Brazen Tricks - Ali Dean Page 0,54

real toast soon to putting it all behind us.

Chapter Twenty

Jordan

After making statements to the police on Sunday night, we drive to Jay Beach to sleep. I don’t want to be in the condo. Griff went in to the station to make statements and give over his Instagram data. Now I’m gathered with my roommates and Sydney, and she’s getting the opportunity to present her case against Fliss, which is of course unnecessary at this point. At least it will make the case even more airtight.

“I think at first she was planning to blame Daisy if she ever got discovered,” Sydney explains. “She had another phone, and when I showed it to Daisy, she said it looked like her old iPhone from last year. It was cracked down the middle, so she’d gotten a new phone and never really thought about the fact she couldn’t find the old one.”

“So she was using that for the Instagram account and taking pictures?” Lucy asks.

“I think so. I found it in her desk but it was password protected.”

“Then she decided you’d be a better person to frame?”

“I guess once she got fixated on Jordan as the main block to Griff, I was a better fit for the role. I mean, when I met Fliss at the country club this summer I didn’t make it a secret I was jealous of you, Jordan. Sorry, at the time I felt like you’d taken my place.”

I don’t know what to say to that, because in a way, I kind of did take her place amongst her friend group. “So she stole your car to spy on Griff?” I ask instead.

“No, I let her borrow it. She told me hers was in the shop and she needed to run errands. By then I’d already followed her once when she was following Griff, and guessed what she was up to. It really didn’t occur to me she was trying to frame me for murder. Or that she would harm you, Jordan. I’m still kind of in shock here myself.”

“I think we’re all kind of in shock,” Lucy says.

“She seemed to be really good at spying, by the way. She had a wig and everything. Actually I found several wigs in her closet once I started snooping. But it’s harder than you might think to spy on people and I was afraid she’d spot me so I only did it one time. She just followed Griff from work to a skatepark, where he met his sister and Beck’s sister, then he went to a restaurant but I didn’t go in. I left after that. I was afraid she’d see me.”

“Did you take photos of her spying?” Zora asks.

“Oh yeah, she had binoculars and everything.”

I almost laugh, thinking about Summer. But then I think about how Summer’s privacy has been violated too, and that those very binoculars might have been used to peer into the Perrys’ house. Yuck.

Sydney takes a deep breath. “Look, Fliss played me well, but I screwed up big time. I knew who she was before I agreed to move in with her or come to the party. I just thought she was so great, it was impossible she was some internet stalker. So then I came up with the idea to find who the real stalker was, and Daisy was on board and Fliss of course pretended to be on board. Maybe that’s when she decided to frame me, or maybe she decided the day we met she was going to use me for something. Either way, I’m an idiot and I’m sorry.”

“You’re not a total idiot,” Ellie reassures. “I mean, you did figure out it was her. And the police will be able to pull it all together and make an airtight case with what you’ve got.”

“How’d you find out about me and Brie?” Zora asks. “Were you spying on us too?”

“That happened before I was even thinking it was Fliss. She wanted to come up to Jay Beach one Saturday. It’s a fun beach so I didn’t think twice about it. Now I’m guessing she probably hoped to run into Griffin or saw on social media he might be there, but instead we saw Brie and Zora together,” Sydney explains.

“Do we know how she broke into the condo?” Lucy asks.

Ellie raises her hand. “I bet she took my key and copied it. I thought I lost mine a few weeks ago, remember?”

A little shudder swipes through my body as the details of her plotting unfold,