Chapter 10
Jackson turns and walks off, shaking his head. “No fucking way. Kristen wouldn’t do that.”
I follow behind him. “She would if she was angry you rejected her.”
“I’ve rejected her plenty of times. When she used to come over here, before we had our arrangement, she’d come onto me and I’d tell her no. I didn’t want to get involved with her.”
“But there wasn’t another girl back then. She didn’t have competition. It’s different now. You have me, and she expects you to choose her over me.”
“That’s not enough reason for her to try to put me in jail. She needs me. She’s not gonna try to get rid of me.”
“What about Braden? Does she have something against him?”
“Not that I know of. Even if she wanted to get back at him, or me, or both of us, she wouldn’t have evidence to use against us. I’m not even sure Kristen was at the party that night. If she was, she would’ve left early. She never sticks around at parties.”
“Then who would it be? Who would have evidence?”
“I don’t know, but we don’t even know if the evidence came from someone.
The cops might’ve just uncovered something themselves.
Something they missed before.” Jackson walks to the sliding door and opens it.
“Rumor, you can’t stay. You need to get to your room in case someone starts looking for you. ”
“They’ll see me on the camera. You don’t have time to have your friend erase it, and with all this going on, they’re going to be monitoring it more. I’ll go out the front and pretend I was just out on a walk.” I turn and head toward the front door.
“Wait!” Jackson catches up to me. “Someone could see you leaving. Go out the back and down a few houses, then go up to the sidewalk.”
I nod. “Okay.”
He takes my face in his hands. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again.”
“I know.” I look down.
“I’ll still text you. And maybe we can talk at night.”
“Yeah,” I say, already feeling sad I won’t see him.
He leans down and presses his lips to mine. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Me too,” I whisper before pulling away. I turn and walk to the back door.
“Hey.”
I look back at him. “What?”
“I still owe you more driving lessons. And I never fed you last night so I owe you dinner.”
I half smile. “Okay.”
“I also owe you a day. A day with just you and me. I was hoping we’d do it today but . . .”
“It’s not gonna happen.” I turn to leave.
“It will,” he says, and I feel him behind me. “I promise you, it will.” He turns my face to his and kisses me. “I’ll see you soon.”
I leave before he says anything else. His words were meant to be hopeful, but they were just making me sad. I don’t feel hopeful right now. Not even a little. If Kristen did this, it’s only step one in her plan to break us apart. Next, she’ll tell Braden about us, or Brock.
And what if this new evidence makes it look like Jackson killed Andrea? What if he ends up going to prison?
When I get home, I go in the door and see Maria on her way out with a laundry basket.
She smiles at me. “Good morning!”
“Hi. You here to get the dry cleaning?”
“Yes. Brock had a few things he forgot to include yesterday so I dropped by to pick them up.” Her smile falls. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I fake a smile. “I’m just tired. I went on a long walk.”
She looks down at my clothes, which are not clothes you’d typically take a walk in. And I’m wearing flip flops.
“I need to go,” I say, hurrying past her. “See you next week.”
As I’m making my way to the living room, I hear Braden.
“Rumor!”
Turning back, I see him coming down the stairs.
“Why are you home so early? I thought you’d be hungover at someone’s house.”
“I don’t drink during the season. I got home at six. I was gonna go to the gym, but something came up and now I can’t.”
“What came up?”
“Shit I don’t want to deal with.” He heads to the kitchen.
I follow him in there. “Did something happen at the party?”
“No.” He opens the drawer that has his protein bars and takes one out. “Dad’s on his way home. Did he tell you?”
“He said he was staying in LA.”
“Change of plans. He’s coming home today.”
“Okay, well, I’m going to my room.”
“Wait.” He walks over to me. “I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“There’s gonna be some shit going on here. Shit you don’t know about and don’t need to know about. There’s gonna be lawyers and cops and shit.”
“Lawyers and cops? What the hell?”
He gets in my face. “You keep your mouth shut. About all of it. If I hear anything about this at school, I’ll know you’re the one who told, and that’s really gonna piss me off.” His dark eyes narrow at me. “Understood?”
I back away. “I won’t say anything, but you really think no one will find out? Cops parked in the driveway makes it pretty obvious something’s going on.”
“The police will send their investigators. They don’t drive cop cars.”
“Braden, what’s going on? You can’t even tell me a little of what’s happening?”
