by Jeff Abbott
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so nervous. But I need to talk to you. And Trevor.”
“Me? I told you everything.” He ran a hand through his dark hair.
“Do you remember having lunch with my dad and me a few weeks before he died?”
“Yeah,” he said. Blinking, trying to remember why this would matter.
“You never mentioned that to me.”
“Lunch? What was there to mention?”
“Did you give him something at that lunch, when I wasn’t around?”
“Oh, wow,” Adam said. The dawn of the memory lighting his eyes. “How do you know? Did your dad tell you? Did your memory come back?”
“It doesn’t matter, I know. What was it?”
“You tell me how you know something that only your dad and I knew about.” His voice tightened.
“Just tell me.” She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him.
“I can’t believe you know about this. Your dad asked if I or the guys in the school hacker club could break into a computer for him. I said no. But he asked again, and I said, well, I could give him a flash drive with a bunch of programs on it that could help him find whatever he needed on a computer: password breakers, a root kit, a keystroke monitor. But I’d have to know why he needed it.”
Jane could hardly breathe.
“He said there was a laptop that had been passworded by an employee who’d left and he needed to get data off of it.”
“That’s not it, Adam. Was he wanting to crack my mom’s computer?”
“Jane.” He blew out a long breath. “He thought your mom was having an affair. He wanted to search her system for proof. He said if they divorced, he wanted the evidence to keep custody of you. I didn’t want to be involved, I didn’t. But he begged me, for your sake. I couldn’t believe he told me this but he was desperate.”
“And after he died, you didn’t tell me this? Or did you?” For a moment her anger ebbed.
“He made me swear not to tell you. He didn’t want you mad at me. So I didn’t. And then the way he died…I thought maybe he found out stuff about your mom and this affair, and it was, you know, true. Or bad news. And he…” His voice trailed off, miserable. “The police said it was an accident. I didn’t want you to think that he had a reason to hurt himself. It would have killed you.”
She leaned back against Trevor’s truck, her legs feeling weak.
“Did he ever tell you what he found?”
“Of course not. He never gave me back the drive, either.”
A drive that could crack computers. Floating around her father’s life. Never found. She said nothing for several moments. What did he find on Mom’s computer? He wouldn’t kill himself over an affair, would he? Would he hurt so bad he would leave me? Maybe the answer is yes and you don’t want to confront that possibility.
“Jane.”
She fought back a wave of emotion. She clutched at his hand and he closed his other hand over hers. “I’m not mad at you. You were trying to help. What did the flash drive look like?”
“Uh, it has a little musical note on it, so it will look like a music drive. I don’t go around carrying a flash drive labeled ‘Hacker Kit.’”
So where was this flash drive now?
“OK.” She felt rocked by this. “All right. OK.” She pulled her hand away from his and took a series of deep breaths. “OK. All right.”
“Are you ready for this?”
She realized he now meant the party. “It’s been two years, yeah, I guess I am.”
They walked down the path. It was going to be an amiably boring party, she could tell, and she felt a sense of relief. Music was playing, not loudly, not even enough to bother the neighbors.
They went in through the unlocked front door, and an elderly lady, with a bright smile and gray hair cut elfin-short, leaned out of the kitchen and said, “Hey, y’all! Come on in!”
Oh yeah, Jane thought, a real wild bacchanal. She steadied herself. She could do this. Look at what she had accomplished in the past two days. She could handle a social gathering.
They walked through the dining room and then into the kitchen, which made Jane relieved, because most of the kids were in the big, old-style den. She had been afraid that when she walked in, all conversation would cease, they would stare, someone would say something. Or laugh. Or glare.
