I stare at Liam while I piece together the nonsense he’s saying… because what box of books is he talking about?
So he’s telling me that he had a suspicion that he was going to be pulled over, which would have been orchestrated by Whitaker to get Liam out of the picture, at least temporarily. Because of this suspicion, Liam wanted an alibi of sorts and also a way to reflect this back on Whitaker. He stated that wedidtake a box with us but claimed that there were books inside of it. Only Jesse and I know the truth—that the box held a head all along. The box of books Liam was pretending to have taken were left by him outside of Jesse’s house and never actually swapped.
When the hell did he do all of this? I guess we did send him in alone.
But… what is he doing all of this for, then? Once he got here, he should have just been like, “Surprise, it’s all a joke”… unless he thinks someone here is watching us. If the police knew it was a setup, why did he ask them to pretend to arrest him? Who washe hoping to fool with this stunt? Did he think Whitaker was watching? Or was it for…
I nod for him to get in closer to me. “Jesse?” I whisper in his ear. “You didn’t want Jesse to know, did you?”
“Correct.”
“Fuck. Why did you even agree to take the box if you suspected him?”
“Because Jesse wanted me to,” Liam says.
“No, youvolunteered,” I counter. “I can’t believe he fucked us over.”
He smiles at me. It’s a very pleased smile, telling me that Liam has some wild plan in his mind and he’s just let me in on it. “What do you know about Jesse, my dearest?”
“Well… Ithoughthe was nice, funny, and caring, but now I don’t know…”
“You pinpointed the issue with finesse. As to be expected from my favorite person in the whole world.”
“Which is?” I ask, uncertain as he beams at me, like he’s confident I’m going to get this while I’m confident that he should just tell me the issue at hand so we can move on.
“He’s nice.”
“Which is disgusting to you, of course.”
Liam grins, obviously agreeing with me about this fact.
“I don’t get it,” I admit.
“Jesse is nice. Think of the Jesse you know. Would the Jesse you know let others die just for a chance to save himself?”
I think back to Jesse who was sitting in that diner, prepared to throw his entire life away so that Lacey wouldn’t get in trouble for Zach’s death.
“Oh shit. Something more is going on, isn’t it? Do we have Lacey’s number? He looked so distraught when he came back from unplugging the router. Do you think someone messaged him then? Can we get in contact with Lacey to see if she’salright? You said it before; Whitaker is a manipulator. He’s manipulated Jesse, hasn’t he?”
“That’s my bet,” Liam says. “Whitaker’s going to try to get us out of the picture and alienate Jesse until he feels like he has nowhere else to go and no one else to rely on. So I needyouto figure out if there are any fingerprints on the tape.”
“Already did.”
“Oh?” Liam asks, eyebrow arching. “Fuck, that’s sexy.”
“Will you focus?”
“Will you kiss me through these bars?”
“I would prefer not to. I’ve seen guys piss on these bars and a drunk woman vomit through them.”
Liam hesitates before saying, “I doubt they pissed this high.”
“No.”
He looks displeased. Does he really think the cleaning crew cleans these bars that well? They probably smack them with a dustcloth and deem them good.
“You have the name of the person the fingerprints belong to?”
