Chapter 40
Forty
Miles has texted me several times since last night, asking if I want to hang out or “plot,” which is his euphemism for both
planning my escape and looking for more evidence to prove Marcus killed Nate.
But Easton has been home all day, lurking around the house as if he thinks I’m going to call the police. So I ignore the texts
for as long as I can, but when I haven’t answered by the time he gets out of school, Miles gets more persistent. I finally
text him back while Easton is distracted by a phone call.
Let’s talk tonight, is all I say. His reply is instantaneous.
That sounds super ominous, Deborah, what’s going on? But I don’t answer.
Valencia comes home from work first and I put on my pretend happy face. It only falters when Easton comes down to the kitchen.
Valencia looks over at him and points. “How did you eat a whole jar of peanut butter? I just bought it on Saturday.” Her face drops. “What’s wrong?”
When Easton looks up, his eyes are red and glassy. “I got a call from JT’s mom.”
Shit. They found him. My own legs feel a little weak. I walk right over to the kitchen table—trying to get some distance from Easton and Valencia. I don’t want her to see my face if I can’t keep it detached from what really happened last night.
She walks around and puts her arm around her son. “Honey, what is it?”
“He fell,” he says, his voice breaking. “He was up at the overlook smoking.”
Valencia gasps. She puts her hands to her mouth.
“They found him this morning. He must have slipped when it started to rain and fell over the cliff.”
“Oh my God, honey.” Valencia wraps her arms around him.
It’s a sweet moment. But it’s all fake, and it’s chilling to see. And I finally understand how he’s gotten away with this
for so long. He’s perfected this fake Easton he’s been playing. Like the night he apologized for “giving up on me.” I really
believed him then, and his mom really believes him now.
“Can I borrow the car?” he asks. “A few of us are getting together for a sort of memorial because his parents are doing a
private funeral.”
Probably because they can’t have an open casket since you bashed their son’s head in.
“Of course, sweetie.” She hands him the keys and he leaves, telling her he’ll be home a little late.
With Easton gone to show his fake mourning, it means I can go over to Miles’s and tell him . . . I don’t know what yet. I
can’t tell him the truth about Easton. That would put him and his parents in danger. Unless I have real proof, to everyone
else, I’ll just be the liar who took Nate’s identity.
I also have to figure out how to tell him I’m not going to help him with his podcast anymore, and just hope he won’t tell anyone the truth about me. He said before that he wouldn’t, but that could change if he gets pissed.
Halfway through Valencia and me making dinner, Marcus comes home. He kisses her hello, and she tells him about JT. He seems
genuinely shocked, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s where Easton learned it from. I still can’t shake the feeling that
Easton couldn’t have acted alone. And if Marcus is shocked, it might be because he’s scared his son is killing again.
After dinner I text Miles to meet me at the fence.
Chardonnay is the first one out the door in a bolt of white. She doesn’t even pay any attention to me before running into
the yard and peeing. Then sniffing along the ground.
Miles gives her a quick glance as he walks over to me.
“Hi! No, I really mean that. Hi. I’m Miles, I live next door, remember?”
Even with all the horror over the past twenty-four hours, he manages to make me smile. Something I didn’t think was possible
right now. But that only serves to create more dread in my gut. Because I need to distance myself from him.
I really don’t want to do that.
“So why have you been ignoring me?” he asks, crossing his arms. “Or are we going to pretend I’m being needy when you don’t
respond to me in nineteen hours even though I know you’re over here.” He’s making a joke, but there’s something in his voice
that betrays his hurt.
“I wasn’t ignoring you.” That’s a lie so I try again. “I mean, not on purpose.”
“But you were ignoring me.”
“I take it back. You’re needy.”
He grins but shakes his head like he’s calling me on my bullshit. “What’s going on, Nate?”
Hearing him call me Nate makes my stomach roll. I should have told him my real name. I’d like him to know my real name. He
knows the real me, obviously. Because he can tell something is wrong.
But I can’t tell him. Even though I want to ask him what to do. I want to know how to outsmart someone like Easton, who has
always thought so far ahead. How do we find the mistakes he made and tell the police?
This is dangerous enough as it is. If Easton is lurking around here—only pretending to have gone to some memorial for JT—he
might think I’m telling Miles about him. I glance around the yard. Across the street.
In the corner of Miles’s yard, Chardonnay has her nose to the ground, sniffing something.
Miles follows my gaze and yells over at her. “Chardonnay! Whatever it is, leave it!” He turns his attention back to me. “Seriously,
what’s up? Are you sick or something?”
“No.”
“’Cause you look sick. No offense.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t know what ‘no offense’ means.”
“I don’t. No offense?” He says it like he really doesn’t know what it means but he’s trying to make it work.
It makes me laugh and he grins back at me.
And I get that warm, buzzy feeling in my gut again.
The one that whispers how I wish Miles and I had gotten to meet in other circumstances.
In an alternate universe where I don’t have heartless parents who try to send me away to be tortured and brainwashed, one where I’m not an imposter with a psychopathic brother.
Where instead of investigating a murder, we’d get to go to a school dance. A universe where we kiss.
But alternate universes are a sci-fi trope, and I’m stuck in a horror movie.
So I push the warm fuzzies away and steel myself. “We should stop the investigation. After Gramma Sharon I realized it’s not
worth it.”
“Wait, what?”
“It’s too dangerous. I’m going to be gone soon, so let’s stop all this shit and move on.”
“Hold on. Go back—how is it not worth it? Chardonnay!” He shouts at her this time, as she’s still farther down by the corner of the fence, either
licking or chewing grass there. She still ignores him.
“Because we can’t prove what really happened to Nate.”
“If you’re freaking out because Gramma Sharon ate glass, you know someone put it there. Which means someone in that house knows what really happened to him.”
Yeah, I do. And so does Nate’s brother. And possibly one of his parents who helped him cover it up.
“Maybe I don’t want to end up like him, too.”
Miles nods as if he understands where I’m coming from.
“Okay, yes, this is scarier than it was before, but don’t you realize that means we’re onto something?
I’m not asking you to put yourself in harm’s way.
Did Grant say something after I left? If he knows about you, why don’t we tell him the truth? Maybe he can help protect you.”
He might be able to protect me, but I’m not sure how he could protect Miles and his family. Again I feel eyes on the back
of my head, but I don’t look this time.
“I don’t need protection because this is over.” I say it with as much authority as I can muster, so he knows it’s for real.
“So that’s it? It’s over?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I won’t help you when you decide to run away.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Saying that makes me feel sick because I really do. And seeing the hurt on Miles’s face makes it worse. Immediately he catches
himself and his gaze drops to the ground. Then he uses Chardonnay as a distraction.
“Chardonnay! Knock it off!” Miles walks over to her, pulling her by her collar. She grunts as he pulls her away from whatever
she was licking, then snatches it off the ground. It’s trash of some kind, but she tries to jump up as he walks back over
to me with it in his hand.
He spins it around and I see it’s a large jar of peanut butter. Of course Chardonnay would go for that.
“Where did you even get this?” Miles asks. “We’re a Trader Joe’s family.”
I see the label and my heart goes right to my throat. It’s Jif. The brand Easton eats by the spoonful.
“No,” I whisper.
Valencia scolded him about going through a whole jar in four days. But he didn’t eat the whole jar.
I snatch it from Miles’s hands and he gives a half-hearted “Hey!” I look inside but the jar has been practically licked clean. The sides are clear all the way to the bottom, where only a little remains.
Chardonnay jumps up on the fence, her nose slathered in peanut butter.