But they didn’t. The conversations kept going, and as she and Adam loitered by the sink as the elderly lady fussed in the fridge, she saw a few Lakehaven kids she recognized pause for a second, look at her, not with scowls but at least neutrally, and then she realized half the kids here weren’t Lakehaven. They must be Trevor’s friends from Travis Community College. So they didn’t even know about her past. She was just another guest, a young woman in a pretty blue dress. She wasn’t the homeless girl, or the suicide who took down the innocent guy who was probably trying to help her, or the weirdo camped out in her friend’s dorm room, eating off a borrowed meal plan.
She could just be Jane.
The thought of it overwhelmed her for a moment and then she heard the woman behind her. “Hello, sorry, had to get that pasta boiling. Hi, Adam.”
“Hi, Nana. This is my friend, Jane. I brought her along but I forgot to tell Trevor, I hope that’s all right.”
Jane turned and the woman smiled at her. “Hi, Jane. Of course you’re welcome here. I’m Trevor’s grandmother, but no one calls me Mrs. Gunther, they all call me Nana.”
“OK. Hi, Nana,” Jane said. Nana squeezed her arm gently, welcoming. Jane felt a rush of heat behind her eyes. “I used to be friends with Trevor.”
“I didn’t know Trevor had ‘used to be’ friends,” she said. “I thought he was pretty loyal to all his friends.”
Jane tried to smile. “We just haven’t been in touch lately. I guess we’re still friends. I hope we are.”
“I know Trevor will be glad you’re here.”
Until I bring up asking if he and his truck were leaving High Oaks after the crash.
“Yes, you must be proud of Trevor. He keeps Lakehaven fully caffeinated,” Jane said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m glad you’re here, dear,” Nana said. “I know you’ve had a difficult time. I’m glad you’re letting Trevor be a friend to you.”
She knows who I am. “Well,” Jane said, “since I’m a crasher, I can work for my keep. May I help you with anything?”
“No, no, sweetheart, it’s all under control. Go mingle. Nice to see you, and always nice to see you, Adam.”
She walked out of the kitchen and among the other guests. It felt like it took every atom of courage she had. “Hi. I’m Jane,” she said to a pair of chatting girls who weren’t Lakehaven alums. The girls smiled and introduced themselves. She could feel Adam watching her, letting her inch out on the social ice alone, but there for her if needed.
For the next thirty minutes, she worked the room, like she was a normal person. It felt like stepping out onto a high wire strung across a canyon. The other three Lakehaven kids who were there—and at community college with Trevor—were all neutral at least, and one was friendly, asking her how she was doing. “I’m better.” And she braced herself for the Well, you’re for sure doing better than David Hall response she expected, but the boy just nodded and said, “Well, that’s good, Jane.”
It was like life could be normal.
She waited for Adam to get involved in a discussion about superhero movies—there was no greater distraction for him—and then she walked outside into the cool breeze. A pair of guys stood off from the patio, smoking cigarettes, deep into a discussion of a TV show about zombies that Jane couldn’t stand to watch. She did not need to imagine the dead rising and shambling about the landscape. One boy watched her, gave her a slight nod and smile, and she wondered why. Maybe the dress did look nice.
“Hey, Jane,” Trevor said behind her as she stood at the edge of the patio. She turned to face him and she felt an odd jolt at the sight of him.
&n
bsp; Were we still friends the night of the accident? Or was I afraid of you?
The two smokers finished and went back into the house.
“Adam brought me. I’m sorry I’m crashing.” She had not really considered the humiliation she would feel if he asked her to leave.
“It’s fine, I’m glad he did. I should have invited you. Called you after I saw you talking with Amari.”
“You were busy, and frankly, if you’d asked me to come, I might have lost my nerve.”
“Why?” The embarrassment faded from his eyes and his gaze met hers.
For a moment she did lose her nerve. “Quite the wild college kegger,” she said, finding her voice. “What with Nana here.”
“With Nana here, we get much better food and my bro-dude friends don’t seem inclined to trash the house or drink as much.”
“I like her.”
“Nana moved back in with us after my mom died. I think I would have been lost without her.”
