I’ll make sure you get to Costa Rica. We both get what we want.”
No way. There had to be catch. Why would Hannah Cohen do anything to help me get something I wanted?
“Why me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. “Can’t you find someone heartless enough in this school to do this for you?”
“Aren’t you heartless, Avery? You certainly acted like you were that day in Elliott’s basement.” She shrugged. “You already have experience in stealing my boyfriends. This will make us even.”
“I didn’t steal Elliott from you,” I said.
“No, but you ruined everything,” Hannah said in a low voice. “It wasn’t just your friendship with the two of us you killed that day.”
My fingernails dug into my palms. I would not cry in front of Hannah. She would not have the satisfaction of seeing she still had this effect on me, even four years later.
“Go find someone else to do your dirty work,” I grumbled, trying to push past her toward the door.
“Don’t tell me you’ve grown a conscience now,” Hannah said.
I started to pull the door open, but her next words stopped me. “If you don’t do it, I’ll tell Molly all about your make out session with Elliott back in seventh grade.”
I turned around to face her, heart pounding against my ribs.
Hannah smirked. “She doesn’t know, does she? She has no idea exactly why you hate Elliott so much.”
I sucked in a few deep breaths. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me. You owe me, Avery. This is your chance to make amends for your mistake.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you in or out?”
I shook my head, but then Hannah played her final hand, the one she knew I couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.”
I froze. Did she say five hundred dollars?
Hannah pulled her checkbook from her purse. “Two hundred now, three hundred when the job is done. Last chance. In or out?” She opened the checkbook and eyed me, her pen poised over the paper.
Five hundred dollars. It was probably nothing to her. Hannah used to live across the street from me, next door to Elliott’s family. But a couple years ago, the bank her father owned went national and made him a ton of money. Now the Cohens lived in a big house in a gated community within Willowbrook’s wealthier district. For Hannah, five hundred was a small blip in her bank account.
But five hundred dollars was everything to me. It was the difference between getting on a plane to Costa Rica or wearing a giant hot dog all summer again.
So who was Zac Greeley to me anyway? Just a guy I went to school with. We weren’t even really friends. We’d never hung out together outside of class before this business project.
I licked my dry tongue over my lips. “I’m in,” I croaked out.
Hannah wrote out the check and ripped it from the checkbook. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter 6
“So, Avery,” Trisha said as she smiled across the table at me over the vase of fresh lilies Dad had bought earlier that day. “Your father tells me you’re in the running for valedictorian of your class?”
I’d finally had a night free from hot dogs, screaming kids, and Elliott Reiser. A brand new book on disorders of the spine sat untouched on my bedside table, waiting for me to crack it open.
But no. Dad ambushed me with his other plans. When Ian and I had arrived home from school, Dad had called to say that we were to be dressed nicely and ready for dinner at six-thirty with his girlfriend.
His girlfriend. People over the age of forty shouldn’t be allowed to have girlfriends or boyfriends. They should be friends, nothing more.
Trisha Montgomery was a fifth grade teacher at Willowbrook Elementary. She didn’t look like the red-eyed, rabid beast with huge horns I’d half-expected. Instead, she looked nice in a floral print sundress and gold sandals, and her light brown hair was piled up on her head in a messy twist that probably had taken a lot longer to make perfectly messy than what it looked. One of those hairstyles I could never master the right balance between messy and styled.
The neckline of her dress, however, was slightly too low, especially for an elementary school teacher. I’d had to kick Ian in the leg several times when I caught him staring.
“Maybe,” I answered, shrugging. “You never know. A rocket scientist in training could transfer to my school next year and knock me down a