-thru
Burner email address, implicit threat that she can predict my every move
??4
Inside the choir piano （note: stolen key included）
Stayed up all night to memorize scene from Midsummer so I wouldn’t humiliate her in front of whole class
??5
Dixon’s house
Planned to break up with Smith
??6
Wheeler’s office
Blackmailed Dixon to cooperate, backstabbed him anyway
??7
Auditorium （first row, under seat）
Cast a hex upon me during Sunday matinee, broke up Ace and Summer
??8
Football stadium （under bleachers）
Used Smith to make Rory jealous on purpose because she thought it would be fun
??9
Chem lab （chemical storage closet）
Manipulated student council secretary to rig homecoming court vote so she would lose in upset to Emma Grace Baker because she was “worried about overexposure”
10
Rory’s roof （tied to a rock）
Faked flu on National Signing Day so she wouldn’t have to be in Smith’s livestream
11
Shara’s gym locker
Spent last summer at home reading with phone on airplane mode while everyone thought she was on mission trip to Nicaragua
So Chloe is gaining momentum, and Smith and Rory are losing it. Morale is at a record low in the “I Kissed Shara Wheeler” group chat.
“Okay, the last note says there are directions to the next one in a club photo one of us took with her for the yearbook,” Chloe says, dropping her tray on the table at the Taco Bell near school. “It has to be the National Honor Society photo she took with me. That’s the only extracurricular any of us have in common with her. I just don’t know how to get access to it.”
Smith braces a hand against his forehead and contemplates his life, as well as his taco order, which he hasn’t yet settled upon.
“So … this isn’t even a clue to find the next note,” Smith says. “It’s a clue to find another clue to find the next note.”
“Come on, chin up,” Chloe says. “We gotta be almost there. I have a feeling she made this one harder because it’s the last one.”
“I don’t know how much more I want to know,” Smith says as Rory drops an overloaded tray on the table.
Chloe rolls her eyes and unwraps her quesadilla. “God, you guys are so boring. We’re putting together like, the psychological profile of someone who is either going to be the president of the United States or a full-on serial killer.”
Rory begins separating burritos and tacos from his pile of food and setting them down in front of Smith, who finally tears his attention away from the menu.