Alex: "That first kiss I had with Sara was so perfect. I don't know what it was about her, but she always made me feel like nothing was as bad as it seemed."

Hannah: "Yeah, well, I just wanted to strangle the two of you when I saw that."

Azalea: "And while you two were warring in the throes of passion, Hunter and I were facing our own kind of battle."

Hunter Thomas Singleton:

Azalea and I rushed out to the parking lot to find my car, the lights flickering through the fading daylight as I mashed a thumb against my key fob. As soon as we'd both finished buckling up, we pulled from the lot and sped out onto the highway.

The drive to my house was a blur, my eyes fixed unswervingly on the road ahead as a million questions rebounded inside my brain. Had my father really known Azalea's mom all those years ago? How had he gotten mixed up in a murder? ...Had he been the guilty one after all?

It seemed we were arriving at my home only moments later, tires screeching to a halt beneath me as I fixed my gaze on the home of brick and glass I'd called my own for seventeen years. Narrowing my eyes, I steeled myself to unhitch the locks and climb from the car, to go inside and confront my father when—

"Um, Hunter," Azalea mused from beside me. "Is that...Ashley?"

I pulled my eyes from the front of my home, flicked my head to face to the house next door—where a thin brunette woman strode angrily down the paved sidewalk.

"I hate you!" she screamed so loudly I heard her through the car's glass window. "I hate you, Guillermo!"

"Who's Guillermo?" Azalea asked me in a whisper, the two of us ducking our heads as Ashley continued her furious pace toward a silver Hyundai parked only a few meters away from us.

"I...I don't know," I stammered in a low voice. "Maybe he's—"

I didn't have time to complete my thought before Gil Gonzales-Santos stomped through the front door wearing a menacing scowl. He glared at Ashley as she climbed inside her car, whirred the ignition to life, and bolted past where Azalea and I still kept our heads down.

"Isn't that Alex's uncle?" Azalea asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess Gil is short for Guillermo."

"Since when does Ashley know Alex's uncle?"

I hesitated, Gil's angry scowl immediately calling to mind that fire at Alex's Grandma's—a fire I'd since learned was somehow a cover-up in some crazy murder plot. And then there was Ashley herself. If she knew Alex's uncle and was somehow involved with that fire...

"I don't know," I finally spoke up, "but we're gonna find out." I waited for Azalea to re-buckle her seatbelt, then I twisted the wheel to the right and drove after Ashley. Her car sped out of the neighborhood and down the highway, passing under illuminated green traffic lights as we followed close behind.

Tall buildings reached for the sky as we sped between their imposing silhouettes, the night illuminated by streetlamps that jetted past in shining blurs just outside our windows. After pausing briefly at a stoplight, Ashley took a right next to Shake & Cake, then swerved quickly onto a weaving pathway.

"She has to know we're following her by now," Azalea said to me as I made the turn to follow Ashley. "Hunter, I'm not sure I want to find out where this road ends."

I shook my head. "This is the only lead we've got. She's gotta know something about that photo, and we need to figure this out—Alex and Hannah can't protect Stefan forever at that hospital, and we've still got no clue who White Robe's gonna go after next."

Azalea sighed, the darkness beyond the car deepening. "Fine," she answered back lowly. "But if a bunch of men in black suits with AK-47s pop out of nowhere and start shooting at us, I get to say I told you so."

"Deal," I said, laughing.

When Ashley's car finally screeched to a stop, we were on a solitary dirt road in front of a dense forest of trees, fully surrounded by the shadows of the night. About twenty feet ahead of where Azalea and I sat motionless in my vehicle, Ashley stepped out of her car and turned around to face us.

"I know you followed me, Hunter," she called into the air. "Though, I am curious—what exactly possessed you to chase me all the way out here?" She casually lifted a gun from her purse, pretended to examine its barrel. "It's mighty dangerous going after an armed woman."

Azalea unclicked the lock on her door and shoved it open, stepping outside. Without a moment's hesitation, I followed her lead.

"Give it up, Ashley," I spat the moment I'd climbed out and shut the door to my car. "We both know you're not going to shoot us."

