The Good Girls

Chapter 20

MAL SHOT UP STRAIGHT. Where was she? She knew she'd been sleeping—and it felt like it had been for a long time. She looked around, taking in the familiar sights. A square room with a makeshift window. A musty smell in the air. Outside, she caught a glimpse of the side of a white stuccoed house far in the distance. Wait a minute. She knew that house.

She jumped up, quickly pulling up her hoodie and locating her kicked-off shoes across the space. She was in the woods behind Ben Florian's house. Long ago, someone had built a hunting cabin here. No one used it anymore but, for whatever reason, it had never been torn down. Parker and Nolan hung out there a lot when they were friends—they used to call it their clubhouse—and when things were really shitty at home, she sometimes crashed here. She'd brought Evie here a few times, too, though Evie said the place freaked her out.

"Jesus Christ," she said aloud. What had possessed her to come here? Was she insane? They were already suspects in Ben's murder—the last thing she needed to do was get caught skulking around near his property. She'd really lost it.

When she pushed out the door, the woods were quiet. She walked toward his house and through his backyard. Police tape no longer surrounded the property; it was back to looking perfect and pristine, as though no crime had ever happened. Heart pounding, Mal padded across the dewy grass, toward the bus stop a few avenues over. She didn't see anyone on the way, no 6 AM runners or dads walking dogs. Had she honestly gotten away with sleeping here?

But it didn't surprise her, in a way. As usual, it felt like she wasn't even there.

That afternoon, Mal pushed open the heavy door to CoffeeWorks, the hole-in-the-wall coffee shop she'd been frequenting lately. It wasn't Café Mud, the steel-and-reclaimed-wood mother ship of cool where most Auradon Prep students hung out during free periods. But the dim lighting and strong coffee was exactly what Mal needed right now. Something rattled against her cheeks, and she put up her hands to see what it was. Evie's earrings. The silver wire chandeliers with the pretty beads. She'd forgotten she'd borrowed them. She was forgetting more and more every day. In fact, when had she last spoken to Evie? She vaguely remembered sitting on a bluff all alone last night, drinking from a six-pack of beer, talking to Evie on the phone. Evie had been in one of her hysterical moods. Evie had started by saying something about how Jane had stopped by and had told Evie all these terrible things about Lonnie—apparently she'd practically annihilated Jane's chances at Juilliard. Then Evie had moved on to Mal. She'd asked where Mal was and when was she coming back to Evie's. She'd badgered Mal, telling Mal it felt like she was keeping secrets. You can tell me, Evie had urged. You need to tell me. But Mal had groaned, rolling her eyes. I'm not keeping secrets, she'd said. But, in fact, she was keeping one big secret: She had started seeing Fielder again.

As Evie continued to pester her, Mal had felt crowded, and then things had devolved into a fight again . . . and Mal couldn't remember the rest of the call.

Which is probably why she'd woken up where she did that morning.

Mal rubbed her face with her hands, feeling the nubby scars under her palms. She really needed to get it together. She needed to talk more to Elliot—er, Fielder—about focusing. Maybe he could give her more visualization techniques. She shut her eyes and tried to hear his calming voice. It immediately soothed her. The sessions she'd had with him so far must be working.

Then she took stock of the room. The espresso machine whirred and chugged, a barista banged wet grounds into the garbage, and the door opened and closed behind her, sending a cool draft of air washing over her legs.

"Can I help the next customer?" the pierced and tatted gender-neutral cashier called out.

Mal stepped up to the counter and ordered a triple latte. Just as she dumped a few bucks on the counter, she heard a familiar voice behind her.