“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so nervous. But I need to talk to you. And Trevor.”
“Me? I told you everything.” He ran a hand through his dark hair.
“Do you remember having lunch with my dad and me a few weeks before he died?”
“Yeah,” he said. Blinking, trying to remember why this would matter.
“You never mentioned that to me.”
“Lunch? What was there to mention?”
“Did you give him something at that lunch, when I wasn’t around?”
“Oh, wow,” Adam said. The dawn of the memory lighting his eyes. “How do you know? Did your dad tell you? Did your memory come back?”
“It doesn’t matter, I know. What was it?”
“You tell me how you know something that only your dad and I knew about.” His voice tightened.
“Just tell me.” She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him.
“I can’t believe you know about this. Your dad asked if I or the guys in the school hacker club could break into a computer for him. I said no. But he asked again, and I said, well, I could give him a flash drive with a bunch of programs on it that could help him find whatever he needed on a computer: password breakers, a root kit, a keystroke monitor. But I’d have to know why he needed it.”
Jane could hardly breathe.
“He said there was a laptop that had been passworded by an employee who’d left and he needed to get data off of it.”
“That’s not it, Adam. Was he wanting to crack my mom’s computer?”
“Jane.” He blew out a long breath. “He thought your mom was having an affair. He wanted to search her system for proof. He said if they divorced, he wanted the evidence to keep custody of you. I didn’t want to be involved, I didn’t. But he begged me, for your sake. I couldn’t believe he told me this but he was desperate.”
“And after he died, you didn’t tell me this? Or did you?” For a moment her anger ebbed.
“He made me swear not to tell you. He didn’t want you mad at me. So I didn’t. And then the way he died…I thought maybe he found out stuff about your mom and this affair, and it was, you know, true. Or bad news. And he…” His voice trailed off, miserable. “The police said it was an accident. I didn’t want you to think that he had a reason to hurt himself. It would have killed you.”
She leaned back against Trevor’s truck, her legs feeling weak.
“Did he ever tell you what he found?”
“Of course not. He never gave me back the drive, either.”
A drive that could crack computers. Floating around her father’s life. Never found. She said nothing for several moments. What did he find on Mom’s computer? He wouldn’t kill himself over an affair, would he? Would he hurt so bad he would leave me? Maybe the answer is yes and you don’t want to confront that possibility.
“Jane.”
She fought back a wave of emotion. She clutched at his hand and he closed his other hand over hers. “I’m not mad at you. You were trying to help. What did the flash drive look like?”
“Uh, it has a little musical note on it, so it will look like a music drive. I don’t go around carrying a flash drive labeled ‘Hacker Kit.’”
So where was this flash drive now?
“OK.” She felt rocked by this. “All right. OK.” She pulled her hand away from his and took a series of deep breaths. “OK. All right.”
“Are you ready for this?”
She realized he now meant the party. “It’s been two years, yeah, I guess I am.”
They walked down the path. It was going to be an amiably boring party, she could tell, and she felt a sense of relief. Music was playing, not loudly, not even enough to bother the neighbors.
They went in through the unlocked front door, and an elderly lady, with a bright smile and gray hair cut elfin-short, leaned out of the kitchen and said, “Hey, y’all! Come on in!”
Oh yeah, Jane thought, a real wild bacchanal. She steadied herself. She could do this. Look at what she had accomplished in the past two days. She could handle a social gathering.
They walked through the dining room and then into the kitchen, which made Jane relieved, because most of the kids were in the big, old-style den. She had been afraid that when she walked in, all conversation would cease, they would stare, someone would say something. Or laugh. Or glare.
But they didn’t. The conversations kept going, and as she and Adam loitered by the sink as the elderly lady fussed in the fridge, she saw a few Lakehaven kids she recognized pause for a second, look at her, not with scowls but at least neutrally, and then she realized half the kids here weren’t Lakehaven. They must be Trevor’s friends from Travis Community College. So they didn’t even know about her past. She was just another guest, a young woman in a pretty blue dress. She wasn’t the homeless girl, or the suicide who took down the innocent guy who was probably trying to help her, or the weirdo camped out in her friend’s dorm room, eating off a borrowed meal plan.
She could just be Jane.
The thought of it overwhelmed her for a moment and then she heard the woman behind her. “Hello, sorry, had to get that pasta boiling. Hi, Adam.”
“Hi, Nana. This is my friend, Jane. I brought her along but I forgot to tell Trevor, I hope that’s all right.”
Jane turned and the woman smiled at her. “Hi, Jane. Of course you’re welcome here. I’m Trevor’s grandmother, but no one calls me Mrs. Gunther, they all call me Nana.”
“OK. Hi, Nana,” Jane said. Nana squeezed her arm gently, welcoming. Jane felt a rush of heat behind her eyes. “I used to be friends with Trevor.”
“I didn’t know Trevor had ‘used to be’ friends,” she said. “I thought he was pretty loyal to all his friends.”
Jane tried to smile. “We just haven’t been in touch lately. I guess we’re still friends. I hope we are.”
“I know Trevor will be glad you’re here.”
Until I bring up asking if he and his truck were leaving High Oaks after the crash.
“Yes, you must be proud of Trevor. He keeps Lakehaven fully caffeinated,” Jane said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m glad you’re here, dear,” Nana said. “I know you’ve had a difficult time. I’m glad you’re letting Trevor be a friend to you.”
She knows who I am. “Well,” Jane said, “since I’m a crasher, I can work for my keep. May I help you with anything?”
“No, no, sweetheart, it’s all under control. Go mingle. Nice to see you, and always nice to see you, Adam.”