"And the reason we followed you," Azalea added as she and I walked closer to where Ashley stood, "is because we want answers. Now." She placed a hand on her hip. "What do the packages mean, what do you have on Hunter's dad, and who the HECK is White Robe?"

"The packages," Ashley said sneeringly, turning to me, "are proof that your dad didn't kill that Admissions Board member. That picture on the back of the invitation is time-stamped. And the guy who found the body reported it within ten minutes of this photo having been taken. Your dad was at the Festival of Freaks, Hunter. And despite being a star athlete at Hale, I doubt even he could have run across town to Scofield-Andrews so quickly."

I paused. "Wait, why do you even have that photo...how do you have that photo?"

"I did some digging," she said casually. "It's not that hard. All it took was going into the yearbook archives at Hale University to find the pictures from the Festival of Freaks. And as to why..." she paused, hesitated. "I've been trying to track down White Robe. I know he's the one who killed the Admissions Board member."

"Wait, slow down—how do you know White Robe's the one who killed that guy?"

Ashley hesitated again. "Because he told me."

Azalea's mouth dropped open. "WHAT?"

"You heard me—White Robe confessed."

"But why would he ever tell you anything? I thought he was out to kill you."

"He is now, but he wasn't always. There was once a time when we worked together—you might even say we were friends."

"Okay," Azalea tilted her head. "So what did your friend look like?"

"I don't know," Ashley replied. "He's always hiding behind that borish mask. Even back when we first met, he'd never show me his face. He figured I'd turn on him." She paused. "I guess he was right."

"Turn on him?" I puzzled. "Are you saying you were working with White Robe?"

"Yes, Hunter," she huffed, beginning to sound impatient. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"But why? Why would you ever work with someone so clearly insane?"

"One word." She narrowed her eyes. "Revenge."

I was silent, as was Azalea; but Ashley had plenty left to say:

"Revenge is a powerful thing. Had it been only weeks earlier when I'd first met White Robe, I'd never have agreed to help him. But Earnestine—that lowlife, mindless tramp! She drove me to it! She was the reason!" Ashley took a deep breath, then stared directly forward at me:

"I was once engaged, engaged to a handsome and dashing young man—Guillermo Gonzales-Santos."

Azalea gasped next to me.

"The first time we met was at a cozy little bar in Alabama," Ashley said. "We'd both had too many drinks, and he started talking—he told me he was in this country illegally, that he'd lost one of his brothers, and that I reminded him of his mom. We went back to my apartment, and oh, did we make love that night! Young and naïve as I was, I didn't regret it; I thought true love only came once, that I had better not miss my chance.

"Within six months, we were engaged. I'd met his whole family by that point, including a charming little boy named Alejandro...but you know him as Alex."

My eyes popped wide. There's no way!

"Life was perfect," Ashley continued, a sarcastic edge beginning to drain into her words, "until a lovely, beautiful woman named Earnestine started to catch Guillermo's eye. To hear him describe her, she was the most stunning, most gorgeous woman ever born. But he swore to me that his heart would always be mine, no matter how many gorgeous women he met...what a wretched liar!" She closed her eyes briefly and paused, trembling.

"The evening before we were to be married, Guillermo sneaked out in the middle of the night and met Earnestine. On a hunch, I followed Gil. I watched as the two of them drove together to her house...and the rest is history." Ashley paused again, this time fighting back tears. "He betrayed me! He betrayed my love for some skank in a black-and-blue uniform!" She shook her head violently.

"When I confronted him about it, he denied everything. He tried to play it off, said it was just business and that Earnestine had promised to help him and his family shake the police while they were securing Green Cards. But I knew he was lying. I'd been close enough to Earnestine's window that night to hear him say he loved her, that he wanted to run off with her and start a family someplace far away.

