Perfect (Book Two)

Eleven: Didn't Emily's Mother Ever Teach Her Not To Get In Strangers' Cars?

Emily twisted the dial on the Fresh Fields' gumball machine. It was Wednesday after swim practice, and she was picking up stuff for dinner for her mom. She hit the gumball machine every time she came into Fresh Fields, and had made a game out of it: if she got a yellow gumball, something good would happen to her. She looked at the gumball in her palm. It was green.

"Hey." Someone stood over her.

Emily looked up. "Aria. Hey."

As usual, Aria clearly wasn't afraid to stand out with her outfit. She wore a neon blue puffy vest that accentuated her arresting, ice-blue eyes. And although she wore the school's standard-issue uniform skirt, she'd hiked it up well above her knees and paired it with black leggings and funky royal blue ballet flats. Her black hair was up in a high, cheerleader-style ponytail. It completely worked, and most of the guys in the Fresh Fields parking lot under seventy-five were staring at her.

Aria leaned closer. "You holding up okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

Aria shrugged. She gave a surreptitious glance around the parking lot, which was full of eager cart boys pushing stray carts into the corral. "You haven't gotten any—"

"Nope." Emily avoided Aria's eyes. She'd deleted Monday's text from A—the one about her new love—so it was almost as if it hadn't happened. "You?"

"Nada." Aria shrugged. "Maybe we're in the clear."

We're not, Emily wanted to say. She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"Well, you can call me anytime." Aria took a step toward the soda cases.

Emily left the store, a cold sweat covering her body. Why was she the only one who'd heard from A, anyway? Was A singling her out?

She put the grocery bag into her backpack, unlocked her bike, and pedaled out of the parking lot. As she turned onto a side street that was nothing but miles of white-picket farm fencing, she felt the teensiest hint of fall in the air. Fall in Rosewood always reminded Emily that it was the start of swimming season. That was usually a good thing, but this year, Emily felt uneasy. Coach Lauren had made the captain announcement yesterday after the Rosewood Tank ended. All the girls had mobbed Emily to congratulate her, and when she'd told her parents, her mom had gotten teary-eyed. Emily knew she should feel happy—things were back to normal. Except she felt like she'd already irrevocably changed.

"Emily!" someone called behind her.

She twisted around to see who was calling her, and her bike's front wheel skidded on a wet patch of leaves. All of a sudden, she found herself on the ground.

"Oh my God, are you?" a voice called.

Emily opened her eyes. Standing over her was Toby Cavanaugh. He had the hood of his parka up, so his face looked shadowed and hollow.

She yelped. Yesterday's incident in the locker room hallway kept coming back to her. Toby's face, his frustrated expression. How he'd just looked at Ben, and Ben had backed off. And was it a coincidence that he'd been coming through the hall at that moment, or had he been following her? She thought of A's note. Although most of us have totally changed... Well, Toby certainly had.

Toby crouched down. "Let me help you."

Emily pushed the bike off herself, cautiously moved her legs, then pulled up her pant leg to inspect the long, harsh scrape on her shin. "I'm fine."

"You dropped this back there." Toby handed Emily her lucky change purse. It was made of pink patent leather and had a monogrammed E on the front; Ali had given it to Emily a month before she went missing.