7. Cassie
CASSIE
When the meeting is over, I go back out to the reception area, my stomach in knots.
I’m relieved when I don’t see Tor’s parents waiting anymore, but the relief hits like a drop of rain when you’re already chest-deep in the ocean.
“We need to talk,” I say to Tor.
He nods, watching my face. I’m sure he’s curious how the meeting went, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, he leads me wordlessly out of the office, down the elevator, and across the parking lot. He doesn’t speak until we’re in the privacy of his car.
“What did he say?” Tor finally asks. He’s turned to look at me, the car engine still off.
I look over at him, the weight on my chest like a boulder. “I don’t think you should help me anymore.”
He scowls. “Why?”
“Did you know that if I end up going down for this, you could face the same sentence as me?”
“Yeah.”
My eyes widen. “Life in prison. You could spend the rest of your life in prison for helping me cover this up.”
“Yeah, I know. I had the first appointment, remember?”
“How does that not scare you?” I demand, my voice rising slightly. “Are you crazy?”
He smirks. “I mean, maybe. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in prison, and neither are you. That’s the worst-case scenario of what happens if we can’t get out of it, and that’s not going to happen.”
“You can’t know that! You’re literally gambling with the rest of your life, Tor.”
Shrugging, he says, “Go big or go home, right?”
“Why would you do this for me?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“I already told you,” he says. “And besides, it’s done. I’ve already made myself your alibi, so there’s no walking it back.”
“That’s not true. The lawyer said if you come clean now—”
“Cassie,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “Stop. It’s done. I told you, the way we get through this is by sticking together. As long as we do that, we’ll both be fine. You didn’t say any of this shit to the lawyer, right?”
“No,” I murmur.
“Good.” He shifts in his seat, facing forward as he fires up the engine. “Now, I don’t want to hear any more doubts. Our course is set. All we have to do is keep on it.”
“I just… I don’t understand how you’re so confident when the stakes are this high. There is evidence that I did this, and they could find it, and what happens then?”
“I have the majority of the evidence, remember?”
“And I’m not a good liar,” I burst out. “I had to lie so much to that lawyer, I thought I was going to combust, but if I have to do that on a witness stand?”
“It won’t get that far, and if it does, we’ll prepare you.”
“He said we shouldn’t talk about the facts of the case.”
“Well, sure. Maybe if they were facts, but since everything we said is bullshit…” He glances over at me as the car slows and he flicks on his turn signal. “I actually have an idea about that, but it’s pretty fucked up.”
“Everything about this is fucked up,” I mutter. “What’s the idea?”
“I think we should go through the motions of that night—the version of the story we’re telling, not what actually happened.
That way, if you do end up having to testify, you can draw on your real memory.
There are tells when people are remembering something that happened versus something they’re making up.
I don’t know how well-trained the Holbrook police are in deception, but in the interest of keeping ourselves out of jail, I vote we prepare for everything like we’re going up against the best of the best. If we redo that night, next time someone asks you a detail, you can remember it as it actually happened—on a different night, but no one will know that. ”
I stare at him. “How do you know all this?”
He shrugs. “My dad has a vast library, and I’m a fast reader.”
“I didn’t even know you read books that weren’t assigned.”
His lips tug up, and he glances over at me, eyes glinting. “I’d wager there’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
For some reason, his words cause heat to crawl up my neck and suffuse my face. I look away, shifting my gaze to the road as he pulls out of the parking lot.
After a few seconds, he says, “If I’m taking you home, I need to take a left up here.”
I bite my lip, dread filling me.
“Of course,” he drawls, “we could go straight.”
“I’d like to go straight.”
“Okay,” he says, and the dread eases. “You better text your mom, though. I told her I’d bring you home soon, and I’m guessing you didn’t tell her you don’t have your phone.”
My heart leaps to my throat. “Oh crap.” I open my purse and dig out my new phone. “You’re right. I didn’t.”
“Tell her I’m taking you to a movie. A long one. You’ll be home late.”