"After that, I left him; and I never looked back. In fact, I went to the police and reported his entire family. And if it hadn't been for Earnestine, Gil and all the rest of them would have been shipped back to Mexico long ago." She glanced away briefly. "The police did a record search, found out that they didn't belong here, and went to that house to haul every single one of them to jail. But Earnestine—that dirty whore!—she got them out. She pulled some strings to get them put under house arrest until their case could be 'processed.' But guess what? The files were mysteriously lost the very next week. And the week after that, every member of the Gonzales-Santos household had fled the state with the help of a woman named Alma. And Earnestine followed them—all the way to California."

For a while, Azalea and I just stood there. This isn't real, I thought. There's no way.

Ashley snickered coldly. "After what Gil and Earnestine had done to me, I was determined to get my revenge. I saved up enough money to move to California as well. My plan was simple—I would follow Earnestine home from the police station where she worked, shoot her with every bullet in my gun, then leave the U.S. and never return. I had driven to the police station, and I was waiting outside; but then...the strangest thing happened.

"It was a man—or at least someone who looked like a man—wearing a black mask and running across the parking lot. I was terrified, too terrified to even move. I thought about hiding or even just speeding off in my car. But I was so scared that he might hear me as I tried to get away, that he might shoot out my tires or follow me home...." She blinked twice, then her eyes took on an edge and she scowled. "But it was there, frozen in place, motionless in my car—it was there that I saw her."

"Earnestine?" I asked in a single breath.

"Precisely," Ashley replied. "Chasing the man in the mask, running after him down the sidewalk and calling out for him to stop." She exhaled. "Without thinking, I jumped out of my car and yelled her name, then started screaming at her for what she'd done to me and told her she didn't deserve to live. But she just...brushed past me. She was determined to go after the masked man, but I wouldn't let her. I grabbed her arm and shouted louder and louder, until eventually people from the buildings and offices nearby began peeking out their windows. Earnestine demanded that I let go of her, but I did no such thing. I didn't even care that the man she was chasing was getting away." She hesitated. "Earnestine was outraged. She threatened to prosecute me for helping the man escape, but I refused to even give her the satisfaction of seeing me flinch. And when she finally turned around and slinked off back to the station, I got inside my car and prepared to drive away...but then I heard a voice—a deep and raspy voice.

"The masked man hadn't left. He'd hidden inside my unlocked car while I was screaming at Earnestine." Ashley shivered. "I thought surely he would kill me, but...he didn't. In fact, he thanked me. He said I helped him, more than I could ever know, and that he now had all he needed to make those who had ruined his life pay for their sins.

"I was still freaking out, but I slowly began to calm down as he started telling me his story. He said that over twenty years ago, a woman had stolen his most valuable possession, and that all this time, he'd been planning his perfect revenge. I asked him if the woman he was talking about was Earnestine, but he said it wasn't. The only reason he'd broken into the station was that he'd needed to steal some police records in order for certain parts of his plan to work.

"I don't know why he didn't scare me. He had hidden in my car, he was wearing a mask, and he was obviously planning to do something very illegal. Maybe it was the fact that I understood him, that I too had been cheated out of that which was so dear and precious to me.

"He asked me to drive him to a gas station, and I did. I let him out, and he disappeared—for twelve years, I never saw him again. For her part, Earnestine acquired around-the-clock police guards to watch her home at all times. I don't know if she knew how badly I wanted her dead, but seeing me in that parking lot had really frightened her.

"And yet despite it all, somehow—somehow—ever so slowly, my desire for vengeance began to wane, even grow dormant. I found a job here, working at Alma's clinic. I told her I was interested in the advancement of the Mexican-American population; but if I'm being honest, it was my only way to...to find my way back into Guillermo's life." She sniffled, raised a single hand to her eyes, wiping swiftly before continuing. "I kept telling myself I wanted him dead too, that he and Earnestine both deserved to die for what they had done to me—but I could never bring myself to kill him. I spent many a night waiting outside the Gonzales family's house with a gun in my purse, but I never found the strength to kill my first love."

"So, what then?" Azalea asked, "You just settled down in California?"

"Yes, Azalea, I did settle down. In fact, I had almost come to terms with the possibility that Earnestine might never pay for what she had done to me. Almost." She shut her eyes. "But then, one morning I awoke and saw a person in a white robe standing at the foot of my bed. My first instinct was to scream; but before I could, I felt something...familiar about him. And when he spoke, I knew exactly who he was." She turned briefly to stare into the surrounding darkness. "He told me that he was finally ready to finish what he'd started and that if I wanted, I could be a part of it.

