“Talk later,” he mouths to me before turning and trailing her into the cabin.
I jerk the pitchfork back out of the ground, start mucking again. What in the hell does he mean byan awful accident? I’ll call him from New York, first chance I get, make him tell meeverything.
After a half hour of this, I’m completely drenched in sweat. When the tines of the pitchfork strike something solid, I shift the pine needles around to see what it is.
A blue snorkel mask.
What the hell?
It’s not like we’ve ever done much pool swimming or have a pool of our own, so we don’t have gear like this.
And then it hits me, so crystal clear that it makes me shudder.
Juliawasthere the day of Blair’s accident. Except no one saw her, because she swam underwater. Was hiding in the boathouse.
She must’ve tied Cookie up to a tree, out of sight, then swum her way down river.
No one saw her, that is, except for Blair.
81
Jackson
A warm gust rakes over the lake, ruffling the glassy-still surface of the water, combing through Jackson’s hair.
He’s back in Longview, sitting on the deck at the Boat House, taking his first sip of the night from a banana daiquiri. If he squints, he can pretend he’s really in Cancun, overlooking the ocean as the sun faints over the horizon, tinting the sky with bands of lavender, nectarine.
He’s waiting on Charleigh, of course, who is always late, but he’s okay with her tardiness tonight. Heneedsto have some liquor running through his veins before he tells her all that he’s got to say.
About Ethan. About Alexander and Abigail.
The daiquiri tastes like dessert, and before he knows it, he’s already sucked down half of it through the long red straw.
Thankfully, the Boat House is nearly empty tonight. Garth Brooks is playing at the Oil Palace over in Tyler, so everyone must be at the concert because only a few tables are occupied on the large deck, giving Jackson and Charleigh plenty of much-needed privacy.
He’s slurping the dregs of his cocktail when he sees her—tanned skin radiant against a canary-yellow sundress—teetering in high-heeled sandals from the parking lot down to the dock.
“Well, heeeey, stranger!” she yells, waving her hand, her cream-colored Gucci dangling from her thin arm.
He rises to hug her, and as they embrace, a knot forms in his throat, just thinking about how he’s about to dash her wholesunny mood, shatter her very existence.
“We sticking to daiquiris or moving to margaritas?” She sits, flips over the laminated menu, scrutinizes it.
“Lady’s choice!”
“’Ritas, then. I need tequila, and lots of it.” She sinks a tortilla chip into the salsa bowl, dredges it. Between bites, she talks at a fast clip. “So I’m gonna need to hear what this mysterious trip to Dallas was all about! But first, whew, boy, do I have some tales to tell of my own!”
Of course you do, Jackson thinks.And, of course, you need to go first. He’s anxious to get everything off his chest,finally, but also cognizant of the fact that it will perhaps land better after a pitcher of drinks.
“First things first,” Charleigh says, whisking her straw around in her drink before taking a long pull, “Blair woke up again. And get this”—she sucks the top of her drink down in one snort—“thistime when she woke up, she was able to point to the letterj, to let the cops know that was the first letter of the person’s name who might’ve done this to her!”
Jackson takes a long pull himself, the tartness of the drink making his mouth pucker. “What does that even mean?”
Charleigh leans in, a mischievous grin spread across her face. “Well for one thing, it takes the heat off Nellie. Blair didn’t point to the lettern. So”—she shakes her head, sucks more margarita down—“I’m thinking it might be that Jane girl, or maybe it was all just a mishap. A freak thing! Sometimes I’m so on guard for Nellie doing something horrible, but this time, it truly seems like I’m being paranoid.”
Paranoid or possibly right on target, Jackson thinks.
“Well, that’s good!” he offers. He’s still not convinced Nellie wasn’t somehow involved, but he’s relieved that Charleigh can move on from that topic for the meantime. “I mean, obviously. And obviously it’s good news that Blair is coming to.”
