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stood in the doorway. “Come with me, please.”
    Every set of eyes in the room turned to Bree. Some looked combative, as if they resented the new girl being singled out. Others watched her wistfully, wishing they too had been summoned away for reasons unknown just to break the routine.
    Dr. Walters was all smiles as she led Bree to her office. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” she said, making small talk.
    Apparently Dr. Walters had missed the fact that she’d just retrieved Bree from a windowless room. “Um, yeah.”
    Dr. Walters closed her office door behind her. “Well, it’s about to get even better for you.”
    Bree had no idea what she was talking about, but took a seat while Dr. Walters shuffled through some papers on her desk.
    “Here’s the schedule for the group therapy outpatient sessions,” Dr. Walters said, handing Bree a printout. “It’s the same setup as here—everything we discuss is completely confidential and all the girls are former inmates of the Santa Clara County Girls’ Juvenile Detention Center.”
    Bree took the schedule from Dr. Walters’s outstretched hand,her brain still focused on the word “outpatient.”
    “Excuse me,” Bree said, hardly allowing herself to believe it might be true. “Are we being transported somewhere for group therapy?”
    Dr. Walters tilted her head to the side. “No, Bree. You’re being released today.”
    “What?”
    “You’ll be fitted with an anklet at the processing desk, and then remanded to parental custody under house arrest.” Dr. Walters beamed. “Isn’t that exciting?”
    Oh, shit. Her dad was going to rip her a new one when he hauled her out of juvie. Maybe he already had a cell reserved for her at that East Coast convent school he kept threatening her with? Bree swallowed, her tongue suddenly two sizes too large for her mouth. “When is my dad coming to get me?”
    “He’s not,” Dr. Walters said. “We’re releasing you to your mother.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................
FOUR
    KITTY STARED AT ED, DUMBFOUNDED. “ WHAT DO YOU MEAN , Christopher Beeman is dead?”
    Olivia shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
    Ed knew they wouldn’t believe him. “You think I’d make up something like that?” He pulled a folder from his backpack and handed it to them. “Check it.”
    With Olivia perched on her arm, Kitty perused the official copy of Christopher Beeman’s death certificate, and Ed watched as a harsh realization dawned on them—for the last few weeks they’d been chasing a ghost.
    “How did we not know this?” Kitty asked.
    “Like everything else about the mysterious Mr. Beeman,” Ed said, “the internet was totally purged. Someone wanted to erase him.”
    Olivia glanced at him sidelong. “Then how did you find out?”
    Ed straightened his shoulders, offended. “I’m a professional.”
    “What does that mean?” Olivia asked.
    Ed shrugged. “It means I bribed the janitor to tell me what he knew about Christopher Beeman.”
    “Death by strangulation, ruled a suicide.” Kitty studied the death certificate as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was reading. “This happened last year around the same time that article about Christopher going AWOL was published in the local paper.”
    “How did it . . .” Olivia swallowed, her face pale. “I mean, how was the body . . .”
    “He hung himself from the overhead pipes in the boiler room below the gym at Archway,” Ed said matter-of-factly. He tried not to imagine how miserable Christopher’s death must have been—cold, dark, and alone.
    Olivia gasped and rushed over to one of the computers. “Oh my God! We have to unsend that email.”
    “Email?” Ed asked.
    Kitty ran her fingers through her hair. “We sent an anonymous email to Sergeant Callahan with all our evidence against Christopher Beeman.”
    Ed whistled low. “Yeah, they’re going to delete that in