"He remembered how deeply I'd despised Earnestine, and he made me a deal. I would be his hands and feet, the one who carried out the plans he had so cleverly crafted; and in exchange, I would get to kill the one person I hated most in the world."

"Earnestine," I whispered, my eyes growing wide.

"I was skeptical at first, but then he told me that the plan would work so much more smoothly if Earnestine were dead. He wouldn't say why at first, only that one of his contacts was starting to have second thoughts about helping and that Earnestine's death would allow him to easily patch up the hole."

"Wait," Azalea interrupted. "Who was it? The contact—the person who wouldn't help him anymore?"

Ashley paused, then smiled an awful smile. "Cassandra Singleton. It was your mother, Hunter."

"WHAT!?" I screamed, grabbing Ashley's wrist and yanking her closer to stare her in the eyes. "You're the one who killed my mom!?"

She ripped her hand away. "No, you idiot! You're not listening! I said she was a hole, not that I killed her. I don't even know where she is."

"She's in the morgue," I spat back. "Or haven't you been reading the news?"

"No, Hunter," Ashley said knowingly, "that wasn't your mother who Alex found in Gallensley's storage shed. That was Earnestine."

My jaw dropped. This is impossible.

"The day before that body was found in the shed, Cassandra had told White Robe she was out. She said she couldn't do it anymore and made some pathetic argument about trying to protect you, Hunter. But her cold feet really didn't matter. White Robe had predicted months in advance that she'd have misgivings about his end game. That's why he had a backup. He knew that when Cassandra quit, it would put a wrinkle in the plan—she knew too much and would need to be eliminated...and she was the reason he needed Earnestine dead. He needed a fake body so that you and your family wouldn't start searching for the real one. A woman the size of your mother was required, and Earnestine fit the bill perfectly.

"So we did it—we killed her." She paused, a cruel smile creeping up both sides of her face. "I was there; I lit the fire that burned Earnestine alive, and then I hacked off all of her skin and wrapped it in plastic bags—oh, it was marvelous! To hear her scream, to hear her beg! What a release it was to know that the woman who'd ruined my life could never hurt me again!"

"You're sick!" Azalea spat.

"SHUT UP, AZALEA!" she screamed. "Earnestine got exactly what she deserved!"

"You burned her alive," I mused. "The fire—you weren't just there; you and White Robe set the fire at Alex's grandmother's house, didn't you? That was your cover." I paused. "But how did you know Earnestine would come?"

"I didn't," Ashley said indifferently. "That's why I called her. I made my voice sound old and scrawny, just like Alex's grandmother. I told her to hurry and that the fire was closing in on me." She lifted a hand to rest on her hip. "It's almost laughable, really. Earnestine would do anything to please her darling Guillermo, especially if it involved his sweet old mother Verónica."

"You lured her," I said slowly. "You lured Earnestine to her death."

"Yes," Ashley replied. "And I made sure that Officer Allsgate was the first one on the scene." She laughed. "Patronizing creep that he is, I must say he did his job particularly well that day." She removed a stray curl of hair from her line of sight as she gazed fiercely into my eyes.

"So I'm guessing you're the one who delivered all those creepy notes Earnestine kept getting," Azalea said, crossing her arms.

Ashley nodded. "Of course I was. I had begun spying on her weeks before her death, and slipping her those notes was the simplest of tasks." She paused. "Although I must say, I did feel sorry for Velden. I couldn't bear to tell him that Earnestine was dead."

"So you gave him hope?" I almost screamed. "You told him that everything would be okay when you knew he would never see his mother again? How could you!?"

"I had no choice! I needed to keep the packages secure. He never would have trusted me if I'd told him the truth, and neither would you!"

"Who says I ever did? Because as far as I'm concerned, you're just as guilty as White Robe!"

Ashley stood there and glared at me for several seconds, but I didn't back down. I met her imposing stare with equal defiance and ferocity.

