Then the police arrived—I guess that’s standard—and started asking us all more questions, scribbling our answers down in their notepads.
Tommy couldn’t stop crying, and Luke looked he was going to be sick.
I couldn’t read Jane’s face. She still had those stupid sunglasses on, but since Blair’s her best friend or whatever, I figure she’s as freaked out as everyone.
Now I’m home, shaking, freezing cold because I’m still wet from the river, still have my suit on, and I’m standing under the blasting AC as mom drills with me with her interrogation.
Now she’s racing around the room, tossing shit into her bag, snatching the keys off the counter.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To thehospital!”
“Want me to come—”
“No!” she snaps, which makes me flinch. “You need to just stay right here. Do not move!”
61
Jane
I can’t get her scream out of my mind.
And the sight of her being pulled to shore, blood leaking from her head. Her body motionless.
I was motionless, too. After hearing her scream, seeing her smack, headfirst, into thetipof the canoe, the boat jutting out from under her after she hit it—like a toy boat in a child’s bath—while her body lolled into the river, blood spurting from the gash, my knees buckled. I felt like I was gonna be sick.
Like having a nightmare where you’re chased but not able to run from the bad guy, I couldn’t budge.
I looked back over to the boathouse, saw that the metal doors were cranked open just so. Enough room for the canoe to have made its way out.
And the ambulance, the cops, just everything, were all too much.
Tommy kept screaming, asking, “Is she gonna live?”
At least she was breathing.
But she wasn’t moving.
Luke’s face was so white, I thought for sure he would puke, but he kept it together. Drove us both home in his Camaro because no way I could drive Pa’s truck with my hands quaking like they are.
And I know that, at any second, the phone is gonna ring with news. An update.
Please let her be alive, I quietly pray.
62
Jackson
Jackson gorged himself on breadsticks and lasagna. His stomach is leaden; he needs a cup of coffee to help cut through all the starch.
After scraping his key in the lock, he opens the door to his hotel suite, finds the coffee maker.
As he’s brewing a pot, he glances over, notices that the phone is blinking red.
Charleigh. Must be.
She can wait.
