One of Us Is Next Read online

  BOOKS BY KAREN M. MCMANUS

  One of Us Is Lying

  Two Can Keep a Secret

  One of Us Is Next

  For Mom and Dad

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Karen M. McManus, LLC

  Cover photograph (second girl) © 2020 by Nabi Tang/Stocksy; all other photographs used under license from Shutterstock.com

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: McManus, Karen M., author.

  Title: One of us is next / Karen M. McManus.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2020] | Summary: “A year after the Bayview four were cleared of Simon Kelleher’s death, a new mystery has cropped up—a game with dangerous consequences that’s targeting students at Bayview again. And if the creator isn’t found soon, dangerous could prove deadly”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019004154 | ISBN 978-0-525-70796-7 (hc) | ISBN 978-0-525-70797-4 (glb) | ISBN 978-0-525-70798-1 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17547-7 (intl. tr. pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Gossip—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M4637 Or 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780525707981

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Karen M. Mcmanus

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter 11

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Friday, March 6

  REPORTER (standing at the edge of a winding street with a large white stucco building behind her): Good morning. This is Liz Rosen with Channel Seven News, reporting live from Bayview High, where students are reeling from the loss of one of their classmates yesterday. It’s the second tragic teenage death in the past eighteen months for this small town, and the mood outside the school is one of shocked déjà vu.

  (Cut to two girls, one wiping tears, the other stone-faced.)

  CRYING GIRL: It’s just…it’s just really sad. Like, sometimes it feels as though Bayview is cursed, you know? First Simon, and now this.

  STOIC GIRL: This isn’t anything like what happened with Simon.

  REPORTER (angling her microphone toward the crying girl): Were you and the deceased student close?

  CRYING GIRL: Not like, close close. Or at all close. I mean, I’m just a freshman.

  REPORTER (turning toward the other girl): And how about you?

  STOIC GIRL: I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking to you.

  Ten Weeks Earlier

  Reddit, Vengeance Is Mine subforum

  Thread started by Bayview2020

  Hey.

  Is this the same group Simon Kelleher used to post with?—Bayview2020

  Greetings.

  One and the same.—Darkestmind

  Why’d you move? And why are there hardly any posts?—Bayview2020

  Too many gawkers and reporters on the old site.

  And we have new security measures. Lesson learned from our friend Simon.

  Who I’m guessing you know, based on your user name?—Darkestmind

  Everyone knows Simon. Well. Knew him.

  It’s not like we were friends, though.—Bayview2020

  Okay. So what brings you here?—Darkestmind

  I don’t know. Just stumbled across it.—Bayview2020

  Bullshit. This is a forum dedicated to revenge, and it’s not easy to find.

  You’re here for a reason.

  What is it? Or should I say who?—Darkestmind

  Who.

  Somebody did something horrible.

  It wrecked my life and so many others.

  Meanwhile NOTHING happened to them.

  And I can’t do anything about it.—Bayview2020

  Same, same.

  We have a lot in common.

  It sucks when the person who ruined your life gets to walk around like always.

  As if what they did doesn’t matter.

  I beg to disagree with your conclusion, though.

  There’s always something you can do.—Darkestmind

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maeve

  Monday, February 17

  My sister thinks I’m a slacker. She’s not coming right out and saying it—or texting it, technically—but it’s heavily implied:

  Did you check out that list of colleges I sent?

  Winter of your junior year isn’t too early to start looking. It’s actually kind of late.

  We could visit some places when I’m home for Ashton’s bachelorette party if you want.

  You should apply somewhere totally out of your comfort zone, too.

  What about the University of Hawaii?

  I look up from the texts flashing across my phone to meet Knox Myers’s questioning gaze. “Bronwyn thinks I should go to college at the University of Hawaii,” I report, and he almost chokes on his mouthful of empanada.

  “She does realize that’s on an island, right?” he asks, reaching for a glass of ice water and draining half of it in one gulp. The empanadas at Café Contigo are legendary in Bayview but they’re a lot to take if you’re not used to spicy food. Knox, who moved here from Kansas in middle sch ool and still counts mushroom-soup-based casseroles among his favorite meals, most definitely is not. “Has she already forgotten that you’re vehemently anti-beach?”