"What about Hunter's mom?" Azalea asked evenly. "Where is she?"

"Like I said, I don't know," Ashley said, unclenching her teeth. "But I do know that he cut off some of her skin and planted it under Earnestine's skeleton in the shed where Alex found her. As for what he did with Cassandra's body, White Robe never told me; and he made it clear that it was none of my business."

"Wow," Azalea said mockingly, "sounds like he didn't trust you. I wonder why."

Ashley smiled. "Make fun of me all you want, Azalea; I couldn't care less. A child like you could never understand."

"If you're so pleased with yourself, why'd you even come to us for help?" I demanded. "Why would you ever want White Robe caught if he was the one who gave you your precious revenge?"

"Because he wants me dead!" she screamed. "After Alex found Earnestine's body and the coroner wrongly identified it as your mother's, my part in White Robe's plan was over. I had decided that I was ready to move on with my life—I didn't care about Guillermo anymore, and all I wanted was to leave the country. But I still needed money.

"Because I'd been so helpful, White Robe agreed to help me out. He told me about the scandal at the Festival of Freaks, one he'd known about because he was a janitor at Scofield-Andrews at the time. He gave me everything I needed to blackmail your dad and Azalea's mom, to force them to give me all the money I needed."

"Wait," I interjected. "You already said that they were innocent. How could you blackmail them unless—"

"I said they didn't kill the Admissions Board member; I never said they were innocent."

"W—what do you mean?" Azalea asked, fear suddenly shivering through her voice. "Are you saying our parents...killed someone?"

"In not so many words...yes." Ashley gave a devious grin before staring off into space. "Luvietta had just met Aaron that night, and he thought she was gorgeous. But he wasn't the only one. Another guy, Thaddeus, kept making advances on Luvietta."

"Hold up," I interrupted. "My dad hates Azalea—and her family. Do you really expect me to believe that he was head over heels for Azalea's mom?"

"He wasn't always such a shameless racist, you know," Ashley said. "In fact, if I had to put money on it, I'd bet Luvietta's probably the reason he's what he is today. But I digress." She waved her hand dismissively. "After Luvietta shut Thaddeus down one too many times, he tried lifting her shirt, and she shoved him. The poor guy was so drunk that he fell out of the window, two stories to his death."

I gasped. What the—?

"Aaron and Luvietta decided to just cover it all up, especially since everyone else at the party either didn't see anything or was too wasted to care. Luvietta convinced Aaron to drive the body to the city dumpster, all the way across town. But the entrance was only a few hundred feet from the Scofield-Andrews academic chemistry laboratory building. And what neither Aaron nor Luvietta saw was the person standing in the doorway—the person who photographed everything."

"It was White Robe, wasn't it?" I asked.

Ashley nodded her head. "White Robe now had proof that Luvietta and Aaron were near Scofield-Andrews, and all he had to do was bribe a professional photographer to fake the time stamp. The body of the Admissions Board member was found in the dumpster the next day."

"Wait," Azalea interrupted, "I thought you said my mom and Hunter's dad dumped Thaddeus' s body in the dumpster."

"Yes," Ashley said, "but White Robe stole it. He took Thaddeus's body. And to this day, I don't know what he did with it. He stowed the Admissions Board member in the dumpster as a setup to make it look like Aaron and Luvietta had been involved. And while he only had a picture of Luvietta standing outside the dumpster, he had pictures of Aaron actually carrying a body inside and putting it there.

"All it took after that was leaking the photos to the press, and Aaron and Luvietta were both arrested. Luvietta managed to get off with the help of her fiancée, an up-and-coming attorney at law. The way she told the story, Aaron had kidnapped her and Thaddeus while the three of them were drunk. She said that Aaron had beaten Thaddeus to death with a hammer and that he was about to rape her when a mysterious stranger intervened.

"Her story was shaky, but it managed to hold up in court, and she was acquitted. Hunter's dad spent a week in jail. But then the case was overturned—the coroner ruled the cause of death to have been a gunshot wound, not a hammer to the head. The photos were also thrown out because the photographer White Robe paid came forward and confessed to having faked the time stamps. I guess the guilt of having put an innocent man in jail was too much for him.