I tap out a quick message to my mom while he drives past the road he’d turn left on to take me home.
I think he’s just using the movie as an excuse, so I’m surprised a few minutes later when he actually pulls into the parking lot of the movie theater.
Unfortunately, I’m also distracted because my mom is blowing up my phone with questions.
What do you mean you don’t have your phone? Where is it?
Where are you?
Why aren’t you telling me what’s really going on???
Sighing, I type out, “I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay? Our movie’s about to start, so I have to put the phone away.”
I consider turning the damn thing off, but I settle on shoving it to the bottom of my purse and zipping it closed.
Tor parks the car, and I follow him into the theater. On slower nights, there are no employees at the ticket booths, so we go right up to the concession stand.
He doesn’t even ask if I want anything—he just orders two tickets to a movie I’ve never heard of, a large popcorn, and two drinks. Finally, he looks back at me. “What do you want to drink?”
“Pink lemonade,” I tell the employee who is filling my cup with ice. Then, my gaze jumping back to Tor, I say, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Gotta have popcorn at the movie theater.”
“It’s so expensive.” Leaning close so the employee doesn’t hear, even though I’m sure they know people do it all the time, I whisper, “When we come to the movies, we usually smuggle in candy.”
Tor smirks. “Do you want candy?”
I shake my head. “No, just the popcorn is good.”
“She wants candy,” he tells the cashier, pulling out his credit card. “Tell him what kind of candy you want.”
“No, really, I’m fine with the popcorn.”
He looks at me, cocking an eyebrow. “Cassie. Tell him what you want, or I’ll guess. Either way, we’re not leaving without candy.”
Cheeks flushed, I sigh. “Twizzlers, please.”
“There we go,” Tor says. “Was that so hard?”
Once we have all our movie treats, we head to our theater—the last one at the end of the hall. When we go into the dimly lit room, I realize we are the only ones here.
“Oh.”
“I figured it’d be pretty empty. This movie’s been out for a while.” He sinks into one of the recliners in the middle near the front of the theater.
I take a seat next to him, situating my lemonade in the cupholder and putting my purse and candy on the empty seat beside me.
Tor looks back to make sure he didn’t miss anyone and that we are, in fact, alone.
Then he leans over and says, “I was thinking we should have some code words for when we need to communicate about what’s going on.
A red, yellow, green system. Red is urgent, a pretty big emergency, we need to talk now.
Yellow is pretty important, but not an emergency yet.
I don’t know if we really even need a green, but I guess it can be for good news.
If we want to let each other know, ‘hey, I have good news about something next time we talk, no urgency,’ then I guess green would work for that. ”
“So just find a reason to use red, yellow, or green in conversation?”
He shakes his head, grabbing a piece of buttery popcorn off the top. “What about popcorn for our yellow word?”
I glance at the bucket and nod. “Okay.” I glance at his drink, red beneath the plastic lid. “Fruit punch could be red?”
“Sure, we can make fruit punch work. What do you want to be green?”
“How about flowers?” I suggest.
He nods. “That works.” Then he looks over at me. “What kind of flowers do you like?”
“I don’t think there are any I don’t like. I’m partial to the classic, though. I love the smell of roses.”
Behind us, we hear the sudden sound of feet shuffling and a man murmuring. Tor glances back. “Huh. Guess we’re not alone after all.”
Since there are other people in the theater with us now, we stop talking. The trailers are about to start anyway, but I hear my new phone vibrating in my purse and my anxiety ramps up.
I know it’s my mother, and I know I’ll have to deal with that soon.
But for now, I just want to enjoy the peace and quiet.
___
When the movie’s over, Tor finally drives me home.
It was a long movie, so my mom should be in bed, but with everything that has happened today, I’m not sure if she will be.
I check the windows for light. I doubt she’d have the living room light on, but I should see a glow from the television if she’s waiting up. The house looks pretty dark.
“Maybe she didn’t wait up,” I say, hoping that’s true.
