Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(6)

“You hate it when Vi and Janelle work on their spreadsheet,” Nate said. “It freaks you out every time.”

This was true. It was October in her last year of high school, and Stevie’s entire college plan so far consisted of seven bookmarked pictures on Instagram, three browser windows she never closed, and a notebook page that contained insights such as “science?” and “where is it?”

Because college meant majors. It meant knowing who you were and where you wanted to go in life. It meant figuring out how smart you really were, and would you be as smart as everyone else at your imaginary school? Should you go somewhere you were the smartest? Should you go somewhere tiny or to a huge university that filled a city? College also meant money, and money was confusing. She had a little now, enough for small things, and maybe a semester somewhere if she used it all at once. The rest would have to come from somewhere. Loans. Scholarships. Her parents didn’t have it, that was for sure. The only reason she could go to Ellingham was because it was free.

So, to counter Nate’s entirely justified remark, she responded with a question.

“You never mention where you’re applying,” she said. “What have you been doing for college stuff?”

“I’m working on it,” he said. “I’ve done some applications.”

“Where to?”

“Different places. I’m still working it out. But you have to start and I know you haven’t even really looked yet. You can’t avoid it forever.”

“What are you, the college police?” she asked.

“I’m just saying,” he went on, “you’ve been genuinely spaced, and that shit is going to be due soon. You have to pick some places. Any places. Start filling out applications. There are first years here who have some of that stuff ready to go. Even David did it.”

He had invoked Stevie’s far-off boyfriend a second time. This was a direct jab at her.

“Sounded like you were getting a lot of writing done,” Stevie replied.

“Yeah, I am.”

This confident yeah was both direct and squirrelly, and it attracted Stevie’s interest.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I am. I’m writing. I write.”

“No you don’t,” Stevie said. “I mean, you do, but mostly you don’t. Are you working on the second book? Is it . . . going well?”

“It’s fine,” he said dismissively. “We’re not talking about my book.”

“We kind of are.”

“Stevie,” he said. “You’re turning into that person. The one with the long-distance partner. Do you want to be a girlfriend?”

These were fighting words.

“Work on one of these dumb cases,” he went on. “Why not look into this thing with the dryer and the garden. Do something.”

Stevie had no defense. They mutually decided to stop talking and went to the dining hall in silence, filled their reusable, Ellingham-issued takeout containers with cake and other sustenance, and walked back out under the big yellow moon.

Nate was right. All she needed, really, was a little murder. Not a big one. A little something to take the edge off. And not a neighbor with a dryer and a shovel. A real one. There were so many murders out there. Surely, she could have one.





June 23, 1995

10:30 p.m.

IN THE LILAC ROOM (NO FOUR-POSTER, BUT A PRIVATE BATH WITH A claw-foot tub and climbing roses all around the window), Angela Gill unpacked her things—and they were actually her things. Unlike the other Nine, Angela was always careful not to take things that were not hers, or if she did, to give them back washed and folded. She set her reading on her bedside stand. Just because she had graduated didn’t mean there was any less to do. She was about to start work at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she had to become an expert in Tudor textiles and clothing as quickly as possible.

Somewhere down the hall, someone was already blasting music—Blur. That was probably Noel. The response came at once from another room, louder. That was Sooz, replying with Oasis. There was constant debate in their house about which was the better band. The battle had been brought to Merryweather, turning it into a Britpop echo chamber.

Angela opened the window, sticking her face out to smell the fresh country air and the flowers outside. The view wasn’t as grand as that from some of the other rooms—it overlooked a walled kitchen garden—but it was pleasant enough, and the air was sweet. The cloud cover had caught up with them, and the first grumblings of a summer thunderstorm shook the sky.

This was it. This was really, really it. The last week together. Her friends. How would she live without them? The rest of the world was going to be so lonely.

Cambridge University is made up of a collection of colleges under the umbrella of a university, and the Nine came from different ones and varied fields of study. They would not have met at all if not for a shared love of theater and a series of auditions in their first weeks. They had varied levels of success at these auditions, but they recognized something in each other immediately. Group friendships are products of the right time—the chemistry of season, activity, emotion, and random occurrence. They coalesced over a series of long nights at the pub, in rehearsal spaces, cafés, and bedrooms. It was Yash who first proposed that they form a sketch comedy group; Theo kept the topic going and made it all come together. By the end of the first term, the decision was made and the lineup solidified.