I don’t know if we’ll need personal lawyers or not. So far we’ve got no information on possible suspects, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t on the short list.
Thanks to our PR, lawyers, and the money in Drayton’s hockey team, we haven’t been named at all, and neither has Neve.
Perks of being, as Neve put it, “future millionaires.” Not a word I’d necessarily use to describe myself or any of my teammates, but playing hockey for a school like Drayton does have its privileges.
If Sylvan isn’t careful, touching Neve how he did, he might lose all of his. I’m just not sure if it’s Drayton that’ll be ripping them from his gloved hands,or me.
“Then why did you park out here?” Neve finally asks, my car only a few strides away.
After Sylvan stalked off, I told her that he was right about one thing. I really did have something to give to her.
But I have something to take, too.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
We both stop as we come to the driver’s side door of my car. Neve eyes it coolly, appraising the black rims, the blacked-out tint, the garage-kept red paint. It’s used, a gift from Mom I still don’t understand how she managed to pull off, but I love this car.
Neve squeezes her arms close to her chest but the look she cuts to me is anything but nervous. She pops a brow, waiting for me to answer her question about my chosen parking spot.
“I didn’t think you’d want to be back there again so soon.” I tell her the truth, then press the button on the fob to unlock the car. I don’t look at her as I open the rear door and pull something out of my backseat.
When I nudge the door closed again and turn to face her, her eyes are big as she studies me. There’s something probing there, too intense, so I just thrust her white sweater toward her, and hope it distracts her from whatever it is she’s thinking about me.
She looks down and instinctively catches the sweater, a furrow in her brows now as she studies it.
Does she see the red on the bottom hem? The flecks of blood?
At least, that’s what I think it is.
But maybe—hopefully—I’m wrong.
It’s possible if it is blood, it happened when she nearly fell on Jackson, except she didn’t. Fall, that is.
And how would blood splash up when there was only frost on the ground? It was getting wet, but there weren't any puddles yet. The officers examined our shoes to confirm as much, to see if we had blood or water or anything else on them, and I saw the flashlight shine on her Uggs.
Then there’s the fact she wasn’t wearing that sweater when she found the body.
If she’s feeling guilty, she doesn’t show it, but I could be wrong. Maybe she’s good at masking. Apparently, I am, althoughit doesn’t feel “good” to me. Like a special skill or anything. Just survival.
But maybe that’s not right either. I’ve volunteered on the ice with kids who are non-verbal well past the age I started talking. Those with intellectual disabilities, too. They’re funny and kind and smart, but their challenges outnumber mine.
It’s something I don’t take for granted, being able to do what I do.
I shove that all aside as I drop my hands, folding my key in one, and say, “It’s yours, isn’t it?”
She snaps her head up, her brows still pressed together. “Where did you find it?”
“Where I found you.”
She doesn’t say anything. She’s clutching the sweater and looking past me.
Sylvan told me he found her number through a mutual friend, then got her address from texting her, and went over to see if “she was okay.” He implied they slept together at her place, which it seems isn’t true, but that begs the question… What the fuck did they talk about?
I need to know how full of shit Sylvan is, or if she’s a beautiful liar, too. The answer seems obvious, given Sylvan’s clear propensity for bullshit, but the truth is, I don’t know either of them well. Sylvan is a freshman. Neve is a stranger. Both are practically the same thing to me. Connor is good at hockey, and I can anticipate his movements on the ice, but off it, away from the sport… I don’t pretend to know what anyone is really like behind their own masks.
“When I first saw you that night, you were wearing it.”
She cuts her gaze to me. “Was I?” Her voice sounds far away.
