“His first game?”
“Yeah. His first basketball game.” She folded her arms on the back of her chair. “Though he’s probably not playing.”
“He was serious about that whole basketball thing?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Layne stared at him, feeling sorry for him and wondering if he deserved it. She’d never sided with her mother, but maybe the woman was right about him working too much. He and Simon never talked, and she’d always thought it was because Simon resented his father.
She’d never really thought about her father making no effort to remedy the situation.
He came into the room and dropped onto the end of her bed. “Are you going to be all right?”
Layne thought about her scars disappearing. “Yes. I always am.”
“I’m sorry if I seemed insensitive this morning. After hearing you were in a fire . . . after everything we went through when you were little . . .” He ran a hand through his hair, and now she could hear the emotion in his voice. “And then with your mother . . . It was . . . a lot.”
Layne went and sat next to him. “It’s okay.”
“I never liked you going to that barn by yourself, but I always worried about you taking a fall—”
“Dad. It’s fine.”
He put an arm around her and kissed her on the top of the head. “I know it’s not perfect right now. But I’m trying.”
“I know.” And she did. He was trying to keep doing what he’d always done—working himself too hard, forgetting to eat, leaving it to someone else to keep dinner on the table and the family in order.
At one time it had been her mother.
Now it was Layne.
“Want to go watch Simon sit on the bench?” she said.
He kissed her on the head again, giving her another squeeze. For a moment, she actually thought he might say yes.
But he stood. “I hate to leave you alone, but I need to head in to the office. My afternoon appointments were rescheduled for this evening, so . . .”
And she tuned him out.
She was back to square one. Familiar ground.
Alone.
The basketball game should have been dramatic, what with Ryan Stacey confined to the bench and Simon starting center. Poetic justice would have dictated that the stands be packed, with Simon making the winning shot in the last seconds.
But it was only JV, and the first game of the season, so the bleachers weren’t crowded. The other team sucked and was barely organized enough to move the ball down the court.
But Simon was great. They were in the lead from the first shot.
And they won the game by twenty-two points.
“You said he can’t hear?” said Hunter as they filed off the stands. He’d stayed for the whole game. “You couldn’t prove it by me.”
Gabriel snorted and tossed his soda can into the recycling bin by the door. “Let’s hope the coach feels the same way.”
He’d been worried Hunter would judge him—for the fire at the barn, for telling Nick, for something else he couldn’t quite identify. But Hunter had been steady as ever, listening as Gabriel rehashed his morning from a nearly empty section of the bleachers.
And then he’d said what he always did. “You want to stop?”
Gabriel didn’t.
He couldn’t. Even now, even after this morning, he could feel need burning under his skin, like a junkie going through withdrawal.
He wished he had his lighter.
They waited outside the gym to congratulate Simon, kicking at loose gravel as kids streamed through the doors around them. Mostly students first, finishing up after-school projects and clubs. Then the JV cheerleaders, arm in arm and giggling as they half danced across the parking lot to the activity busses. Then basketball kids, half damp from the showers, but high-fiving over the win.
When the flow of students dropped to a bare trickle, Gabriel wondered if he’d somehow missed Layne’s little brother.
But he hadn’t seen Ryan Stacey either.
Gabriel swore and went for the doors—but on this side of the school, the doors were locked to the outside. He pounded, but no one answered—of course, since he’d stood here like an idiot watching everyone leave.
“Come on,” he said to Hunter, turning to sprint for the front entrance.
“What happened?”
“Ryan Stacey.”
They tore through the halls, shoes squeaking on tile as they skidded around corners. A teacher yelled at them to stop running, but Gabriel didn’t recognize her and they were well past before the words registered in his brain.
The gym: empty, aside from a few girls hanging a banner for a bake sale next week.
The locker room: empty. Boys’ bathroom: empty.
Gabriel swore again. The school was huge—they could be anywhere.
“Wait.” Hunter caught his arm. Gabriel froze and listened for a moment, but he didn’t hear anything.
Hunter stepped across the narrow hallway and pushed on the door to the girls’ locker room, opening it a few inches. The lights were off, revealing a well of shadowed tile and the edge of a trash can, but he yelled through the gap. “Anyone in here?”
Silence.
Hunter hit the light switch. Pink tile came to life, leading to pink steel lockers.
Empty—but Hunter strode forward anyway, rounding the corner into the girls’ shower area. That’s where they found Simon, shivering behind one of the pink shower curtains, sporting a black eye and a split lip.
And absolutely no clothes.
CHAPTER 34
Layne had never been a clock-watcher in class. Now it seemed every class took sixteen hours, the minutes ticking by until she could see Gabriel.
She still couldn’t sort her feelings about him. Anger, at what had happened? She had no idea whether that was his fault. Curiosity? Absolutely. Intrigue, for certain.