  “I’m not anti-beach,” I protest. “I’m just not a proponent of sand. Or too much sun. Or undertow. Or sea creatures.” Knox’s eyebrows climb higher with every sentence. “Look, you’re the one who made me watch Monsters of the Deep,” I remind him. “My ocean phobia is mostly your fault.” Knox was my first-ever boyfriend last summer, both of us too inexperienced to realize we weren’t actually attracted to one another. We spent most of our relationship watching the Science Channel, which should have clued us in quicker that we were better off as friends.

  “You’ve convinced me,” Knox says drily. “This is the school for you. I look forward to reading what will undoubtedly be a heartfelt application essay when it’s due.” He leans forward and raises his voice for emphasis. “Next year.”

  I sigh, drumming my fingers on the brightly tiled table. Café Contigo is an Argentinean café with deep blue walls and a tin ceiling, the air a fragrant mix of sweet and savory scents. It’s less than a mile from my house and became my favorite place to do homework once Bronwyn left for Yale and my room was suddenly much too quiet. I like the friendly bustle of the café and the fact that nobody minds if I spend three hours here and only order coffee. “Bronwyn thinks I’m behind schedule,” I tell Knox.

  “Yeah, well, Bronwyn practically had her Yale application ready in preschool, didn’t she?” he says. “We have plenty of time.” Knox is like me—a seventeen-year-old junior at Bayview High, older than most of our classmates. In his case, it’s because he was small for his age in kindergarten and his parents held him back. In mine, it’s because I was in and out of hospitals with leukemia for half my childhood.

  “I guess.” I reach over to grab Knox’s empty plate and stack it on top of mine but knock over the saltshaker instead, sending white crystals scattering across the table. Almost without thinking, I take a pinch between two fingers and throw it over my shoulder. Warding off bad luck, like Ita taught me. My grandmother has dozens of superstitions: some Colombian, and some she’s picked up after living in the United States for thirty years. I used to follow them all when I was little, especially when I was sick. If I wear the beaded bracelet Ita gave me, this test won’t hurt. If I avoid all the cracks in the floor, my white cell count will be normal. If I eat twelve grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve, I won’t die this year.

  “Anyway, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t go to college right away,” Knox says. He slouches in his chair, pushing a shock of brown hair off his forehead. Knox is so lean and angular that even after stuffing himself with all of his empanadas and half of mine, he still looks hungry. Every time he’s at our house, one or both of my parents try to feed him. “Lots of people don’t.” His glance flicks around the restaurant before landing on Addy Prentiss pushing through the kitchen doors with a tray balanced in one hand.

  I watch Addy wind her way through Café Contigo, dropping off plates of food with practiced ease. Over Thanksgiving, when the true crime show Mikhail Powers Investigates aired its special report “The Bayview Four: Where Are They Now,” Addy agreed to be interviewed for the first time ever. Probably because she could tell that the producers were gearing up to present her as the slacker of the group—my sister made it to Yale, Cooper had a splashy scholarship to Cal State Fullerton, even Nate was taking a few community college classes—and she wasn’t having it. No “Bayview’s Former Beauty Queen Peaks in High School” headline for Adelaide Prentiss.

  “If you know what you want to do when you graduate, great,” she’d said, perched on a stool in Café Contigo with the day’s specials written in brightly colored chalk on the blackboard behind her. “If you don’t, why pay a fortune for a degree you might never use? There’s nothing wrong with not having your entire life mapped out when you’re eighteen.”

  Or seventeen. I eye my phone warily, waiting for another barrage of Bronwyn texts. I love my sister, but her perfectionism is a hard act to follow.

  The evening crowd is starting to arrive, filling the last of the tables as someone turns all the wall-mounted big-screen televisions to Cal State Fullerton’s baseball season opener. Addy pauses when her tray is almost empty and scans the room, smiling when she catches my eye. She makes her way to our corner table and places a small plate of alfajores between Knox and me. The dulce de leche sandwich cookies are a Café Contigo specialty, and they’re the only thing Addy has learned to make during her nine months working here.

