Private 10 - Suspicion Read Online Free PDF

presumptuousness of them and wanted to take them back. "I mean, unless you don't want to talk about it. I completely understand if--"
    "No. It's fine. I brought it up," Sawyer said flatly. "She killed herself, actually." My hand covered my heart as I gasped. "What? Why?"
    Sawyer looked at me for the first time. "That's the thing. I have no idea," he said, adjusting his arms over his chest, gripping himself even tighter. "She didn't even leave a note." My hand was over my mouth now. "Omigod, Sawyer. I'm so sorry. That's gotta be so .. ."
    "Yeah. It is," he said, nodding again and looking at the ground. "It's the worst part.. . the not knowing."
    "God, I know how that feels," I breathed.
    Sawyer looked at me. I could feel him wanting to ask what I meant, but unlike me, he knew how to hold his tongue.
    "My boyfriend Thomas . . . I'm sure you heard ... He was killed last year," I said.
    "Ariana," Sawyer said.
    I froze at the unexpected uttering of her name. For a moment I'd spaced on the fact that she was part of the St. Barths crew. That Sawyer had actually known her.
    "Yeah. But before we knew that he was dead, he just went missing. And those few days when I had no idea where he was or why he'd gone or if he was hurt or dead or just avoiding me . . . those were the worst few days ever. Not knowing something that huge is unbearable."
    "But you beared it . . . bore it . . . whatever," Sawyer said with a quick laugh. There was a pang of sorrow in my chest. I had never thought about it that way before. At the time I'd thought there was no way I would ever get through those days. But I had. And I had come out the other side.
    "Yeah. I guess I did," I replied with a slight smile.
    "My dad always says, 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger,'" Sawyer said confidently. Suddenly his whole demeanor changed. He rolled his shoulders back and his chest lifted, as if just saying those words pumped him up from the inside.
    "I like that," I said. "If it's true, I should be about as strong as the Hulk by now." Sawyer laughed and I grinned. I had made the brooding boy laugh. Gome.
    "Listen, there's something I want to tell you. Graham said not to, but I think you should know," Sawyer said.
    My heart skipped a foreboding beat. "What is it?"
    "That night on the boat, Kiran and Taylor realized you and Upton were gone and they started joking around about it. You know, stupid immature crap about where you were ... what you were doing...," he said, avoiding eye contact.
    I blushed and looked away.
    "But then all of a sudden, Paige grabbed Daniel and pulled him off the craps table and they were all whispering and stuff and then they just disappeared," Sawyer continued, his words tumbling over one another. "They didn't come back until right before Upton and Poppy did."
    I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. So Upton had been with Poppy while I was getting almost-killed. What the hell was it with those two?
    Focus, Reed. So not the point here.
    "So you think... I mean, do you think that Paige or Daniel could've been the one who pushed me?" I asked, my voice quavering.
    "I don't know," Sawyer replied firmly. "That's all I saw. And five minutes later Upton realized you hadn't come back to the party and we all started searching the boat. Including Paige and Daniel."
    I nodded, my heart slamming against my rib cage. I'd never liked the Ryan twins. Never trusted them. Now it seemed like I had a good reason.
    "Should I not have told you?" Sawyer asked, his eyes full of worry.
    "No. I mean, yes. It's fine," I said. "It's good to know." For a long moment, I just let this information sink in. I stared out at the water and felt a wall of fear rising up inside my chest. A coupleof nights ago I had been out there somewhere, alone and scared and freezing. I had almost died in that ocean. I had always suspected that Poppy might be behind the horse-riding incident and the Jet Ski thing. She was irate that Upton had dumped her and seemed a bit off in general--she'd