21
Henry steps into the room, dropping the empty bag at his feet, fist still clenched at his side.
I let the novel fall into the open desk drawer. “I’m sorry, I—”
He crosses the room in a flash. “Why are you going through my things?” he demands, reaching past me to push the drawer shut.
It slams, and I flinch. Not knowing what to say, I back away. For the first time in my life, I’m actually afraid of my best friend.
“Henry?” a deep voice calls from the doorway. Bram wanders inside, and I feel a whoosh of relief. “Sorry, I sent her in here to grab a—oh, there’s one.” He ambles over, picking up a pen from the holder on the desk. “I can’t seem to find any in my room, and we all know Adam can’t read or write.”
Henry’s eyes narrow as he scrutinizes us. “Aren’t there pens downstairs?”
“Apparently not,” Bram says lightly. “Phil, you ready to write up that grocery list?” He keeps his focus on Henry. “She offered to accompany me to the market. Isn’t that sweet of her?”
Henry remains unamused. “She’s sweet all right. Is it okay if I speak with her in private, please?”
Bram’s eyes flick to mine in an unspoken question.
I nod, letting him know it’s okay. Henry seems to have calmed down in his brother’s presence. Still, I shiver, thinking of the way his temper flipped like a switch.
Bram takes the pen and ambles out of the room, glancing over his shoulder at us before leaving the door open.
“Are you going to tell me what’s actually going on?” Henry asks the moment his brother leaves.
I consider this. All signs point to Henry having a secret relationship with Kennedy. To Henry being the hooded figure with Kennedy moments before she was murdered.
Henry, who looked like he might have done something to me if Bram hadn’t intervened.
But I can’t forget that he’s my Henry, the boy who sat next to me on the school bus every day until he was old enough to drive.
The boy who stayed up with me on the phone every night after my mom died.
The boy who listened to me cry when my dad went through a breakdown and deleted the home videos because he couldn’t bear hearing his dead wife’s voice on them.
Hasn’t he at least earned the chance to explain?
“I know you asked Bram to pull that fire alarm,” I admit, leaning against his desk.
“I know it was you in that school security footage with Kennedy the day she died.” It may’ve been a bluff, but his face falls, confirming everything.
“I think you were the boy Lydia was talking about, the one who was secretly dating Kennedy. Maybe secretly because you knew Adam wouldn’t approve.
Or maybe there were…other reasons.” Red-hot shame creeps up my neck.
“Dating her?” Henry shakes his head. “Hayden, no. I told you last week, none of us were dating Kennedy.”
“But you knew something, didn’t you? About why she was on the property like Lydia said.”
“Because she was stalking Bram!” Henry pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I couldn’t exactly tell anyone—especially not the cops—that my brother wanted to get rid of that girl. That he had a motive for killing her!”
He’s right about that. Telling the cops that Bram wanted Kennedy out of his life would’ve been detrimental.
“So what happened?” I ask, not sure I’m ready for the answer.
“You were trying to help Bram? You had him set off the fire alarm so you could confront Kennedy in the woods, and then…” I don’t finish the thought, that something happened there in the woods, something that left Kennedy lying on the forest floor with blood seeping from a wound in her head.
“I was trying to help Bram, yes,” Henry says, taking a seat on his desk chair, “but it was more complicated than whatever you’re thinking.
It was about more than asking her to leave Bram alone.
” He proceeds to tell me about a tutoring fiasco involving Kennedy.
About how obsessed she sounded in Bram’s room.
About finding Kennedy’s lipstick in the garage the day Mariana died.
It tracks with Bram’s version of events—at least up until the lipstick.
“I thought,” Henry continues, “that Kennedy might’ve been there in the garage the day Mariana died.
I tried talking to her at school, but she refused.
She didn’t want to talk or even be seen with me.
She threatened to call for help if I so much as got near her.
I tried getting her number off Bram’s phone, maybe to pose as him in order to get her to meet me.
But he must’ve deleted all traces of her.
“That’s when I came up with the plan to set off the emergency alarm.
While everyone was forced out of the school to the fields, too distracted to notice the two of us, I thought it would be my only chance.
I considered pulling her off to the side yard, hoping that if she did protest, the alarm would drown out the sound of her voice.