She hated to ruin the moment. Trevor, being nice and acting open with her, warmer than he had been at the coffee shop. “The paramedics who helped me were both attacked. I talked with one whose house was burned down. I asked her if she remembered seeing any cars as the ambulance approached the accident site. She saw a truck very much like yours turning off High Oaks as they turned on.”
His mouth twisted for a moment.
“Were you there, Trevor?” Her voice was soft.
The smile came back on, but faded. “There are a lot of trucks like mine.”
It wasn’t an answer. She knew the boy he had been; she didn’t know the man he had become.
“I know. But I’m still asking you. Were you there?”
Nana stepped out onto the patio. “Y’all hungry? I just pulled ribs out of the oven.”
“We’ll be there in a minute, ma’am, thank you,” Trevor said. Jane gave Nana a smile and thought, Maybe I’m about to upend Trevor’s life. I’m sorry, Nana.
Nana stepped back inside.
“You and Adam came into Happy Taco after we did. I saw the video, so there’s no lying about it to me. He said you arrived separately, him looking for me. He said you told him you were looking for me, but you told Amari you were looking for David. Why?”
He looked at her for another long second, took a sip of beer. Like he didn’t know what to say. He let out a breath, like it had been long held.
After a moment he put his blue-eyed gaze steadily on her. His awkward smile was gone. “I wasn’t looking for David. I was looking for you. I ran into Adam there, in the parking lot. We didn’t come together. He was looking for you, too.”
She went blunt. “Did you see the crash?”
He looked stricken. “No, no, of course not. Jane. Do you think I would have driven off and left you there?”
“I don’t know, Trevor. Remember, I don’t remember. Why were you following us?”
“Not following, looking for you. Because I thought you were seeing David and I wanted to know if you were.” He kept his gaze steady with hers. “I watched you two leave school. Clearly there was something major and emotional going on between you. I went to football practice and I covered for David, because he was skipping it. I thought maybe you were just giving David a ride home. You’re neighbors, friends. Whatever. But you had totally ignored me when I called to you when you were leaving. That wasn’t like you, or like David. You were both acting so oddly. Later Kamala texted me you two were being all cozy at Happy Taco and did I know why? So I went there to see you.”
Instead of Trevor’s face she saw headlights, in a mirror, bright, close. Following, following. She blinked the image away.
“Why would you care? Why would you try to find me and lie about it to Adam?” But then she knew. She knew it in his face, in the way he’d acted toward her at the coffee shop, tentative, shy, uncertain, a guy who had girls watching and smiling at him as he worked. And the pang of annoyance she’d felt when she noticed that. A guy who probably was normally confident. For a moment she thought she’d reached out and touched his plain, strong face along his jawline, then his blond hair. But she realized it was a memory, a shard of the past slicing through the haze, another time she’d looked at him with love. This boy she’d fake-married in first grade with rubber-band rings, this boy she’d fought a bow-headed bully for in fourth. This friend. This more-than-a friend.
“You and I had been seeing each other. No one knew. Maybe Kamala suspected. You know how her mind works.”
She bit at her lip. “Why keep it a secret?”
“You wanted it that way. You said your mom didn’t want you to date, she was still kind of mental about your dad’s passing and you not being around when she needed you. I didn’t like sneaking around, it felt wrong, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to be with you, Jane.”
She remembered the reconstructed time line. After Kamala and David’s texting back and forth, Trevor had texted David, asking him what was up. David apparently didn’t respond, and then Trevor did not text again.
“Kamala tried to talk to David, he put her off, then you text.” She opened her eyes.
“Kamala thought you two were messing around together. Her best friend and her boyfriend.”
“I thought they were broken up. She had broken up with him. That’s what she told me when I came back to school.”
