Sara Shepard - Deadly

“Oh my God,” Aria breathed.

“I noticed it when I was here the other day, talking to my dad,” Hanna whispered. “I don’t know what it is , though.”

They walked closer, down a path hidden in the tall grass. A hundred yards back, mostly concealed by overgrown trees, loomed a building—a fallen-down barn, perhaps, or an old stone house left to disintegrate. Spencer opened the flashlight app on her iPhone and shone it against the weathered clapboard frame, a broken window, a drooping gutter. The ground was overrun with weeds, as if no one had touched it in years.

Hanna squinted. “Gross.”

A hush fell over the group. They peered at the looming house. A shiver slunk up Spencer’s spine. Suddenly, this felt like it. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

One by one, Hanna and the others climbed through the hedges. Up close, it was even more disgusting than it had looked from the parking lot. The windows were boarded up with rotted pieces of wood, and a front porch was covered in spiderwebs and trash. A rusted, rooster-shaped weathervane on the roof spun slowly and creakily with the wind. Vines and weeds grew up and into the walls as if they were trying to swallow the house completely. The foul stench of a rotting animal carcass wafted out from somewhere inside.

Hanna covered her nose with her sleeve. “How could she live in a place like this?”

“The same way she could kill five people,” Aria reminded her. “She’s crazy.”

Spencer climbed up a crumbling ridge to the front door. The hinges were so old that it gave way easily, letting out a loud screech as it opened. Hanna bristled and covered her head as though a bomb were about to go off. After a few seconds, she dared to open her eyes. The door was ajar. No one was there. Spencer was stock-still in the doorway, her face a mask of fear.

Emily scurried up the ridge next to Spencer. Hanna followed, and they all peered inside. It was very dark. The dead-animal smell was stronger, though, almost dizzying.

“ Ugh,” Hanna said, turning away.

“It’s really bad.” Spencer gagged. Emily pulled the collar of her shirt over her nose.

Aria pulled out her phone and shone the light around the room. The floors were covered in dust, plaster, pieces of wood, and dirt. When she shone the light into a corner, something skittered out of the way, squeaking as it went. The girls screamed and jumped back again.

“It’s just a mouse,” Spencer hissed.

Trying not to breathe, Hanna took a tentative step into the room. The floor seemed to hold her weight, so she ventured a few more steps through an archway. The next room contained an old metal sink and a black, three-legged stove like something out of “Hansel and Gretel.” An old newspaper lay near a huge hole in the wall that might have once been a back door. She picked it up and squinted at the headlines, but the page was so faded, she couldn’t tell what it said.

She poked her head into a bathroom. A rusted bathtub sat in the corner, a toilet without a seat against the wall. There were holes where a sink might have been, and much of the tile was chipped away. A window was propped open, the stiff breeze blowing in. Hanna stepped back. The air smelled dirty and contaminated.

The other girls wandered the rooms, peeking into closets. They would have climbed the stairs to the second floor, but half the risers were missing. “There’s no one here,” Spencer whispered. “It’s totally empty.”

“Is there a basement?” Emily suggested.

Spencer shrugged. “I haven’t seen any stairs leading down.”

Aria whirled, her eyes wide. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Hanna asked shakily, standing very still.

No one said a word. Hanna listened very hard. She didn’t hear a thing. She stared around at the dark, empty, creepy space. “Maybe this isn’t it,” she said. “I don’t see any evidence of anything. I don’t think Ali’s here.”

Spencer breathed out, too. “Maybe we were wrong.”

There was a creaking sound above them. It sounded like branches scraping across the roof. “Maybe we should go,” Emily said, tiptoeing toward the door. “This place is freaking me out.”

Everyone nodded and moved toward the exit. But then footsteps sounded behind them, this time for real. Hanna spun back around, her muscles stiffening. Suddenly, someone was standing in the shadows near the back of the room.

The others turned, too. Spencer gasped. Aria made a small eep . Emily cowered against the wall. “H-hello?” Hanna called out shakily, trying to make out who the figure might be.

A flashlight snapped on. Diffused, yellow light scattered throughout the room. The mouse squeaked and scampered. The house creaked and groaned with the wind. Finally, the figure holding the flashlight flipped it upward, shining it on himself. “Hello, girls,” a guy’s voice said.

Hanna blinked at his face in the light. He had brown eyes, a sloped nose, and a pointy, clean-shaven jaw. There was a gun in his right hand, aimed at them.

As he drew up to his full height, Hanna realized with a jolt that she knew him. Madison had just shown her his picture.

“ Jackson ?” she exclaimed. The bartender. The one who’d overserved Madison and laughed when Hanna suggested they call her a cab.

Only . . . what was he doing here?

“Derrick?” Emily said slowly, next to her.

Hanna frowned and studied the look of shock on Emily’s face. Who was Derrick?

Spencer was twitching, too. “Phineas,” she said dazedly, staring at the boy. “Easy A Phineas from Penn.”

“ Olaf ,” Aria said at the same time.

Hanna recoiled, too many neurons firing at once in her brain. “Wait. Olaf from Iceland ?”

“Yeah,” Aria said slowly, her hand half covering her mouth. “That’s him.”

Hanna shook her head vehemently. “ That’s not Olaf. I met Olaf.” Her night at that dive bar in Philly had happened before Iceland—she would have known if the same guy who’d waited on her the night of Madison’s accident was also hitting on Aria halfway around the world.

Or . . . would she? She stared at Jackson’s dark eyebrows and thin lips. Come to think of it, he did sort of look like Olaf. But she never would have thought to connect the strange Icelandic guy with a preppy bartender in the States.

“I-I don’t understand,” Spencer croaked.

“What the hell is going on?” Hanna said at the same time.

The boy stepped forward. “My name is Jackson,” he said. “ And Derrick. And Phineas, and yes, even Olaf. But my real name is Nick. Or Tripp to my friends. Tripp Maxwell.”

Emily blinked hard. “Tripp,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”

Spencer looked at her. “Who’s Tripp?”

Emily’s jaw trembled. “Iris liked a boy named Tripp Maxwell. He was a patient at The Preserve.”

“Oh, Iris.” Nick rolled his eyes. “She always had such a thing for me.”

Hanna’s head spun. He was a Preserve patient. His name started with an N . This was Ali’s boyfriend. He was the person who Graham was talking about. He’d hurt Noel, too. Killed Gayle. Murdered Kyla.

He was Helper A.

Panic rose in her chest. She peeked over her shoulder. They were only a few steps away from the door—maybe they could make it out without Nick getting any of them. She grabbed Spencer’s arm and yanked her around. Emily and Aria made a break for it, too. Hanna took one step for the door, then another, reaching out her arms for the wobbly knob.

But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a body shot forward and stood in front of the door, barring their exit. “Not so fast,” said an icy voice.