“You don’t need to know.” He goes to the fridge and takes out one of his energy drinks, then walks back to me. “Just keep your mouth shut. And if anyone asks, you didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything.”
He takes off, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I don’t feel hungry but my stomach’s growling so I open the drawer Ana designated just for me that has food I actually eat. I pull out a chocolate-covered granola bar, then grab a bottle of juice from the fridge.
Trystan walks in. “Where the hell were you?”
I spin around to face him. “What do you mean?”
He opens the fridge and takes out an apple. “I went to your room this morning and you weren’t there.”
“I was there. I was asleep. I didn’t hear you knock.”
“If you were there, you would’ve heard me. I was banging on your door.” He bites into his apple as he leans back against the counter.
“What did you want?”
“Didn’t Braden tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I ask, pretending I don’t know, in the hopes Trystan will tell me more.
“Shit’s about to happen.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He comes over to me, lowering his voice. “Remember that girl I found dead?”
“Andrea?”
He eyes me suspiciously. “How’d you know her name?”
My mind rushes to find an explanation. “Someone at school was talking about her.”
“Who?” he says, like he doesn’t believe me.
“Peyton,” I blurt out. “At the game last night.”
“Why would she bring up Andrea?”
“She was talking about the parties around here and how they can get a little crazy. She said some girl died at one and when I asked more about it, she said it was a girl named Andrea and that she used to date Braden.”
Trystan chews on his apple as I anxiously wait to see if he believes my story. He tosses what’s left of his apple in the trash, then walks over to me. “Did she say it was an accident?”
“It didn’t come up,” I say, not wanting to tell him what she said. “She changed topics and we never went back to it.”
“You gotta watch out for that girl. What Braden told you is true. Peyton lies all the fucking time. She does it to get attention. She’ll make shit up and spread it around school just for the fun of it. Did you tell her anything?”
“Like what?”
“Did she ask you about Andrea or what happened that night?”
“No. Why would she ask me? I wasn’t here when it happened.”
He turns and walks the other way, rubbing the back of his neck. “Peyton,” he mutters. “I wasn’t even thinking of her.” Trystan leaves the kitchen, and I hear him yell, “Braden, get your ass down here!”
I race out of the kitchen and find Trystan at the bottom of the stairs. “Tell me what you were going to say. About Andrea.”
Braden appears in the upstairs hallway. “What do you want?”
“Get down here,” Trystan says. “I think I know who might’ve told.”
“Told what?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”
Braden comes down the stairs, stopping in front of Trystan. “Yeah? Who is it?”
“Peyton. You know how she makes shit up all the time, and last night she was telling Rumor stories about Andrea.”
Braden’s eyes dart to me. “What’d she say?”
I shrug. “Not much. She was telling me about the parties around here and said a girl from school died at one.”
“That’s it?” Braden asks, sounding annoyed.
“Peyton told her it was Andrea,” Trystan says. “And said you were dating her.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Braden says. “Peyton talks about everyone. The bitch never shuts up.”
“Yeah, but why would she be talking about Andrea? Why now? And why tell Rumor?”
“She was just talking about parties getting out of control,” I say. “It didn’t have anything to do with the new evidence.”
They both look at me, and I realize I just admitted knowing something I shouldn’t.
“Evidence?” Braden says. “I never told you there was new evidence.” He glances at Trystan. “Did you tell her?”
“I just assumed,” I rush to say, my voice breathy. “If there’s an investigation, there must be new evidence.”
Trystan folds his arms over his chest. “How do you know about the investigation?”
“I told her,” Braden says. “But I didn’t tell her there was new evidence.”
They’re both looking at me in a suspicious way that’s making my stomach knot and my palms clammy.
“You acted like you didn’t know what was going on,” Trystan says. “Why’d you pretend not to know when Braden had already told you?”
“I wasn’t sure if it was a secret. And I didn’t know what you were about to tell me. It could’ve been about something else.”
Trystan and Braden look at each other, and I get even more nervous. They may be my cousins, but I don’t trust either one of them. I want to believe they’re innocent, but there’s a part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if either one of them was involved in a murder.
Braden comes up to me, his eyes dark and threatening. “If you’re lying to us, if you’re involved in this, if you’re hiding information or working against us, I swear to God I’ll—”
“Braden.” Brock comes racing in. “I got here as fast as I could.” He stops next to Braden, noticing how close he’s standing to me. “What’s going on here?”
Braden takes a step back, his eyes still on mine. “We were just talking.”