Chapter 24
I could feel the rage spreading through my body.
Bradley had lied to my face. Turned out, I had not been special at all.
He’d slept with another of his teenage students.
A girl I’d known. A girl whose death had thrown my entire life off course.
Alex and I were connected more than I thought.
We’d both been preyed on by the same sociopath.
A sociopath who knew and taught Hazel. My stomach flipped, and strangely I felt like I wanted to pray.
To get on my knees and beg to a god I didn’t believe in that Bradley hadn’t gone anywhere near my sister, that he hadn’t killed her or Alex.
But if he had already lied to me about sleeping with Alex, he could be lying about sleeping with Hazel too.
I had a hunch that Hazel was too smart to succumb to him, but she still could’ve figured things out and confronted him. He was a perfect suspect.
This also felt like the perfect excuse to banish Sam’s earlier suggestion about Will to the back of my mind.
Out of all the people I had spoken to, Bradley had the best reason to kill Alex. He was a teacher sleeping with his student. Had Alex wanted to go public? Had she threatened him? Those could be great reasons for wanting her dead.
I sat on the edge of my bed, remembering all of the invasive questions Bradley had asked the other day about Will and Alex. I’d thought he was trying to help me, but had he been interested because he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t caught?
Bradley. His voice sounded like a knife in my brain.
I wanted to kill him. I had been so fucking stupid to believe anything he had said.
Stupid then to believe I had been the only one.
This poor, misunderstood, old soul that he couldn’t help falling in love with.
But men like that didn’t make exceptions and fuck just one eighteen-year-old.
They made it a habit. If he had slept with Alex and me, how many more were there between? Or after?
He wasn’t going to get away with it any longer.
I had protected him in The Smileys Next Door because I had deluded myself.
But I was tired of protecting the seedy men who had taken advantage of me.
A day of reckoning was coming for that motherfucker.
I just had to be smart about it. I would get proof.
I needed to figure out how to handle this. I could tell Pullman. I’d already spilled the beans that I knew Hazel was looking into the case, but would he take me seriously?
I decided I couldn’t wait, so I picked up my phone, remembering Bradley’s lingering goodbye. Can we exchange numbers … Maybe we can even grab a drink?
I opened my messages and texted him.
Hey Brad, I’m feeling nostalgic. Want to meet up?
I kept the message open while I waited for his response. It was barely six p.m., so I hoped he’d be free. I scrolled through a bunch of messages from people asking about Hazel. It wasn’t long before Bradley replied.
Absolutely. I’d love to see you again, he wrote. Want to grab a drink somewhere?
How about your place instead? I typed back.
Lol you’re the same as ever, he wrote, and texted his address, an apartment building fifteen minutes away in Royal Palm Beach.
I knew Bradley like the back of my hand. I’d seen the way his eyes had lingered on my body. He was still attracted to me. I’d tell him I’d wanted to meet up to hook up, but then I would confront him with what I knew and get it on camera.
Bradley lived in a nondescript, beige apartment building behind an Office Depot and a Chili’s. Before approaching his second-floor unit, I unlocked my phone and hit record. I slipped it into my back pocket, hoping it would get good enough audio. Bradley answered my knock on the door immediately.
“Look who it is,” he said, grinning.
He was wearing jeans and a striped button-down shirt that still had crease marks from being recently folded.
I could smell his cologne from the doorway, making me think that he had rushed out of the sweats he was wearing when I suggested we meet up.
It reeked of desperation, and that thought filled me with a sick sense of pleasure.
“Thanks for having me over,” I said, as he led me inside. “I needed a distraction.”
“Well, I’m happy you thought of me,” Bradley reasoned, looking amused.
His apartment was just as bland inside as out, a post-grad living space that stopped being acceptable after age thirty.
He had a leather couch pushed against one wall and a framed Return of the Jedi poster hanging over it.
His coffee table looked like it was from a big-box store and was crowded with remotes and unopened mail.
It was a sad, middle-aged bachelor pad that suggested there had been no girlfriends in Bradley’s recent history.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” I lied, taking it in.