"But even though Luvietta and Aaron had been acquitted for that murder, White Robe still had proof that they had killed someone; and he sent me copies of all the photos he'd taken that night. He gave me free reign over Aaron but told me never to say a word to Luvietta." Ashley paused, rolled her eyes with a sigh. "But Luvietta is the one with all the money—I couldn't not blackmail her. I went to her house one night and threatened her. I told her that I knew about the role she'd played in Thaddeus's murder and that I was prepared to go to the police if she didn't give me one-hundred thousand dollars.

"She was terrified, and she agreed to write me a check right then and there. But before she could, I heard someone in the bushes. I knew it was White Robe, and I knew he wouldn't be happy that I was threatening Luvietta, so I ran; I got in my car and drove away, and I never heard from White Robe again.

"I was afraid to go after Luvietta again, so I showed up at your mom's funeral, Hunter. I demanded from Aaron the same amount of cash I'd demanded from Luvietta, and I told him that I wanted my money in the next twenty-four hours or I would go straight to the police. Then I went outside to leave and almost got blown up in my car. After that, I knew White Robe wanted me dead." She paused, shuddering. "I called your dad later that day, and he said he couldn't give me all of the money at once. Since it was the end of the month, he offered to let me stay in his house so I wouldn't have to pay the next month's rent at my apartment. He got his paycheck the following week and paid me fifteen thousand dollars six days later."

Azalea shook her head. "You're something else. Forcing a grieving widower and his teenage son to put up with your bullcrap while you leech off their family's money."

"The price of silence is high, Azalea." Ashley smirked. "Besides, it's not like it's forever." She glanced down at her watch impatiently.

"What's the matter?" I spat. "Got a plane to catch?"

"As a matter of fact, Hunter, yes. And on your father's dime, no less." She thinned her eyes and smiled arrogantly at me before lifting several folded squares of paper from her purse. "Not that you're asking, but passports cost quite the pretty penny—especially when you have to buy them from the only hacker in California who can wipe out cop records."

I rolled my eyes. "So that's it then? Drive out to an abandoned road in the middle of the night to kill time playing Miss Detective one last time before zooming through the U.S. gates on a one-way ticket to Who Knows Where? You're unbelievable."

Ashley smiled again that acrimonious smile. "If you recall, I didn't force you to follow me here. And if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have the faintest idea what White Robe is really up to. You should be thanking me."

I scowled back at her, wondered if she could feel the rage burning inside me.

"...I still don't get it," Azalea said finally. "It just doesn't make sense why White Robe would go through so much trouble to make sure that you never threatened my mom."

After a moment of silence, Ashley exhaled. "If I had to guess," she offered ominously, "I'd say your mother is the one he hates most of all—she's the final piece in his ultimate end game. He never told me that specifically, but every time he talked about her, I could sense this...this rage.

"I mean, think about it. He's trying to kill me just because I may have tipped Luvietta off that there's a bigger plan at work here. Whatever he's plotting, he doesn't want her to know about any of it." She paused and turned to Azalea, looking her straight in the eye. "I don't know why this freak hates your mom so much, but you need to be careful. I've seen what he's capable of. He's simultaneously the most brilliant and vengeful person I've ever met, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants."

Azalea was silent, as was I. We just stood there for a while, taking in all that we had heard, flinching at the woman who stood before us in a new light. She was no longer merely an annoying pest who seemed to flit in and out of our lives at will; she was a murderess, an unrepentant murderess and manipulator.

And yet somehow, the man who sought her death, who perhaps sought all of our deaths—he was still out there somewhere, hiding behind a silken robe of white. And knowing what we now knew, it just made me even more afraid.

What were we going to do? If he really was as ingenious, as terrifying as Ashley said...were we all just living on borrowed time?

After a few more moments, I collected myself and turned to walk away, Azalea following my lead. We left Ashley standing behind us, all of the stories she'd told still floating through our heads as we climbed back inside my car and drove away into the night.