“Ididlike Abby. A lot. I always have. Known each other since grade school. She just never likedmein that way. But we were both kind of the same, you know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t.”
“We’re both from poor families. Or at least, regular families. We’re not rich kids, but somehow we get to hang out with them. So anyway, I hated what Brad did to her, how he made her feel.”
“What did he do?”
Jamie’s eyes flit over the bedspread.
“You don’t have to keep protecting him, Jamie.”
Late-afternoon sunlight pulses behind the drawn curtain, casting waves of light across his freckled face.
“Well, in addition to screwing Margot behind Abby’s back, he pressured her to have an abortion.” His voice cracks and his neck blushes.
My stomach twists into a knot. Brad’s official story is that he never knew Abby was pregnant. So if he’s lying about that, what else has he lied about?
“So you’re saying that he knew she was pregnant?”
“Of course he knew! He called me one night and was flipping out about it; he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know whether or not to tell his parents. But he did tell Margot, who kept pushing him to force Abby to get rid of the baby.”
Every nerve on my skin stands at attention. Margot knew, too.
“Brad wanted to keep the baby?”
“Hell no. No way. He was set to go off to college, leave Abby behind.He told me Margot had plans for them once he was away. That she’d come visit him on the weekends, as often as she could, and that they could finally be together once he was out of Mapleton. So he pressured Abby until she almost cracked. She even visited a clinic in Dallas, but she just couldn’t go through with it. Her family is so religious, they would’ve disowned her.”
“Did Brad drive Abby to the clinic?”
“I have no idea; I just heard them arguing about it. And this was a few days before—” His voice cracks again and tears form in his eyes before he flicks them away.
“Jamie, I’ve got to ask you this again. Do you think Brad killed Abby?”
“No, no, I fucking don’t. I know he’s not capable of that. But Margot...” His eyes rove around the room. “She’s a different story.”
“And she’s dead,” I say with a flatness to my voice. “She didn’t love Brad, Jamie. I was with her earlier the day she drowned. She dumped him. Did you know that?”
He practically snorts. Then smacks the table with his hand. I flinch. “Is that what she told you?”
“Yes,” I say softly, trying to defuse his molten anger.
“That’s bullshit. The night before she drowned, I was at the lake with them. I didn’t want to be. But Brad always gets his way. So we went out there. And believe me, they were stillverymuch together.”
My skin crawls and my mind reels.
If Margot and Brad were indeed still together, why did Margot lie to me about that? Obviously, to shut me down, to manage me. To cover something up. I think back to watching her with Brad. How steamed she was when he was late getting to the lake that night, how I could hear them arguing about something in the bedroom. How even earlier that week, at Jill’s pool party, Margot couldn’t handle Abby being front and center. She had to take her top off and wrestle the attention away from Abby.Psychopath.
Margot wasn’t going to save me after all. How ridiculous for me to even have thought so. The truth has been staring me in the face this whole time:Margot lied to me. Margot had something to do with Abby’s murder. And if Brad didn’t help her—as Jamie insists he didn’t—then I believe Callie did.
My mind trickles back to the beginning of the pool party, when we were all still inside Jill’s lake house, and I hear Margot’s voice, velvety and smoky in my ear:Callie may seem like a bull, but she does everything she’s told. At least she does for me.
I can picture Callie, Callie with the condo in Dallas, Callie who always does what Margot tells her to do, driving Abby to the clinic with Margot, quite possibly byforce.
64
I’M IN THEHighlander heading west. Even though I know nobody is tracking me this closely, I still peer into my rearview mirror and check the cars around me as I cross the city limits.
I’m heading to Dallas, defying Flynn’s orders not to leave town. As soon as Jamie left, I tossed a change of clothes into my duffel and threw it in the passenger seat.
