17
“I thought you had no memory of what happened that day,” I say quietly, my mind still reeling.
Adam’s glassy eyes spark now. “I remember everything up until Creek Bridge, when I told Mariana about Bram. After that is when things go hazy. I don’t remember her getting in the car.
I don’t remember who finished working on it.
I don’t remember how I got my injuries. It’s all lost up until I woke up in the hospital and they told me she was gone. ”
I still hear the pain in his voice. But it’s a conveniently small window of time to have forgotten. “I don’t believe you,” I say.
“That’s because you can’t accept the truth. About Bram. About yourself. You fell into his trap the same way Mariana did.”
“No, but you—you’re saying Bram killed Mariana?” My brain feels like it’s about to explode. “That’s what you meant when you said it’s the only way to save myself? The only way to save my life?”
“What? No.” Adam sobers suddenly. He looks at the crushed cup in his hand and tosses it onto the floor.
“No, I…” He shakes his head. “I’m talking about this power he has over you.
You have Henry, a boy who loves you, right in front of you.
Just like Mariana had me.” He glances at the bookshelf, and I don’t have to wonder why.
“I know you love Henry—I’ve seen the way you look at him.
But you’re going to lose him and regret it forever.
All because Bram takes some sick pleasure in stealing girls away and draining the life out of them. ”
“No.” I shake my head. “Bram never did that.” But I no longer believe this, nor do I think that Adam is inventing this tale about Mariana.
I think of the camera footage, of Bram’s words outside.
This evidence, it’s pretty damning. Maybe damning because Bram did exactly what the cops think he did.
He was seen in the woods with Kennedy, though he denies being there.
And yet…he was the first on the scene. He discovered the body.
What if Lydia’s theory about Kennedy dating an Abbott in secret was reality?
If Bram was dating Kennedy and she wanted to end things, maybe Bram couldn’t accept it.
Just like when Mariana tried to end things an hour before she died.
“I don’t feel very well,” I say, trying to stand up and knocking my elbow on the armrest.
“Damn it,” Adam says, crossing the room. “Here. Let me—” But I wave him off, and he takes a step back. He stands in the middle of his bedroom, wringing his hands. “I’m sorry, Hayden. I didn’t mean to upset you. I do care about you. It’s only that I care about Henry’s feelings too.”
“But I—In the garden tonight, I never did anything with Bram.”
He doesn’t argue, but his gaze falls to the floor. My stomach clenches. He thinks that I have singlehandedly come between all of them. And if he told Mariana about another girl, I have to assume he’ll tell Henry about the garden. Despite the fact that nothing happened out there.
And I’ll lose him before he was ever even mine.
“Please, Adam,” I say, my voice breaking. I want to tell him about everything I’ve kept secret on his behalf. All of my suspicions this past week that I’ve kept locked away. But of course, doing so would be ludicrous. “He mentioned a call with your father,” I offer.
Adam’s eyes snap to mine. “What call?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Adam neither confirms nor denies. Instead, he presses his lips flat and begins pacing the room.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “He was telling me about it when you walked up. That’s all that was happening. Talking. And he was upset, so I tried to—I hugged him. Maybe that was wrong, but he had no one else.”
“He had me and Henry,” Adam says, but his tone lacks conviction. This whole situation, this case, it’s caused even more cracks in their relationship than the ones that already existed.
“I asked you last week if you thought Bram was seeing Kennedy in secret before she died. You lied to me.”
He tries to protest, but I don’t let him.
“You think he did something to her, don’t you?” I ask. “Just like you think he did something to Mariana.”
“No, I don’t,” he says firmly. He’s bent over me now, teeth gritted. “And you’re not going to say anything about this to Henry or Bram. Got it?”
I hesitate, then clench my jaw and work up my nerve. “Tell me where you were during the fire alarm, and we’ve got a deal.”
He sneers. “You don’t exactly have the leverage to be asking questions, do you?”
“Tell me why you never came to class, and why you weren’t outside during the emergency drill. Then I’ll keep quiet.”
He grunts and punches into his bed with his good hand. The mattress takes the brunt of it, but there’s a crack as the base of the bed buckles under the force. “Fine. But it’s not going to make you feel better about Bram.”
“Why not?” I ask, my pulse racing.
“Because I was helping him. He asked me to play lookout, while he pulled the fire alarm.”
“What?” My spine stiffens against the chair back. “Why would he pull the fire alarm?”
His lips press flat together. “Why do you think?”
And then it’s obvious, isn’t it? To cause a scene.
Chaos. So everyone would be scrambling around, distracted.
So teachers wouldn’t have time to take roll properly.
So no one would notice that he and Kennedy were the only ones missing when she was killed, because everyone was out of class. Everyone was outside.