Tor doesn’t say anything to that, but he does reach into the back seat and grab a plastic bag. He takes out a clear plastic package with a phone inside, and I frown.
“What’s that?”
“Burner phone.”
“You already gave me a phone.”
“I gave you a real phone,” he points out, handing over the newly packaged one.
“Remember our stoplight system? We don’t need to keep these phones on us all the time—and we shouldn’t.
Lock it away somewhere it’ll be safe unless you need to get it out, but if we have a fruit punch situation and there’s something urgent we need to talk about, we can use these.
I don’t anticipate anyone ever knowing we own these, which means they shouldn’t be searched, but we should still be cautious just in case.
Don’t say anything too crazy over text. We can be less cautious on a call.
If you need to discuss explicit details, we should meet up somewhere and talk in person.
Since we need to be careful about what we say on our actual phones, I wanted to have an emergency option available.
If there is anything—and I mean anything—I need to be looped in on, you need to tell me.
We’re co-conspirators in this now, and I can’t protect us if I don’t know everything. ”
My teeth sink into my bottom lip as I look at it.
On movies and TV, I thought I remembered burners being flip phones, but this one looks just like my regular iPhone.
“So if I need to tell you something urgent, I text you on our regular phones and mention fruit punch, then you’ll know to switch over to the burner so we can really talk? ”
“Exactly.”
Behind us, a car slows to a stop in front of my house, and my heart leaps to my throat.
Tor glances in the rearview mirror, but he’s not alarmed. “That’s my ride.”
“What?” I frown.
He drops the car key into my palm. “You won’t get your car back anytime soon, so you can use this one. Just keep the GPS tracking in mind and don’t go anywhere suspicious.”
Eyes wide, I stare at the key fob, then look back up at him. “Thank you.”
The corners of his mouth tilt up, his eyes glinting with light amusement. “I know it’s a lot. Do you have any questions before I go?”
“Um… I don’t think—Oh, yeah. When did you want to do the… do-over of that night?”
“I’m not sure. I have to see how things go, but maybe Thursday night?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text you,” he says as he opens the car door.
I nod, watching him climb out, then I open my door and climb out too.
I glance at the car as I gently close the door, trying not to make too much noise coming in.
The more time I can buy myself, the better.
Besides, I’m truly exhausted. Last night was crazy, and I barely slept today.
I expect to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
My gaze drifts to the car waiting at the edge of my yard, then to Tor. “Who is that?”
“A friend we can trust,” he says evasively.
“Is it the same friend who snuck into my house?”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
Swallowing, I say, “He has my journal.”
“He does. It’s too soon to take it back,” he says, anticipating my next question. “We have to wait and see how this investigation goes. For now, it’s safest with him. He’s not connected to you in any way. There’s no reason anyone would ever look there.”
I nod. That makes sense, but it still makes me uneasy that someone else has it—especially someone I don’t even know.
Tor looks like he wants to say something, and then he does.
“I know you have trouble trusting people now,” he says carefully, “but at some point, you’ll have to decide to risk trusting someone again, and I’m telling you that you can trust me.
The same way he can.” He nods toward the guy idling, waiting for him.
“Right now, he’s showing up for me—for us—in a big way, and I won’t forget that.
It’s important to have a tight circle of people you know you can trust in your life.
You’ll get a lot further a lot faster than if you try to make the trek alone. ”
My heart races, and I’m not even sure why. What he’s saying makes me uncomfortable, but I force myself not to shy away from it. “I... I do trust you.”
“Good.” His lips tug up, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “I’ve got your back as long as you have mine.”
I offer a tentative smile and a slight nod, then I watch him walk to his buddy’s car. He drops into the passenger seat and closes the door, then he looks at me through the window as the car pulls away.
I offer a little wave goodbye, then I turn to head inside my house.
My heart lurches, and I nearly jump out of my skin when a shadow on the porch suddenly moves.
Fear grips me, paralyzing me. It feels like my heart stops beating when I realize that someone is lying in wait for me outside my house, and then he takes a step forward, and the moonlight hits his face.