“That wasn’t even slightly convincing,” Bradley said, chuckling. He walked toward the kitchen, and I followed him. “I bet it looks like a complete shithole compared to your place in New York.”
“Yeah, my place is nice.”
“I bet.” Bradley reached into his fridge and unearthed two cans of hard seltzer. He offered one to me and I took it. “You’re a big fancy author now.”
His kitchen was small enough that we both could lean against opposite counters and only be a few feet from each other.
I let my eyes wander, not sure exactly what it was I was looking for.
It wasn’t as if Bradley was going to leave out some crucial piece of evidence on his kitchen counter, especially if he had known I was coming over.
If there was something to find, it would be hidden.
But he did have a large block of knives on the counter.
I felt stupid, but I positioned myself right next to it, in easy grabbing distance. Just in case.
I took a sip from the can, watching Bradley as he watched me.
He had a hopeful, excited look on his face.
How could he stand here with me casually, knowing what he had done?
Whether he had been involved in Alex’s murder or Hazel’s disappearance, he had still lied, and I was going to force him to admit it.
“I’ve never been to your apartment before,” I said, leaning forward. Bradley’s eyes were glued to my chest. “For a while I wasn’t even sure if you had one. We always used to have sex in the car. Or the woods.”
Bradley’s lip twitched into another smile. He placed his drink down beside him on the counter and I did the same.
“There were extenuating circumstances back then,” he said. “Roommates, and whatnot.”
And you being a fucking predator, I thought, refusing to let it show on my face.
Had he looked at Alexandria the same way he looked at me before they fucked?
Had she too been hidden and screwed in the Camry like I was?
The thought gave me a weird kinship with Alex, and I couldn’t place how I felt about it.
I didn’t like sympathizing with her. It was easier for me to justify what I had done with the book when I thought about Alex in her worst moments.
But then, every now and again, I’d remember the memories I had with her before 2010 and feel insanely guilty.
Sure, Alex was a bitch, but she was also the girl who took me to buy tampons for the first time, and sat on the edge of the tub instructing me on how to put one in.
She had taught me how to French braid my hair, and never let a birthday pass without bringing me a vanilla-bean Frappuccino.
She was the girl who had loved my brother so much that when he got into college, she hand painted the University of Florida logo in washable paint on the back windshield of his car.
It was sometimes hard to reconcile the two Alexes in my brain.
It was easier to hate the one-dimensional version.
Even so, picturing her being manipulated by Bradley the way I had been made her feel more rounded.
“Well, we don’t have those extenuating circumstances anymore, do we?” I asked, pouting a little. Bradley looked like he was about to start panting. I watched his gaze drift over my body again.
“No,” he said, moving closer to me. “We don’t.”
Then he was standing right in front of me, his hips pushing into mine. His hands reached out and touched my thighs. He took his time sliding them up to my waist. I kept my face very even as he touched me, focused.
“I’ve actually missed you a lot,” he whispered, his mouth hovering over mine.
“I bet you have,” I said, and felt his hand slip into my shirt, grabbing my breast. His touch felt familiar, though not arousing at all.
“Seven whole years,” I mocked, letting Bradley settle against my body, his hands roving greedily. “You poor thing. Have you been forced to masturbate to pictures of me on Instagram?”
Bradley snorted. “God, you’re exactly the same.” He chuckled. “Quick-witted and sexy as hell.”
Like I was in high school? I thought, digging my nails into the countertop instead of speaking. I wanted to let him relax a little more. I wanted to catch him completely off guard.
“I’ve matured quite a bit since then,” I whispered.
“I can see that.” He reached for me, pulling my mouth to his. His kiss was frenzied, too eager. I locked my hands behind his neck, responding as enthusiastically as I could.
I moved my mouth to his neck, sucking on it for a second before I let my teeth graze the skin.
This, he seemed to like. He grabbed me, pulling me up so I was sitting on the countertop, and fitting himself between my legs.
I could feel his erection pressing hard into my thigh, making it clear how badly he wanted this to happen.
I let Bradley’s hands explore my body for another second, his breathing becoming rabid with want.