“Has he said anything? Mentioned any names?” Brooke asked. “Talked about the party?”

“No. That’s the other strange part. He just said he doesn’t really remember the party. And now he won’t talk about it at all.”

Brooke and I eyed each other.

Syd wrapped her arms around her waist. “That’s why we thought you could touch him. You could do your thing.”

“Um, I don’t really have a thing.”

“That’s not what that ghost told us,” Ashlee said. “Not in words so much, but in images while we slept.”

Sydnee nodded. “It showed us things. About you. About Jared. We never dreamed it was possible until we saw the camera footage.”

That brought all thoughts to a screeching halt. “Camera footage?” I asked. As realization dawned on what she had to be referring to, my pulse quickened with a mixture of fear and denial.

“Don’t worry,” Syd said. “We told Dad the recorder malfunctioned.”

“But it didn’t.” A grin slid across Ashlee’s pretty face. “We saw everything. We saw what you did.”

“It was amazing.”

“Thanks.” I glanced at Brooke. She was still at the wide-eyed-denial stage. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? That you knew? That was two months ago.”

Ash smirked. “We were waiting for the right moment.” She got an evil twinkle in her eyes. “Like now.”

My jaw fell open before I caught it. “So, this is blackmail.”

“Absolutely,” Syd said. “Or, well, technically it’s extortion. Same difference.”

Ash blinked her long lashes and gazed at me from behind a pout. “You did ruin my very favorite piano.”

“You just said…” When Ash’s face morphed into that same kind of evil, I gave in. “Fine, I’ll give it a shot, but my visions aren’t really that reliable. I may or may not get something.”

“That’s okay,” Syd said, taking what she could get. “We just want you to try.”

I set my jaw. “And I swear, if I come out of this suicidal, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

“Deal,” Ash said.

THE SOUTHERN BELLE

Brooke piled her plate high with salad for lunch while I went for a more modest version, and Glitch and Cameron went for pizza. Shocker.

“You suck,” Cameron said to Glitch as he swiped at his pants. He sat next to Brooke with a scowl lining his face.

“No more than you,” Glitch said.

“What did you do?” Brooke let the suspicion in her expression filter into her voice. We knew Glitch too well.

“He spilled his water on me.”

Glitch chuckled. “Think you’ll survive?”

Clicking her tongue in disappointment, Brooke looked at me. “Boys are impossible.” She looked around. “Oh, the school paper’s out. I’m going to get us one.”

Everyone around us was reading the school newspaper, or at least looking at the pictures. While Brooke went to get us each a copy, I munched on crunchy green stuff with dressing. It was really the dressing I was after. Bacon ranch. Pretty much anything with bacon in it would earn the Lorelei McAlister seal of approval.

“Thanks,” I said when Brooke handed me a paper.

She passed one to Glitch, then asked me, “Okay, what do you think?”

“About the newsletter?”

“No. That’s just a ploy to make us look normal.” She held one up to Cameron, breaking his eye contact with Glitch. Cameron snatched it out of her hands and leaned back to glare at the paper instead of at the crazy boy who thought he could take Cameron on and live to see another day.

“Oh.” I nodded. “Good idea.”

“The Southerns,” she said. “What do you think?”

I picked up my paper as well, going for nonchalance. Like a spy might. “I think we need to check out their story,” I said, casting suspicious glances all about me. Like a spy might. “Have you noticed any strange behavior? I mean, stranger than usual?”

Brooke opened her newsletter and spoke from behind it. “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”

“That’s true,” I said.

“We’ll just have to keep a close eye on things. Cameron and Jared said that they’d been sensing something for the last few days. Maybe Isaac saw something at the party.”

“Exactly.” I spared a glance over the top of my paper. “Something otherworldly. And suddenly that new guy shows up who’s really tall.”

She looked over hers as well. “Do you think they’re connected?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Tall guys and odd things are often connected here.”

Glitch finished up his pizza, then picked up his paper as well. Speaking from behind it, he said, “You guys look ridiculous. I was going to speak up sooner, but then what would I have to tell my grandchildren?”

He was right. We put our papers down, but I kept up the suspicious glances. They were fun. And I was hoping beyond hope that Jared would just happen to walk in.

Cameron was busy watching us from over his paper, his brows knitting like he was worried about us.

“Can you even read?” Glitch asked him.

Glitch had apparently become suicidal a while back, taking up the dangerous habit of taunting Cameron. He had to be suicidal to do such a stupid thing. There had been a tension between the boys ever since that Boy Scouts camping trip they went on together in the second grade. We just hadn’t known about the tension between them until a few weeks ago.