"Get inside," he commanded.

I planted my feet. Once I stepped through the gate, it was all over. Butch's lessons came back, a flash of a memory. Never let them take you without a fight. I made my body rigid, imagined my shoes anchored to the ground.

"Get the note," he growled, not to me.

"I don't want to," came a tearful reply. "I can't do this. Please don't make me do this."

The girl stepped toward me, until her face became clear. Emily Reinnert stood in front of me, fastening an envelope to my shirt with a safety pin. Her fingers trembled over my skin and I knew without a doubt I'd been right. She was terrified and remorseful. She didn't want any part of this.

Her face was streaked with tears. "I'm sorry. No one was supposed to get hurt," she said. "He said the joke under the bleachers was on Vince. That he only wanted to get back at Vince for kissing me. He said if I was sorry and I wanted him to take me back, I'd help. All I had to do was take a roofie and tell the police I didn't know anything. It was supposed to be a prank. No one was supposed to get hurt. I'd get a few weeks off school and we'd get back together, it would be no big deal, right?" She choked on a hysterical laugh. "I didn't know what he was really doing. I had no idea it had anything to do with you, or the scholarship, or anything. I swear. The police wouldn't let me talk to anyone. My parents wouldn't let me take calls or see anyone from school except TJ." She shook her head. "No one told me about the others. When I read about them in the paper, I told him I didn't want any part of this."

"Shut up!"

Emily clutched her bruised arm to her side. "But then he told me I was already part of it. He said it was too late to change my mind, and if I didn't keep quiet, he would kill me too."

"Listen and do what I tell you!" he snapped. Emily cried into her sleeve and nodded tightly.

He held a blue lab marker in one hand, bit off the cap, and spit it onto the ground. He tossed the marker to Emily. "Mark her. Just like we talked about." Emily's hand was shaking as she drew up my sleeve. The point was wet and cold where she marked me with the letter L, upside down, as if I'd drawn it myself.

TJ jerked his chin toward Jeremy and Oleksa. "Now go get your car and bring it to the closest lot you can find. I've got to get those other two out of here. Leigh will take care of Whelan and Anh for us."

I sucked in a shocked breath and looked down at their bodies. They were still alive. And TJ was going to make me kill them.

I struggled against the arm still wrapped around my neck. TJ's breath was hot and ragged against my cheek.

"When they open the box and find you, will you be dead or alive? In the end, you can't be both." He cupped my chin in his gloved hands, bringing my head back hard against his chest and pressing the gun to my temple, his cheek against mine.

His jealousy and hatred surged through me, putrid and thick and choking. There was a gut-turning sweetness to it, a self-satisfied delight as he drew the barrel over my skin.

"It was your father," I said, trying to calm the tremors in my voice. "Your father went to prison because of mine. That's why you moved to Sunny View five years ago, isn't it? My father set him up, let him take the fall. And mine got away with the money. You blame him for what happened to your dad. And to your mom. You think it's his fault that you have to live in Sunny View. That's what this is about, isn't it? Revenge."

TJ dragged the barrel down my cheek. "Do you know why my mother killed herself ?"

My tongue felt thick and I swallowed hard. "Why?"

"Because she was afraid. Because she was terrified of being alone. She locked herself in her fucking Saab two weeks after my dad went to prison. Slugged down a fifth and took the easy way out. She was a goddamn quitter." He laughed, cold and low in my ear. "But the game isn't over yet. Not for me."

"So you're going to kill me? Do you seriously think you'll get away with it? That anyone would believe I could do something like this?"

TJ laughed low in his throat. "Couldn't you, though? Mommy's a stripper. Daddy's a felon. Money's tight. Best friend's a head case. Nobody sees you. Nobody cares. And all this time you're giving a leg up to a bunch of losers who can't even count change in the lunch line. Who wouldn't believe you could snap? That you'd want the recognition? The attention? The power? Then all these bodies start piling up . . ."

I felt TJ swallow, felt the sweat bead down his cheeks as he went on. "You know the cops are coming for you, so you freak out. Shoot yourself. And it's all so cut-and-dry, who's going to bother looking at anyone else." He plucked the envelope on my chest. "They'll read your suicide note and think you killed Anh for the scholarship. What other options did you have? Community college? Student loans for the next twenty years? Don't tell me you never thought about it. Never wanted to get out so bad you could taste it. Never thought about pushing sweet little Anh under a fucking school bus so you could take that money and run."

"Never."

"Well, I did!" he shouted. "I thought about it every day! I've hated you every day since I moved into that goddamned trailer! My uncle told me to let it go. That it wasn't your fault. That nothing would bring her back. He told me to take it all out on the game, to play hard and focus on my scholarship. That was the only way out. But then I got benched, and by the time I got out of that damn brace, I'd missed my one shot. Even if I come back next fall, I've lost my ranking with the scouts. Recruiters don't care if it's healed. No one's giving a scholarship to a kid with a knee injury." He kicked the back of my knee, making me falter, and dragged me up again by the hair.

"And then a couple months ago, I find out Emily's messing around with my best friend, sneaking around the golf course at night and giving it up in the back of his fiftythousand-dollar car. And that's when it all sinks in. I've got nothing left. Your family took it from me. That should have been my car. My girl. My life!" he shouted, shaking me. "But your father made me just like you! Every time I look at you, it's like a vial of acid breaking. I refuse to rot in a goddamn box alone!"

His chest heaved. "You made it so easy, Boswell." He laughed, high and nervous. "I watched you read those stupid ads every Friday morning. So pathetic. So I figure, what better way to get your attention than put the bait where I know you'll see it? Then it was just a matter of pointing it all back to you."

"Here's news for you," I said, stiffening against him. "The cops have a new list of suspects, and I'm not on it."

TJ shifted his weight. Adjusted his grip in my hair. "What do you mean? What list?"

I felt him turn toward the shadows where Emily had disappeared.

"A list of buyers who bought ketamine."

TJ's laughter echoed through the graveyard. "Lonny's list? Guess what? I'm not on it either. But I bet Vince is. I stole the ketamine from Vince's locker. He's been buying roofies for months. How else do you think an asshole like Vince gets laid so much? He's got so much shit stashed in his locker, he never noticed anything was missing. The cops can have Vince. They've got nothing on me."

He fidgeted, searching the dark.

"Where's Emily?" I asked.