Chapter 26 Vigo
VIGO
“Well shit.” I was still staring at the spot where Cassie had last stood, before she’d put Hawk in his place, before she’d put all of us in our place.
Jagger swore and started pacing the kitchen like an animal in a too-small cage at the zoo. “Fuck.”
Hawk took a calm swig of his beer. “How were we supposed to know?”
“We weren’t,” I said. “But we probably should’ve gotten all the facts before mouthing off about it. And by ‘we’ I mean you.”
Hawk shrugged, but I could tell he was a little off balance too. We were used to taking shit from people — we weren’t what most people would call socially acceptable — but not gonna lie: it hit different coming from Cassie.
I didn’t even want to think about why that might be the case.
I pulled out the Oreos and my Oreo cup. “Think she’s right? About Travis Dorsey?”
Hawk frowned. “The food will be here any second.”
“So?” I started crumbling the Oreos into the cup. I never understood why anyone would bother dunking and taking bites when it was so easy to crumble a sleeve of Oreos into the cup, cover them with milk, and eat them with a spoon.
Hawk shook his head. “It’s a big leap from a car accident on a winding mountain road to murder.”
But still… Cassie didn’t seem like an irrational person, even about something like the death of her parents.
“Her parents are dead,” Jagger pointed out. “All she has are the witnesses and the papers her parents left behind, which don’t sound enlightening. It sounds like she’s done all she can with what she has.”
I took the milk out of the fridge and looked at Hawk. “What’s your read on the DA letting Dorsey cop a plea?”
“Doesn’t mean a thing,” Hawk said, “except they didn’t think they could get a conviction. But that doesn’t mean the guy is guilty of anything other than driving too fast on the mountain.”
I used my long spoon to scoop a bite of Oreos and milk from the cup. “It doesn’t mean he’s innocent of murder either.”
Hawk hesitated, then nodded. “The only people who know what happened that night are Bram, Cassie’s parents, and Travis Dorsey.”
“Bram won’t even talk about it with Cassie,” Jagger said. “And the parents are dead.”
Silence settled over the kitchen, all of us lost in our own thoughts.
Finally, I looked from Jagger to Hawk, my mouth still full of Oreos. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”