“Yes, gimme a minute, Bridget okay? Let me read it.”
His eyes scanned the passage, seemingly forever, and Bridget jiggled her foot, hopping back and forth. She focused on her breathing, on not snatching the journal away from him. Until he looked up at her, done, his eyes a question mark, and she did take it back. She fanned the pages forward then back again. Until she found the second thing.
The ring, or what she now knew was a ring, but before was only the charm, the ring part broken off, the metal heart, worn thin, the BE FRI rubbed smooth. Taped to the pages with scotch tape. She pried the sticky charm off the paper, painstakingly, to avoid tearing the paper.
“Okay. I don’t get it.”
“It’s Taylor. Taylor was there. I don’t know when exactly, but that ring? The one in the clearing that I gave the police? This is its counterpart. Do you see now? They fit together. It said best friends.”
Tripp nodded. “I do. But do you think Taylor killed her?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. But this isn’t as simple as Nate and an affair. I know that.”
Bridget asked for his phone and he handed it to her. She watched the video again, trying to make out the voice. Before it seemed disconnected, maybe a series of voices, maybe a boy with a falsetto wooooowooooooo, but now, her fingers turning around the sticky charm, rubbing at the embossment, she knew. Without a doubt.
“Taylor was there. The night she was raped, Taylor was there.”
And then she thought of Taylor, folded on top of Andrew in his truck, her compact body kicking against his to some internal beat.
Bridget had to wonder: When did they become a couple, before or after the party?
Ironically, Nate would have known.
“I think Taylor killed Lucia. Maybe to keep her quiet. About Andrew.”
Tripp nodded like he understood, but then asked, “But why? Why does she want to protect him?”
“Why else?” Bridget fought the urge to pat his cheek. “For love. She loves him.”
?????
At the police station, Bridget paced in the small waiting room with three blue vinyl and metal chairs and a glass table. Tripp let himself into the back, looking for Harper.
Bridget tried Nate again; no answer.
She’d marked the pages in the journal with a Post-it note, the ones to show him about Lulu, the video, the counterpart to the ring. She realized, too late, that it’s not enough. It’s just not enough to string together.
A detective came out, one Bridget had never seen before, not Harper, not Mackey, and she realized that they were sending out their third string. Everything she had would be tossed in a pile to be sifted through later. Evidence to be gathered to support the accusation, not the other way around.
Tripp followed the man and nodded behind him.
“Do they have Nate? Did they arrest Nate?” Bridget asked, and Tripp looked left and right before he finally nodded again. He started to speak, but the detective cut him off.
“I can take a statement, Ms. Peterson. And anything you’d like me to have?” He held his hand out, an expectation without promise. Bridget pulled the journal in tight to her chest.
“I’ll come back. I made a mistake, okay?” She backed toward the door, Tripp looking confused behind the detective and shaking his head, mouthing no, but Bridget left anyway. Back into the parking lot, Tripp burst through the door after her.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know, but I’m not doing this. I’m not serving Nate up on some kind of platter. I need to figure it all out first. If we give everything over to Harper, who knows what will happen? I haven’t read this thing cover to cover. Anything in it will be torn apart, scrutinized, and put back together in any way that supports his agenda.”
“Bridget, stop it. That’s not what will happen. Besides, I suspect this journal will become evidence regardless.”
“Fine, but then I have time.”
“Time for what?” Tripp came to her, so close she could smell him, leather and peppermint and something musky. She felt her heart flip, just once. His hand twitched on her elbow.
“I have to talk to Taylor. I’m the only one.”
“I’ll come with you.” He said it automatically, like a statement, not a question.
“No. Stay here. Nate needs you. I’ll be back.” She was glad she’d brought her own car, glad she insisted on driving separate. She turned, started to walk toward her car.
“Bridget, don’t be an idiot. Let me come with you.” Tripp followed her, close on her heels.
At the car, before she got in, she hesitated. She turned and looked at Tripp, his face a reflection of both confusion and worry, the lines on his forehead permanent and something she’d never noticed before. In the weirdly dim parking lot—later she’d wonder why the lot at the police station was so dark—he looked older. Almost like an old man.
Bridget remembered this now, this quick pulse of heat, this wanting. She put her hands on his waist, right at the belt of his jeans, leaned up, and pressed her lips against his. Softly, at first, and then a bit more insistent, and he gave a soft cry of surprise. Bridget felt an unusual sort of power surge through her, high on the idea that she was giving him something he’d wanted forever, and admitting to herself that she’d known it.
Then his arms were around her and she didn’t know how they got there but they were, and he pulled her against him, his mouth warm and his arms and chest unyielding, his thumbs rubbing at her waist, where her skirt sat. His mouth moved under hers, his tongue slipping between her lips, her body pressing closer, her heart hammering wildly in her chest so she was sure he must be able to feel it.
When she pulled away, the back of her hand against her mouth, she found she was smiling. He held her tight and she had to arch her back to look at him.
“I’m coming with you,” he said, but he was smiling.
“You stay here. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you. She’s a high school girl. She won’t say a word to me if you’re with me. It’s ten o’clock at night. I’m sure her mother is home.”
“Call me immediately when you leave,” Tripp said, and let her go, openly reluctant about it.
“Of course. Stay here until I get back.” Bridget placed her palm against his chest and he moved his hand over it.
“You’ll come back?” Tripp asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“To you? Yes,” Bridget said, her blood pumping with adrenaline, mixed up with the rush of new love and the idea that she could still have this feeling, could still be this person.
“That’s not what I meant,” Tripp said, smiling, his head turned to the side, his palm against his chin, his jaw. He looked back at the door, the detective backlit in the hallway, watching them.
“I know. But it’s what I meant.” She kissed his cheek.
Bridget got into the car and drove away. In the rearview mirror, she could see Tripp watch her go.