Fury. Fear.
Desire. Longing.
All of it.
This morning had been torture. She’d woken before sunrise, as usual. Her hands had gone immediately to her side, seeking the familiar foreign texture, sure she’d dreamed that part.
Nope. The scars were still gone.
How?
She couldn’t go to the farm—the surviving horses had already been trailered to another facility ten miles away for the time being. She couldn’t call Gabriel, not with her father still monitoring her cell phone every minute. He was already on edge enough from Simon’s black eye.
It had taken every ounce of Layne’s restraint to keep her mouth shut—instead of reminding her father that she’d suggested they go to the game. That if they’d been there, Simon could have just walked out with them, instead of relying on some other kid to drop him at home after god-knew-what happened. Simon wouldn’t have had a black eye—and he wouldn’t have had a reason to lock himself in his room without explaining it.
But now, finally, the bell was ringing, signaling the end of second period.
Layne bolted for math class.
And Gabriel’s seat, of course, was empty.
She stood there in the doorway, dismayed. Had he been hurt yesterday, and she just didn’t know about it?
Or maybe this was intentional. Maybe he’d ditched class.
Maybe he didn’t want to see her.
Her hands curled into fists. Disappointment felt just as crushing as the fury that had her pressing fingernails into her palms. As usual, she wanted to hit him and hug him at the same time.
If only he’d show up.
“Layne.”
She spun around, hands still clenched, ready to swing.
Gabriel caught her wrists, his fingers gentle through the sleeves of her turtleneck.
But then he just held her there. He didn’t push her away—or pull her closer. His voice was rough, low, just for her. “Don’t hit me.”
She stared up into his blue eyes, so close and full of emotion.
It took a minute to find her voice. Six billion questi
ons had been rattling around her head all morning, and now all she could manage was, “Why?”
Gabriel winced, almost imperceptibly. “Well, at least wait until after school. Then you can beat the crap out of me if you want.” His hands slipped free, releasing her. “Fighting in class is an automatic one-day suspension.”
She swallowed. Now that he stood right in front of her, she was terrified to ask.
No, she was terrified of the answers.
Students were pushing through the doorway. Gabriel moved fractionally closer. “You all right?”
Layne kept flashing on that moment on the hill when the sunlight had danced along her skin, and Gabriel had kissed a path across her stomach, stealing her breath and her fears and making her feel perfect for the first time.
And then her sanctuary—their sanctuary—had gone up in smoke.
She pulled his lighter out of her pocket and held it out. “I think I need you to tell me.”
A panicked look crossed his face. He snatched it out of her hand and slid it into his pocket. And then he was even closer, leaning in to speak right to her ear. “Getting caught with one of those is an automatic suspension, too.”
His breath tickled her neck. She shivered.
Focus.
“Truth?” he whispered.
She nodded. “I want to know everything.”
The second bell rang, and Layne jerked back. Her heart was in her throat.
“Free period?” he said.
“Yeah,” she choked.
Then Ms. Anderson was coming through the door, urging them to their seats, calling the class to order.
Layne did the six questions of the warm-up automatically, grateful for the distraction, for the need to keep her eyes on her paper.
A folded piece of notebook paper landed in the crease of her textbook. Layne unfolded it under the edge of her desk.
Are you afraid of me?
The breath poured out of her lungs in a rush.
Then she put her pencil to the paper.
A little.
She watched his face as he unrolled her note. No regret, no disappointment. Just flat acceptance.
With a little spark of challenge.
Layne’s palms were sweating on the pencil. She scraped them across her knees.
All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait for that free period.
The intercom over the chalkboard crackled to life. “Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes?”
“Could you please send Gabriel Merrick to the guidance office?”
Just about everyone in the classroom turned to stare at him—including Layne.
“Are you in trouble?” she whispered.
He shrugged and shoved his math book into his backpack. “I have no idea.”
Then he swung out of his chair and moved down the aisle. He was gone before she noticed the new fold of paper tucked beneath the corner of her notebook.
Truth: don’t be.
Gabriel walked down the silent halls, his shoulders hunched, his backpack a dead weight.
The guidance office? If you were in trouble, they called you to the principal’s office. He knew that routine by heart.
The guidance office called if there was a college recruiter here for an interview—and that had happened exactly zero times in Gabriel’s high school career. The guidance office called if you were involved in an altercation with another student, and Vickers thought you could talk it out—but that wasn’t something they’d call you out of class for.
Then he remembered the first week of school, when Allison Montgomery had been called to the guidance office during chemistry. Her father had been killed in a car crash.
Nick. His heart stopped in his chest.
But then it kicked back into action. Nick was here, at school. If something serious had happened, Gabriel would have heard about it. Same with Chris.
Michael.
But if something had happened to his older brother, wouldn’t he be running into Chris and Nick in the halls, right this very second?
