I Know Your Secret

Chapter 1

Greer

TEN YEARS AGO

“Stop! He did not look like that at all!” I squeal, swerving the wheel slightly as I eye Allison as she lifts her nose to mimic a pig’s and snorts.

“He did, too! And you were ready to throw it all away and go home with him!”

“Was not!” I laugh. “I thought he was sweet!”

“Sure you did. You’re the librarian in a small town who devours books with fantastical plots like there’s no tomorrow. You think every man you meet is there to sweep you off your feet.”

“Do not! Also, I’m a librarian’s assistant, thank you very much.”

She purses her lips at me.

The road takes a winding curve, and I turn the wheel to follow its path. “I may have put too much stock in the plots of some books, but I don’t get to read all day! I do have to work, you know?”

“Mm. Sure. I’m glad you made sense of it in the end. I’m certain the moment they flicked on the lights, your romance would’ve been over. He was ugly.”

“Beauty is only skin deep.”

She scoffs as the song on the radio flips to one I don’t know, so I reach over to turn it.

“Hey! I love that song!” Allison argues, swatting my hand away.

I feign shock and scowl at her, not meaning to turn the wheel where I’m looking, but we swerve.

“Greer!” she yells, grabbing the door as I correct and get back on the road from the embankment that two of the car’s wheels slid onto.

“Sorry,” I say, breathing heavily as my heart pounds against my rib cage.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have had that last round, eh?” she jokes.

“Maybe.”

“Then you wouldn’t have tried to take Pig Nose Man home.”

“Hey!” I shout as we round a curve, waning slightly toward the outer lines as I swat for her. At the same time, my foot presses into the gas.

Her scream alerts me to something up ahead, so I swing my gaze back to the road in time to see a man step one foot onto the pavement.

His eyes are downcast, his arm is waving, and a hood covers his head. The car beside him has its flashers on, and in a second, my life changes.

Because my wheel is locked, I’m skidding toward him. Mashing the brakes, I honk as I try to regain control of the car. But I’m going too fast, and he isn’t quick enough.

“Greer! Turn the wheel! Stop!”

“I can’t!” The admission hangs like a dead weight as I brace for impact.

His body hitting my front end will be a sound that haunts me for the rest of my life. I just know it.

And I’ve only just heard it.

He rolls over my hood, windshield, and roof in quick succession as I propel into him. By the time the car finally stops, I know he’s cleared the trunk, too.

I’m shaking, tears flowing down my cheeks as I turn to Allison.

Our eyes lock, and neither of us moves.

“I just—I killed a man,” I stammer out.

“We don’t know that.”

“No one could’ve survived that,” I sniffle.

“I’m going to get out and check him out, okay? Stay here.”

I nod frantically.

My hands feel as if they’re locked on the steering wheel as I watch her in the dim glow of my brake lights through the rearview, looking past the bloodshot, waterlogged way I look in its reflection.

My phone.

I need to find my phone.

I need to alert the authorities.

At the very best, he needs help.

Allison is in law school but not yet a lawyer. We were out celebrating her acceptance into Yale. This is going to ruin her.

I just applied for the master’s program.

This is going to ruin me.

I finally find my phone and shove selfish thoughts to the back of my mind as I shakily try to unlock it.

I finally get it open as Allison slides into the car and closes her door.

“Drive.”

“What?! Allison, I can’t just drive home. He needs help. Someone needs to know where he is!”

Her eyes remain forward. “No one can help him now, G. We’re just starting out. This would ruin us both. Drive.”

I know she’s right, but am I the kind of cold-hearted woman who’d drive away from a man I just murdered with my car?

“We’re both drunk. You might not feel it, but we’re above the legal limit. He was trying to flag down a ride or help. God only knows now, but we’re in our early 20s, driving drunk, coming back from a bar that’s known for trouble. They’ll throw the book at us to make an example out of us.”

Turning forward, I grip the wheel hard enough that the leather groans in disapproval. “I can’t…”

“Then give me the keys. Because we’re not throwing our lives away for a man that we don’t even know.”

“A dead man,” I remind her.

“G…”

“Drive,” I repeat, and I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. My fingers tingle as I reach down and grip the shifter, tugging it back into drive.

I glance over at my side mirror, seeing the man lying on his back, his head cocked awkwardly. The moon and his flashing hazards illuminate his face enough that I can see his eyes are open. If he were alive, they’d be looking right at me. I swallow as my body quakes.

“Take us home, and this will be nothing but a distant memory,” she says as if that would comfort me.

I watch the rearview, spying the lump of the man I killed as I do as I’m told. I’m too weak and afraid to do otherwise.

This isn’t going to be a distant dream.

This is going to be my nightmare.