” Red streaks up the sides of his neck. “It didn’t come to that, though.
I was able to trick her into coming with me to the woods.
All I had to do was tell her that Bram was waiting for her.
She seemed confused at first. Apparently, she’d asked him to meet her after school.
On the way there, she pulled out her phone, like she didn’t quite believe me.
I knew why. I’d been trying so hard to talk to her while Bram had been firm that he never wanted to speak to her again.
In the end, though, she agreed to come with me.
” Henry pats down his disheveled hair, and seeing him in his pajama bottoms, his sea green eyes wide, I don’t have to wonder why Kennedy trusted him.
“I only planned on confronting her,” Henry says, rubbing at his face.
“I wanted to catch her off guard, just to find out if my theory held any weight. That day she came over for math tutoring and I overheard her conversation with Bram, she didn’t sound…
right. But I had no idea if not being right meant she was capable of killing a girl. ”
He inhales, turning away from me to pace the room.
“Well, she was furious when I asked if she’d been in the garage the day Mariana died.
She denied it, even after I showed her the lipstick.
” Henry frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “She threatened to leave, since Bram clearly wasn’t there in the woods.
So I acted indifferent, saying the cops could just test it for her DNA.
And that’s when she panicked and demanded I give her the lipstick.
” His speech comes faster now, breathier.
“I told her I would, in exchange for the truth. I said I was sure Bram would be with her now, as long as she confessed. That after the hell she put him and our family through the past year, she owed it to him.” He adjusts his glasses.
“It didn’t take long for her to cave. She started crying, begging me not to tell anyone that on the day Mariana died, she’d tampered with a wire in Mariana’s engine while we were out of the shop and then lured Bram away into the woods. ”
My breath hitches. Kennedy had murdered Mariana Sanchez. And Henry found out.
“All her begging did was spark this overwhelming need to tell Bram and Adam,” Henry continues.
“We finally had answers. Our names would be cleared.” He stops pacing to meet my gaze, his eyes flooded with sorrow.
With regret. “I started walking away, trying to leave the woods. Kennedy was shouting for me to come back. She said I’d promised her the tube of lipstick, but I didn’t stop.
Then her voice was lost beneath the fire alarm, just as I’d hoped.
I headed through the east side of campus, straight for the parking lot.
That’s all I know. I have no idea what happened after that. ”
I wish I knew if he was telling the truth.
Up until last week, I didn’t think Henry was capable of lying to me or to anyone else.
But now I think he’s more than capable. Now I think that Henry’s high intelligence makes lying easy for him.
That he’s able to think two steps ahead of everyone else and craft the exact story he needs to tell.
“Part of me thought maybe Kennedy couldn’t handle the truth getting out,” Henry says solemnly, “so she…you know.” His gaze lowers.
“But Bram said it couldn’t have been a suicide, not considering how she looked in the woods.
” He shuts his eyes as if the gruesome images are right here in the room, displayed before him.
“It wasn’t suicide,” I say, remembering with a shiver how Kennedy’s head was split open, her blood pooling over the forest floor.
“But maybe it was an accident, Henry,” I press on, even as he shakes his head.
“Bram told me Kennedy got aggressive with him, physical even. Maybe she tried to grab you, to keep you from telling. No one would blame you for defending yourself.”
“No,” Henry says, stepping toward me with his hands folded together. “I swear to you, all we did was talk. She begged me not to say anything, but she never touched me. And I never laid a finger on her. When I left the woods, she was alive.”
He’s looking at me, pleading with his eyes, awaiting a response. I don’t have one.
The doorbell below draws Henry’s attention, rescuing me from his searing gaze. The sound is followed by loud knocking.
“Some sort of prank?” Henry asks, moving toward the door.
“You’re not expecting anyone?”
“Not unless Mr. Swanson decided to pay us a visit.”
Through the wall, I hear Adam’s thunderous footsteps. Then his voice booms into the hallway, “Is anyone going to get the door?”
I follow Henry out as Bram emerges, dressed for the day in his usual dark jeans and a black graphic T-shirt. Seeing us, Adam retreats back into his room, slamming the door.
The knocking continues as we make our way down the stairs. Just before we reach the door, a muffled voice from the other side yells, “Police! Open up!”
