The new house may have had crappy cell service and a just-north-of-nowhere area code, but it did have one major plus: the giant heap of dirt that cushioned Riley’s landing when she crossed her fingers, closed her eyes, and jumped out of her second-story window.
Before the jail break, her parents were pacing and murmuring things, and Gail and the deputy were studying something intently—probably a list of all the basic teenage amenities that he was planning on taking away from Riley “for her own safety.” Thinking of her parents’ betrayal vaulted Riley forward once her feet hit the ground. She kept to the wrought-iron fencing lining the estates, her lungs burning, the cold slapping at the tears as they ran down her face.
JD was leaning against his car when Riley made it to the front gate. He was bathed in a yellow glow from the streetlight above, looking very much James Dean. The image called up memories of snuggling on the couch with her parents, and Riley stomped it away.
“She’s at Crescent General and she’s out of ICU,” JD said, opening the door for Riley.
She dove inside, aching as the seconds it took for JD to get in the car and continue his story seemed to stretch on for eons.
“And? Do they know anything? Is she OK?”
JD started up the engine and floored the gas pedal. Riley could hear the tires spin, kicking up dirt and gravel before they caught hold of the road. Finally she could breathe.
“So?”
JD cleared his throat. “She’s stable.”
“Stable means not dead, right?”
“Hey.” JD awkwardly patted the top of her hand then put his back on the wheel. “Relax. She’s going to be OK. It’s going to take a while but she’s going to be fine.”
Riley pressed herself back in her seat, her body sagging, aching muscles protesting against any motion at all. “I’m just so scared for her.”
“It’s going to be OK,” JD said again.
Riley glanced over the console, examining JD’s profile. The moonlight illuminated his strong forehead and nose, showing off the stern set of his jaw. Riley stiffened again.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
JD shrugged, not taking his eyes off the road. “I’m telling you everything I know.”
“Who gave you the information?”
“Ry, I’m not the one who’s been lying to you.”
Riley crossed her arms in front of her chest, icy fingers of suspicion walking down her spinal column. “Who told you, JD?”
He blew out a sigh that was part exasperation, part exhaustion. “I dated Shelby’s sister for a while, OK?”
“Which one? Tru?”
JD guided the car over a smooth turn. “Yeah.”
“She’s, like, twenty!”
“Yeah, well, we dated when she was, like, seventeen.”
Riley gaped. “You were fourteen then! That’s disgusting.”
“I was fifteen, almost sixteen.”
“You’re older than me?”
“Eighteen two weeks ago.”
“Oh.” Riley sat back again. “Happy birthday.”
“Meaningful. Anyway, I called Tru and she told me about Shelby and the accident.”
“What about the accident?”
JD went back to that hard expression, staring directly out the front windshield, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if he wasn’t driving on a straight, freshly paved road.
“It wasn’t just a regular sedan kind of car that hit her, was it? It was the blue one. The one that Tim was driving?”
“Tim?” JD looked surprised.
Riley shook her head and looked imploringly at JD.
He swallowed hard, pausing for a beat. “The witnesses say the sedan was circling the school. It started to follow Shelby.”
Riley nodded, numbness creeping into her finger and toes.
“It sped up when she entered the crosswalk.”
Riley’s stomach folded in on itself and she thought she was going to be sick again. “Sped up?”
“He hit her once…” JD’s voice trailed off and Riley’s heartbeat sped up. “She fell; she hit the road.” He cleared his throat. “And then he backed over her.”
Riley felt the bile burning at the back of her throat. Her vision was suddenly blurry, and the windshield, the dashboard in front of her—everything—disappeared behind her tears.
“They said he was gearing up to do it again, but he must have realized he’d be penned in if he went that direction. He turned around and sped off.”
Riley folded over, pressing her head between her knees. “Oh God.”
“It was all really quick.”
Riley popped back up. “But there were witnesses. And it takes time to put a car in reverse. Why didn’t someone help her? Why didn’t someone stop him?”
The night broke, and a smatter of rain hit the hood of the car. The drops on the windshield cast a mottled shadow over JD’s face when Riley turned to look at him.
“I don’t know, Riley.”
Panic tightened her chest.
Her fault.
“Someone must have gotten a license plate, right? Or someone filmed it or took a picture?”