Two weeks after she’d come back to Coronado, Lia caught a glimpse of Ryan through the glass of Karen Green’s car window in the parking lot of the Safeway. Ryan had seemed deader then, through that window, than Lia could ever have imagined. Not her face, but a face that looked very much like hers—only paler, narrower, and terribly frightened—had hovered behind the window of that car.
With Ryan’s newfound celebrity, Lia was almost thrilled at having spotted her. Once her closest confidant, Ryan had retreated behind a shroud of tight security like an impossibly inaccessible superstar. Yet, for a fleeting instant, she had been almost close enough to touch.
Ryan had lost weight. She no longer appeared older—a knowing Mamie Van Doren with acne—but looked almost normal, like a regular teenage g