My heart seizes. Police?
Henry and Bram exchange a fearful look. “Go,” Henry tells Bram, batting his brother away from the door before opening it.
Bram doesn’t obey, remaining at his side when Detective Wilson says, “Bram Abbott, you’re under arrest for the murder of Kennedy Russo. You have the right to remain silent.” In the commotion, Henry tries to ask questions, demands to see the warrant.
But Bram remains stoic. He practically turns his own back to Detective Chase, helping the man cuff his wrists.
My eyes start to tear, and I want to yell at him to do something. To ask for his lawyer, resist somehow.
But then I realize that he’s turned to me.
“Hey, Phil,” he says tipping his head low to meet my eyes, his use of the nickname pulling us back to when we were kids.
To when things were light and easy, everything a joke to him.
“It’s going to be okay. I’m okay.” Even as the cuffs click shut and Detective Chase yanks him backward, Bram offers a small smile. “Be strong.”
But I can’t be, not when they’re dragging him off to jail. “Isn’t there something you can do?” I ask Henry as Adam appears behind us now, already shouting at the detectives.
“I don’t—” Henry turns to Adam. “Get Mr. Swanson on the phone.”
Adam nods, pulling his phone from his pocket as he ducks back inside the house.
But it’s too late. The detectives are walking Bram down the cobblestone path to the circular driveway where their cruiser is waiting.
Watching him placed inside, calm as ever while the world is shattering all around him, feels like some vital piece of me is floating off down the creek.
I want to run after him. Only I know that won’t help things.
Unable to catch my breath as the car drives off, I lower onto the porch steps. Behind me, Henry is on the phone with his dad. “Just get back, okay? Bram needs you.”
He hangs up and descends the steps, standing on the cobblestone path. “This is bad.”
“How can they have enough evidence to arrest him?” I ask, trying not to cry. “Just his image on a security camera doesn’t prove anything.”
“They already subpoenaed his phone,” Henry says. “Our lawyer called this morning.”
“What? Bram never said—”
“I’m sure he didn’t want to worry you,” Henry says, lips twisting as he looks up at me.
“But by now, they know that Bram was texting Kennedy and that he was supposed to meet her in the woods. They know he wanted her to leave him alone, that he pulled the fire alarm. They’ll simply fill in the rest.”
“Even if it’s not the truth?”
“They need someone to blame. All signs point to Bram.” He nibbles his lower lip. “I should tell them it’s me in the video with Kennedy. It’s all my fault anyway.”
“No, Henry. Then they’ll pin it on you.”
He shrugs. “I deserve it. If I’d gone to the cops about Kennedy rather than confronting her, none of this would’ve happened.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” I say, trying with everything in me not to cry. “Kennedy was a town darling, and her dad has a lot of influence. You needed proof. But I think we have to tell them about Kennedy and Mariana now. It’s our only—”
“It will give Bram an even bigger motive,” Henry cuts in, his eyes wide. “We can never tell the cops that Kennedy killed Bram’s girlfriend.”
A wave of nausea hits me. He’s right. It could look like Bram was seeking revenge—that he found out the truth behind who stole the love of his life. That it sparked a hatred so intense that he murdered Kennedy in a crime of passion.
I must look as ill as I feel, because Henry moves up the steps to place a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get you some water.”
“No, you don’t have to…I’m going home.” He shouldn’t be wasting time worrying about me when his brother has just been hauled off to jail.
“You are?” he asks, and when I look up, there’s disappointment in his face.
I nod. “Your parents and lawyer will be here soon. I’m in the way.”
“Can I call you later?” he asks, his voice meek, sounding less like the man he’s become and more like the boy I used to play pirates with. “I could really use my best friend.”
“Of course,” I say as he tugs me up by the hand. When he wraps me into a hug, I hug him back, desperately wanting to believe he’s the boy who sat and held me while I cried over my mom. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks,” he says, forcing a smile for my benefit. It’s almost impossible to believe he’s the same person whose anger less than an hour ago incited true fear in me. That he’s the one who violently erupted toward Adam last year.
But he is, and that’s why I’m not sure I believe his story. That’s why a single question keeps turning over in my mind: If Henry didn’t kill Kennedy, who did?