I shook my head. “You’ve told me he’s a good guy, and yet here you are dropping knowledge about an abandoned child. What a stand-up man.”
Her steps slowed. “Richard wouldn’t just abandon you.”
“Abandonachild,” I said, unwilling to confirm her suspicions. “And I changed my mind. You really are as dumb as you look.”
“And you’re as mean as you look!” She stopped, turning on me. “Richard is a good man. One of the best I know.”
“Most of the people you know are irredeemable scum.”
“Not him. He would be thrilled to find out his child was in the same city as him.” She grimaced. “Well, maybe not thrilled about that child beingyou, because, you know, you’rehorrible. But that you were alive and healthy? He’d be over the moon.”
“Why the fuck would you think that, Stella?”
“Because I remember you.”
I took a staggered step backward. “What?”
She shook her head. “Hearing about you. During Richard’s divorce. I remember my parents saying something about how he’d met someone new and it was going well and he was happy.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, Ido!” she insisted. “And then I remember him being sad for months, and asking what happened, and no one would tell me anything. I overheard my parents whispering one night about a baby, and Richard being desperate to find it.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Now you’re just lying.”
“I’m notlying!” she yelled, her face turning red. “Why would I lie?”
“Because that’s all people like you do!”
“People likeme?” she roared. “You fucking lie abouteverything!”
“I’m not lying now!” I yelled back. “Richard is a fucking piece of shit.”
“Based on what? Your preconceived notions of him? Your false belief that he abandoned you and your mother? I’ve known the man since I was born. He is my godfather. He’s been at every major milestone of my life, and he was one of the only people who didn’t abandon me after what happened with Maddie. And because I’ve spent so much time around him, I know I’m not wrong. I’m a decent judge of people’s character. Case in point, I knew immediately you were a douchebag.”
“And yet you kissed me.”
“Which I plan to speak to my therapist about at length in order to unravel the deep-seated self-hatred that must have led to that decision,” she said. “The point is, IknowRichard. And he’s not capable of hiding some big, dark, ugly secret. He’s honest and genuine.”
I shook my head. “Why would I trust the word of someone who was best friends with Maddie Clyde? You know she killed a girl, right? In the Caribbean? Hit her over the head with an oar and knocked her into the water, where she drowned.”
The blood drained from Stella’s face.
“So, no, I might not know Richard as well as you do, but I trust my judgement of his character far more than I trust yours. And I can prove I’m right.”
“How?”
“By taking you to someone who was there when it all happened.”I hefted the gun again, pointing it past her. “Keep walking.”
31
Stella
The motion of the carshook me awake. I must have fallen asleep somehow, my exhaustion finally getting the upper hand over fear. I couldn’t have slept long, because it was still dark outside.
My eyes immediately went to the dashboard clock. 5:30 a.m. I’d been out for less than an hour, and from the looks of it, we were still on the highway. We practically had the road to ourselves, the city so far behind that we’d passed through two more on our journey north, though they were smaller.
The sun was starting to rise, turning the distant horizon a dusky pink. Maybe I’d get a chance to flag down a passing motorist. Yes, it was risky, but I couldn’t come up with a better alternative. We were driving too fast for me to barrel-roll out of the passenger door. And it wasn’t like I had a phone to call for help—mine was probably lost or stolen at this point. No one even knew where I was, so if Theo—or whatever the fuck his name was—did end up murdering me and dumping my body, it might really be weeks before it was found, if ever.