Then he remembered what had happened last night. Gabriel had no idea whether Ryan had made it to school today, but he remembered the way they’d found Simon in the girls’ locker room. The way the poor kid had had the crap kicked out of him.
Maybe this had nothing to do with Gabriel at all.
He pushed through the double doors into the main office. Completely empty. No secretary behind the desk, no students waiting on the bench outside the principal’s office.
Weird.
But he shoved through the swinging door into the guidance area. The school worked hard to make it look welcoming: a red and blue shag rug covered the tile, and four plush armchairs lined the back wall.
The five policemen standing there killed the welcoming vibe.
Gabriel stopped short. He actually felt the blood drain from his face. Didn’t they send cops to tell you something bad had happened to your family?
He couldn’t even remember the last words he’d said to his older brother.
And where were Chris and Nick?
Fear had his chest in a vise grip. He had no idea how his legs were holding him.
Ms. Vickers was standing in front of her closed office door. She looked as pale as he felt. “Gabriel?”
He’d never seen Vickers look rattled. His mouth was dry. “Yeah.”
One of the cops stepped forward. He was the oldest of the five, probably in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair. “Gabriel Merrick?”
“Yeah. Yes.” His voice cracked. He could barely get the words out.
“Could you set the bag down, please?”
The backpack? It hit the floor with a thunk. “What happened?”
The officer took another step forward. “You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER 35
Layne sat with her father and Simon, but she couldn’t eat her dinner.
Really, she was amazed the food on the table was even edible, because she hadn’t paid one bit of attention to cooking it.
Gabriel had been arrested.
He’d disappeared from math class, but she’d heard about it in the lunch line. It was all over school. The wild stories were completely unbelievable—Gabriel was wanted in three different states, he’d attacked the guidance counselor with an aerosol can and a lighter, he’d been caught running a meth lab. But the most common story was that he’d been arrested for arson, for starting the fires all over town.
The most popular story included the detail that someone had reported him for starting the fire at the farm.
Simon had found her, had demanded answers. Did she know? Did she believe it?
She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t forget that lighter tumbling out of Gabriel’s sweatshirt. The haunted look in his eyes.
She also couldn’t forget the note he’d left her, when she’d admitted she was afraid.
Truth: don’t be.
She’d given Simon the only honest answer she had: I don’t know.
Layne had gone looking for his brothers, but she didn’t know their schedules and had no idea where to search. She’d looked up the number for the landscaping business as soon as she got home, but the phone went unanswered.
So she’d spent the last hour gathering her nerve.
If her imperfections had been enough to drive her mother away, what she had to tell her father might be enough to do the same to him.
As if sensing her gaze, her father glanced up from his iPhone. “You’re quiet tonight.”
She swallowed. “I have a hypothetical legal question.”
He put the phone down. “In my experience, hypothetical questions usually aren’t hypothetical at all.”
She swiped her palms on her knees. “If you had a case where someone could give your client an alibi but that person would get in trouble for speaking up, would you still want the alibi?”
An eyebrow rose. “Define trouble.”
She looked at her plate, pushing the beef in a circle. “Her father
would disown her.”
Now she had his full attention. Simon’s too.
“Are we talking about you?” her father said. His eyes narrowed. “Who needs an alibi?”
“Gabriel Merrick,” she whispered.
“For what exactly?”
“For arson.” Her father’s face looked like thunder now, so she rushed on, stumbling over her words, afraid she would cry before she got it all out. “They think he started the fires that have been in the paper, but I know—I know—”
“You know what, Layne?” Her father’s voice was ice cold. “What do you know?”
“He didn’t. I know he didn’t. At least—”
“You don’t know anything, Layne.” Her father’s fist was tight on the table. “Arson is a big deal. They don’t just arrest someone on suspicion. There will be proof, and an investigation—”
“Apparently someone reported him for starting the fire at the farm. But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.” Her hands were shaking. “Because he was with me.”
Her father was staring at her. Simon, too.
Neither said anything.
She took a deep breath. “We were lying on the hill by the back paddock. He—”
“Lying? On the hill?”
“Talking!” she said. “Just talking! But the fire started while he was with me, so I know he couldn’t have done it.” Her father wasn’t saying anything, so she rushed on, feeling tears prick her eyes with sudden emotion. “Can you call the police? Can you tell them? You can ground me forever. You can hate me. Just, please—”
“No.”
Layne flinched. “No?”
“This arson case has been all over the news. Unless you can provide an alibi for all the fires—” His eyes narrowed. “You can’t, can you?”
She shook her head quickly.
“It won’t matter. And I’m not dragging you into some investigation just because you had a fling with the local bad boy.”
“It’s not like that! He’s my friend—”
“Sure he is. Go to your room, Layne.”
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