  Knox and I both reach for them at the same time. “You guys want anything else?” Addy asks, tucking a lock of silvery pink hair behind her ear. She’s tried a few different colors over the past year, but nothing that isn’t pink or purple lasts for very long. “You should get your order in now if you do. Everyone’s taking a break once Cooper starts pitching in”—she glances at the clock on the wall—“five minutes or so.”

  I shake my head as Knox stands, brushing crumbs from the front of his favorite gray sweatshirt. “I’m good, but I have to hit the restroom,” he says. “Can you save my seat, Maeve?”

  “You got it,” I say, sliding my bag onto his chair.

  Addy half turns, then almost drops her tray. “Oh my God! There he is!”

  Every screen in the restaurant fills with the same image: Cooper Clay walking to the mound to warm up for his first college baseball game. I just saw Cooper over Christmas, not even two months ago, but he looks bigger than I remember. As square-jawed and handsome as ever, but with a steely glint in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. Then again, until right this second, I’ve always watched Cooper pitch from a distance.

  I can’t hear the announcers over the chatter in the café, but I can guess what they’re saying: Cooper’s debut is the talk of college baseball right now, big enough that a local cable sports show is covering the whole game. Part of the buzz is due to lingering Bayview Four notoriety, and the fact that he’s one of the few openly gay players in baseball, but it’s also because he’s been tearing up spring training. Sports analysts are taking bets on whether he’ll jump to the majors before he’s finished a single college season.

  “Our superstar is finally going to meet his destiny,” Addy says fondly as Cooper adjusts his cap on screen. “I need to do one last check on my tables, then I’ll join you guys.” She starts moving through the restaurant with her tray tucked under her arm and her order pad in hand, but the attention of the room has already shifted from food to baseball.

  My eyes linger on the television, even though the scene has switched from Cooper to an interview with the other team’s coach. If Cooper wins, this year will turn out fine. I try to push the thought out of my head as soon as it pops in, because I won’t be able to enjoy the game if I turn it into yet another bet against fate.

  A chair scrapes noisily beside me, and a familiar black leather jacket brushes against my arm. “What’s up, Maeve?” Nate Macauley asks, settling into his chair. His eyes rove across the sodium-spattered tabletop. “Uh-oh. Salt massacre. We’re doomed, aren’t we?”

  “Ha and ha,” I say, but my lips twitch. Nate’s become like a brother to me since he and Bronwyn started dating almost a year ago, so I suppose teasing comes with the territory. Even now, when they’re “on a break” for the third time since Bronwyn left for college. After spending last summer angsting over whether a three-thousand-mile long-distance relationship could work, my sister and her boyfriend have settled into a pattern of being inseparable, arguing, breaking up, and getting back together that, oddly, seems to work for both of them.

  Nate just grins, and we lapse into a comfortable silence. It’s easy hanging out with him, and Addy, and the rest of Bronwyn’s friends. Our friends, she always says, but it’s not really true. They were hers first, and they wouldn’t be mine without her.

  My phone buzzes as if on cue, and I look down to another text from Bronwyn. Has the game started?

  Soon, I type. Cooper’s warming up.

  I wish it were on ESPN so I could watch!!! Pacific Coast Sports Network does not, sadly, air in New Haven, Connecticut. Or anyplace outside a three-hour radius of San Diego. And they don’t live-stream online, either.

  I’m recording it for you, I remind her.

  I know, but it’s not the same.

  Sorry :(

  I swallow the last of my cookie, watching the gray dots linger on my phone screen for so long that I’m positive I know what’s coming next. Bronwyn is a lightning-fast texter. She never hesitates unless she’s about to say something she thinks she shouldn’t, and there’s currently only one topic on her self-imposed Do Not Raise list.

  Sure enough: Is Nate there?

  My sister may not live one room away from me anymore, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still give her a hard time. Who? I text back, then glance at Nate. “Bronwyn says hi,” I tell him.

  His dark-blue eyes flash, but his expression remains impassive. “Hi back.”

  I get it, I guess. No matter how much you care about someone, things change when they used to be around all the time and then suddenly, they’re not. I feel it too, in a different way. But Nate and I don’t have the sort of dynamic where we talk about our feelings—neither of us has that with anyone, really, except for Bronwyn—so I just make a face at him. “Repression is unhealthy, you know.”