“They had, but he hadn’t told me why. He’d made a pros-and-cons list on how to do it because he thought she wouldn’t take it well. It never occurred to me it was because you were in the picture—you and I were happy. So I went looking for you. I thought maybe that was really why you wanted to keep it secret—so he wouldn’t know. Maybe you were seeing us both.” He cleared his throat. “But then I saw how it was between you two in the parking lot…the raw emotion. That wasn’t just friendship.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she stuck to the time line. “So you lost us at Happy Taco. We left before you got there.”
He put his hands in his pockets.
“Did you find us later? You must have. You were on the road. You were following us.” The headlights. She had to get away from the headlights.
“Jane…don’t.”
“I need to know. And I need to know why you have never told me any of this. You or Adam.”
“Adam doesn’t know any details. He left Happy Taco and I didn’t see him again that night.”
“And you?”
He wiped the trace of beer off his mouth with the back of his hand. “I went driving around. I felt crazy. This couldn’t be. If you were with David, then you were cheating on me with my best friend and dating your best friend’s ex. I didn’t want to believe it of you. I couldn’t believe it of you. I went by your house, David’s house. No one was home at your place and I didn’t want to ask Mrs. Hall if you were running around together.”
“My mom wasn’t home?”
“Well, I don’t know. The lights were on, but she didn’t answer the doorbell.”
Her mother and Perri must have finished their discussion. Where was her mother, then? “And then what?”
“I knew Kamala was upset. I called her. Dr. Grayson told me she’d gone out. I asked where. And I guess her parents track her phone, because she’d gone to the Halls’ lake house.”
The lake house. The Halls owned another place, a large, two-story Tuscan home, down on Lake Austin. Cal and David loved it, Perri didn’t, so it was a father-son hangout for them.
If two teenagers needed privacy to talk…and the parents owned more than one house…why not go there? She hadn’t been there in years—that she remembered.
“Did you go there?” she asked.
Now he looked deflated and ill. “I debated about whether or not to go…I mean, c’mon, if y’all were seeing each other and sitting with his arm around you, acting like a couple, lying to Kamala, it meant you were cheating on me. I couldn’t compete with a guy like David.”
“Trevor…”
“Kamala texted me: They’re here. I couldn’t decide what I should do, but I drove over to the lake place. Your car went past me as I headed toward the house. You were driving really fast. Like, dangerous fast. I had to drive down to a place wide enough to turn around and then try to follow you. Until I lost you.”
“Lost us? But you were on High Oaks?”
“I was following you on Old Travis and I saw in the distance you had turned onto High Oaks—and then I got caught behind a car making a left turn, and there was a line of traffic, and I got caught for at least a minute. And I turned around and started to drive home. I was so torn up. I thought you must have known it was me following you but you kept going, and I finally thought, to hell with it, so I U-turned a few minutes later and I went back. I turned right onto High Oaks. I drove, but I didn’t see you or your car. I looked down the hill, but I didn’t see the wreckage or light, or anything.”
What had Brenda Hobson said? The wreck was dark as pitch.
“I didn’t see another car, or a person. So I left. I figured you had just used it as a cut-through or you just wanted to get away from me because you knew I was following you. I went home. I did see an ambulance heading toward me on Old Travis as I turned off, but I didn’t realize until later they had turned onto the road.”
Maybe Brenda’s memory was a little faulty on that account; he might have already been on Old Travis. “So did Kamala tell you what she saw at the lake house?”
“Jane…what does it matter now?”
“It matters because someone is lying to me about that night. Are you Liv Danger?”
“No, of course not.” His eyes widened.
“Maybe you are,” she said. She took a step toward him, her hand closing into a fist. “Did you run us off the road?” A ghost of headlights in the rearview mirror.
“No.” He was pale as milk in moonlight. “Jane, no.”
“But you didn’t see the crashed car…what time were you there?”
“It would have been about ten. I got home about ten fifteen. I gave up on finding you.”
“Is that all?”
The silence was heavy between them. “All I care to say.”
She turned away from him. “Not telling me is like lying. You just hide behind no words instead of untrue words.”
“Jane…” Two people started to come out onto the patio—Kamala Grayson and Amari Bowman. “Go back inside, please,” Trevor said.
Kamala tilted her head in greeting. “Well. Jane. I guess you’re feeling a bit more social now. Did you steal your mother’s car to come over here?”
“No,” Jane said. “Hi, Amari. Thanks again for talking with me.”
“You’re welcome,” Amari said after a moment as Kamala glanced back at her in surprise.
“Kamala. Go,” Trevor said.
“Well, of course. I’ll give you two your privacy.” She and Amari retreated back into the house.
“So, I mean, how serious were we?” Jane asked. “Were we sleeping together?”
“No. You said you weren’t ready. But we kissed. A lot.” He blushed in the moonlight.
She wondered if she could believe him, then she thought of him standing up for her, throwing that Parker jerk into a wall at school.
“Is there anything else?”
“Kamala wouldn’t tell me anything that happened at the lake house. I didn’t see her or her car, but I didn’t drive all the way down to the lake house. I turned after you pretty quick.”
So why would she and David go from the lake house to High Oaks Road? They knew no one there. Maybe just trying to get away from Trevor? And then she saw it.
“You thought we were ditching you and that was what caused the wreck. Me driving fast, trying to get away from you…”
His face was pure pain. “I thought so…until they found the note. Then I didn’t know what to think. Were you trying to hurt yourself and get away from me, or did you just crash the car?…If I caused it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He reached for her. For a second she saw the boy who fake-married her in first grade, the boy she stood up for in fourth against the hair-bow meanie, the quietly dignified boy who had pushed the vile Parker away from her.
Then she jerked away from him as if his touch burned. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. You could have told me all this and you didn’t.”
“Your mom told me to stay away from you. You remembered nothing about us. What was I supposed to do, say, ‘Oh hey, yeah, we were finally falling in love,’ when the version of me you remembered was three years out of date and I was just a friend? When you didn’t even know who you yourself were?”
Looking at him made a hard twist in her chest. She hurried away from him, through the house, through the kitchen. Adam was gone. He’d left. Nana was in the kitchen and glanced up with concern for Jane.
“Where is Adam?” she asked Nana.
“He left, he said he’d be back for you in a while.”
“When? Please?”