“They had, but he hadn’t told me why. He’d made a pros-and-cons list on how to do it because he thought she wouldn’t take it well. It never occurred to me it was because you were in the picture—you and I were happy. So I went looking for you. I thought maybe that was really why you wanted to keep it secret—so he wouldn’t know. Maybe you were seeing us both.” He cleared his throat. “But then I saw how it was between you two in the parking lot…the raw emotion. That wasn’t just friendship.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she stuck to the time line. “So you lost us at Happy Taco. We left before you got there.”
He put his hands in his pockets.
“Did you find us later? You must have. You were on the road. You were following us.” The headlights. She had to get away from the headlights.
“Jane…don’t.”
“I need to know. And I need to know why you have never told me any of this. You or Adam.”
“Adam doesn’t know any details. He left Happy Taco and I didn’t see him again that night.”
“And you?”
He wiped the trace of beer off his mouth with the back of his hand. “I went driving around. I felt crazy. This couldn’t be. If you were with David, then you were cheating on me with my best friend and dating your best friend’s ex. I didn’t want to believe it of you. I couldn’t believe it of you. I went by your house, David’s house. No one was home at your place and I didn’t want to ask Mrs. Hall if you were running around together.”
“My mom wasn’t home?”
“Well, I don’t know. The lights were on, but she didn’t answer the doorbell.”
Her mother and Perri must have finished their discussion. Where was her mother, then? “And then what?”
“I knew Kamala was upset. I called her. Dr. Grayson told me she’d gone out. I asked where. And I guess her parents track her phone, because she’d gone to the Halls’ lake house.”
The lake house. The Halls owned another place, a large, two-story Tuscan home, down on Lake Austin. Cal and David loved it, Perri didn’t, so it was a father-son hangout for them.
If two teenagers needed privacy to talk…and the parents owned more than one house…why not go there? She hadn’t been there in years—that she remembered.
“Did you go there?” she asked.
Now he looked deflated and ill. “I debated about whether or not to go…I mean, c’mon, if y’all were seeing each other and sitting with his arm around you, acting like a couple, lying to Kamala, it meant you were cheating on me. I couldn’t compete with a guy like David.”
“Trevor…”
“Kamala texted me: They’re here. I couldn�
��t decide what I should do, but I drove over to the lake place. Your car went past me as I headed toward the house. You were driving really fast. Like, dangerous fast. I had to drive down to a place wide enough to turn around and then try to follow you. Until I lost you.”
“Lost us? But you were on High Oaks?”
“I was following you on Old Travis and I saw in the distance you had turned onto High Oaks—and then I got caught behind a car making a left turn, and there was a line of traffic, and I got caught for at least a minute. And I turned around and started to drive home. I was so torn up. I thought you must have known it was me following you but you kept going, and I finally thought, to hell with it, so I U-turned a few minutes later and I went back. I turned right onto High Oaks. I drove, but I didn’t see you or your car. I looked down the hill, but I didn’t see the wreckage or light, or anything.”
What had Brenda Hobson said? The wreck was dark as pitch.
“I didn’t see another car, or a person. So I left. I figured you had just used it as a cut-through or you just wanted to get away from me because you knew I was following you. I went home. I did see an ambulance heading toward me on Old Travis as I turned off, but I didn’t realize until later they had turned onto the road.”
Maybe Brenda’s memory was a little faulty on that account; he might have already been on Old Travis. “So did Kamala tell you what she saw at the lake house?”
“Jane…what does it matter now?”
“It matters because someone is lying to me about that night. Are you Liv Danger?”
“No, of course not.” His eyes widened.
“Maybe you are,” she said. She took a step toward him, her hand closing into a fist. “Did you run us off the road?” A ghost of headlights in the rearview mirror.
“No.” He was pale as milk in moonlight. “Jane, no.”
“But you didn’t see the crashed car…what time were you there?”
“It would have been about ten. I got home about ten fifteen. I gave up on finding you.”
“Is that all?”
The silence was heavy between them. “All I care to say.”
She turned away from him. “Not telling me is like lying. You just hide behind no words instead of untrue words.”
