Then she saw the trash can.
It was just a normal blue trash can with Cape May’s city logo on the front, but Emily heard warning bells go off in her mind. She scampered over to it, lifted the plastic lid, and shone the flashlight inside. There were no bags in there, and the bottom was dark. But then the light caught the edge of something crusted along the bottom. Emily reached as far down as she could, unpeeling the piece of paper from the plastic. She pulled it out, barely able to breathe. It was an envelope smeared with dried oil. It should have smelled like trash, but it, too, smelled like vanilla.
She ran back inside, placed it on the kitchen island, and shone her flashlight over it. There was no addressee, just Betty Maxwell’s house number and the Cape May ZIP code. In the corner, though, was a return address. Someone had written, Day, 8901 Hyacinth Drive, Cocoa Beach, FL.
Emily turned the envelope over. It had already been opened; whatever was inside had been removed. The vanilla smell was so strong it made her dizzy. Had Ali received this? Who was Day? The name seemed significant, for some reason, but Emily couldn’t recall why.
She was so wrapped up in thought that she barely remembered the walk back to the hotel. This was definitely, definitely a clue. Should she tell the others? Or would they reprimand her for going back, then shoot her down? They wouldn’t actually believe it was anything, would they?
Certainly not that the envelope was worth traveling to Cocoa Beach, Florida to follow up on. But Emily just . . . felt something, a premonition stronger than any she’d ever had. She needed to see what this was. She had to go there. It would mean abandoning her friends—and the trial. But as much as she hated to do that, she knew this was probably their last shot. She would just have to go without them.
She didn’t want anyone knowing about it, though—not her friends, not her family, not the cops. She couldn’t afford to be looking over her shoulder the whole time. And she didn’t want Ali to see her coming. How could she manage that?
She slipped back into the hotel room and took her place next to Hanna on the bed, her mind churning. And then, all at once, it came to her. It was so easy: Ali had already done it, after all. She’d faked her murder, and everyone believed it. If Emily faked her suicide, everyone would believe it, too.
She lay awake the rest of the night, planning the logistics. She would use the hurricane—everyone would think that it had killed her, but she knew she was a good enough swimmer to get through. At 5 AM, when she scrawled a note to Spencer, Aria, and Hanna, she knew what they’d believe. After all, she’d been legitimately distraught for weeks. She might as well capitalize on that now.
She pinned a Ziploc bag full of cash to her swim bottoms, walked down to the beach, and stepped into the waves. As she got deeper, the current was trickier to navigate than she’d originally thought, but she tried to stay calm and trust her swimming skills. She saw her friends rush to the shore, their faces masks of horror. Emily pretended to struggle, simultaneously feeling guilty for what she was putting them through but also confident in her decision that this was the only way no one would come looking for her.
What she didn’t bank on was Spencer walking into the waves after her. “No!” Emily screamed, thrusting her arms over her head. She watched as the ocean pulled Spencer under again and again. “Stop struggling!” By the time the rescue teams arrived, Emily feared the worst. Several EMTs dragged Spencer’s limp body onto the beach. Emily watched as the rescuers crowded around her and her friends stood in shock. But then, Spencer’s body bucked, and she coughed and rolled to her side. Everyone seemed to relax a little. The rescuers loaded her onto a stretcher and carried her up the beach.
The coast guard helicopters swooped overhead, still searching. Emily ducked under, choking up salt, feeling the jellyfish stings, thrashing her legs through the waves. She let the current carry her farther out, terrified the whole time. A jetty was to her left; all she had to do was get out of the riptide and then swim underwater toward it.
But the waves crashed at her right and left. Several times she was pushed under for so long she was sure her lungs would give out. She surfaced, gasping, again and again, only to be pulled under once more. Her back hit the bottom roughly. Her elbow smashed against an outcropping of rocks. She caught sight of blood on her skin, terrified it might draw sharks. The waves rolled in again and again, showing no sign of slowing. A single image of Ali’s hideous, angry, menacing face blazed in her mind, pushing her forward. She was doing this to find her. She was doing this to end the nightmare.
There was a break in the tumult, and Emily bobbed to the surface, breathing hard. The helicopters were farther down the beach, searching a different spot. She breathed and paddled hard toward the jetty, which wasn’t far at all. She almost cried when she reached it, clinging to it and letting her legs bang against the posts. After a lot of breaths, she hefted herself up onto the wooden deck. Mercifully, there was no one on shore to see her, and the cuts on her legs from the jetty weren’t that bad. After a while, shivering and weak, she staggered onto the cold, windswept beach and took refuge under a lifeguard stand. Her fingers touched something soft, and she unearthed a red Under Armour sweatshirt someone had left behind. She squealed with delight, pulling it on quickly and immediately feeling comforted by the warm, soft cotton. Then she patted her swim bottoms—the Ziploc was still pinned securely. Both things together felt like a wonderful boon. Maybe this really was going to work.
Once Emily regained her strength, she started up the walkway and headed into town. Thank goodness this was a beach town and walking into places in only a sweatshirt and a bathing suit was commonplace—when she walked into Wawa, no one paid any notice to her strange attire. Katy Perry’s “Roar” was playing loudly over the speakers, which nicely drowned out Emily’s pounding heart. She kept her head down and her eyes averted as she canvassed the aisles, selecting a giant-size iced tea, several soft pretzels, flip-flops, and a pair of gym shorts with a Cape May logo from among the small clothing section.