Except he didn’t count on one thing: the security cameras.
“Did you see him take Kennedy into the woods?” I ask, my voice weak.
Adam shakes his head. “I went and sat in the car for the rest of the period. If you’ll remember, I wasn’t in the best of spirits after the little incident in the cafeteria.
The school has footage of me walking out the front door.
But the cops are saying my head was down, and because of the hood, they can’t confirm my alibi. ”
So the exact kind of footage they’re trying to use against the brothers, they refuse to use in their exculpation. “And you really don’t know what this evidence is that the cops now have against Bram?”
“No, but I’ll find out soon enough. We’ve got a meeting with our lawyer tomorrow, after my dad gets back from his trip.”
Of course. Even in the midst of all this drama, Mr. Abbott can’t be bothered to stick around. “Why is your dad on a trip right now, Adam? You obviously need him.”
“Apparently, it’s business this time. We’re about to spend our entire fortune on lawyers, so for the first time in his life, he actually needs to find a way to pay bills. The auto shop is obviously never going to bounce back.”
I think of Dr. Russo’s lost investment and wonder if Adam knows the extent of the damage his father has caused. “And your mom?”
He lets out a soft, vacant laugh. “Couldn’t cope.
Loves the spotlight but not the unflattering sort of lighting.
And I think… They haven’t said anything, so don’t tell Henry.
But I think they’re separated. They’ve been arguing a lot more this past year.
She hasn’t been around in ages, and she let the place go to shit.
Not likely she’s coming back here.” He gnaws on his lower lip.
“I think Mom blamed Dad for letting Dr. Russo butcher my face. For allowing one of her beautiful boys to turn into this.” He points at his scars, a sardonic expression on his face that warps into a grimace.
“For letting the family name get dragged through the mud. So all of this with Kennedy—it’s just added stress. ”
“I’m really sorry, Adam,” I say, not knowing how to comfort him.
He shrugs. “You of all people don’t need to feel sorry about my parental situation.”
“But I do.”
“Yeah, I know.” His eyes flick up to mine. “I won’t say anything to Henry.”
“Because nothing happened with Bram,” I say, indignation coating the words, even though I’m no longer convinced they’re true. “I won’t tell Bram about your vodka-infused rambling. I know that’s all it was.”
I say this to reassure him. I say it to reassure myself.
But as I get up and leave Adam’s room, I know that it’s the biggest lie I’ve told all night.
I want to get away from this place, to leave the party without having to look Bram in the eyes ever again. But Henry is at the bottom of the stairs, concern still etched on his brow.
“Is everything okay?” he asks when I reach him.
“Yeah, but I’m not feeling great. Think I’ll head home.”
“You drank that stuff Bram made you,” he says, reaching out to touch my arm. His hand slips down to take mine, and for the first time, he seems at ease touching me. Like whatever happened on Saturday marked a change between us, a change that I’ve wished for since we were in middle school.
It would be easier to lie and say yes, I drank that horrible drink.
But I don’t want to continue down this path of untruths with Henry.
I look into his eyes, and the last thing I want to do is come clean about this.
To come clean to myself, once and for all.
“It’s Bram,” I say, and Henry’s eyes narrow.
“Something happened, and I…” I don’t want to lose you.
I don’t want this moment with you looking down at me, your hand on mine, to be the last.
“Yeah, I know,” Henry says, his expression dimming as he lets my hand fall.
“You do?” If he knows, why is he even standing here, talking to me?
“Somehow, Sage got the video. She posted about it on Instagram a few minutes ago. It’s all anyone’s talking about.
” He gestures to the rest of the room, where sure enough, every eye is on a phone screen.
Some people are laughing nervously; some are looking up from their screens to stare at Henry and me.
“Sage?” My insides go hollow, everything shelled out and replaced by horror. Sage must’ve stayed when I told her to go back inside. She must’ve followed Bram out there to the hedge maze and somehow recorded us together.
I scan the room for Bram, but he’s not here. I need to know how bad it looks. Palms sweaty, I pull out my phone and navigate to Sage’s post.
What I find is far worse than I imagined.
It’s not a video of Bram and me in the garden.
It’s a clip, shot within Silver Creek High’s school hall.
The footage is shaky, like it was recorded on someone’s phone, and this time, there’s no mistaking the subject.
Bram is standing in his black T-shirt. He glances from side to side, then reaches out and pulls the fire alarm.
The last thing the camera captures is him racing out of the frame, in the direction of the back doors.
The caption on Sage’s post reads like someone reached straight into my head, removed my thoughts, and pasted them onto the screen:
Still having doubts about whether or not Bram Abbott killed Kennedy Russo? This was recorded minutes before she was lured outside by the sound of a fire alarm and murdered.