“And now I know.” She looked pleased.
“And now you. She figured it didn’t matter why she was late that night. Just that she was late. She protected me from having everyone know. She was afraid that the whole town would hear about Mike and me having the alcohol, and they’d judge us and they’d judge her. People talk a lot in a town like this. They lay into people for every little mistake. Mom figured none of us needed that hassle. She made me dump the booze out, and she told Mike’s parents. He was pretty pissed for a while.” Jared ran his hands through his hair, running against his scalp. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forget that. Or forgive myself.”
Tabitha looked lost in thought. Her eyes grew duller, and she raised her hand to her mouth and started nibbling on the nail on her index finger. He thought she was checked out, but she said, “Parents can be pretty sensitive sometimes. They go through a lot of stuff. We have to remember that.”
Jared saw the opening. He decided to jump.
“Is that what your parents are like?” he asked, feeling very much like a man sliding along potentially thin ice. “Your dad, I guess . . . or your mom when she was living with you?”
Tabitha’s eyes focused again. Jared worried that he’d pushed too hard, that she’d be angry again. He knew if she stormed off this time he wouldn’t be able to convince her to stay. And if she walked out the door of their house angry, he might never get this close to her again.
But he took the chance. He wanted to know. Wanted to know her.
As his mom always said, “You have to live with whatever consequences you create.” He understood that all too well.
But Tabitha didn’t storm off. Her features softened, and she slid her hand along the inside of his thigh, creeping ever closer to the bulge growing against the fabric of his jeans.
“My parents,” she said. She shook her head and leaned in close, kissing him once and then twice. “Shit. It’s so complicated. . . .”
“Your mom? Is something—?”
“Shhhh,” she said.
And then they were kissing more, her hand on top of the bulge. And Jared had no trouble forgetting everything except her.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sun was slipping away as Jenna drove home. They lived at the eastern edge of the central time zone, which meant it started to get dark by four thirty. Jared usually remembered to flip the porch light on for her, but it was out when Jenna pulled into the driveway. Was the bulb dead or was he not home? He was supposed to be home.
Jenna’s hand shook as she reached out. The front doorknob turned and opened without her key, and she stepped into the darkened living room. The door shouldn’t be unlocked, even if he was home.
No answer. Unlocked door.
“Jared?”
Jenna tried not to smother him, tried not to let Celia’s disappearance color the way she treated her son, but she couldn’t help it. She worried about him more. The day after Celia disappeared, Jenna called a locksmith—every door received a dead bolt and a chain. Everybody in town probably did the same thing. A wave of suspicion swept through Hawks Mill once Celia was kidnapped. There was a palpable edge, a tension that seemed to grow between everyone, pushing them back, making them scared. No one felt the same about the town or the people in it.
On the day after Celia disappeared, Jenna found an old baseball bat in the garage, one that Jared used in grade school, and she’d slept with it next to her bed ever since. She carried pepper spray on her key chain and kept one in the drawer of her bedside table. She checked in with him more, texted him more.
But she hadn’t heard from him after school. He never responded to the text she sent from the barn. She took deep breaths, told herself to be cool.
All was quiet inside the house. No music, no TV. She turned on a lamp, which cast a faint halo of yellow light on the space. The house looked neat and orderly, just the way she liked it. The place wasn’t much, about fifteen hundred square feet, and it still needed work. But it was hers, slowly being paid for by her job as a nurse. Didn’t this make her an adult: a job, a house, a kid? It wasn’t bad for a single working mom, right?
How did having a missing and possibly murdered friend fit into the picture?
She went down the hallway to his bedroom, stepping lightly, the floorboards creaking under her feet. He could have fallen asleep. She remembered her own teenage years, the endless naps, the sleeping in on weekends. Was that one of the worst things time took away? The ability to sleep long, lazy hours?
Faint light seeped through the bottom of his bedroom door. She knocked lightly.
Did something rustle? Did she hear a voice?
“Jared?”
She pushed the door open. A quick scrambling, two bodies moving away from each other like repelled magnets. It took Jenna a moment. Jared was on the bed, his hands fumbling with his belt. And was that . . . ? A girl? Was there really a girl in Jared’s room?