“Is this where you’ve been all summer, Rebecca?” She couldn’t tell if Gina was challenging Rebecca or if she was merely interested.
“All summer and for part of the winter too,” said Rebecca. She found Daniel’s hand and gripped it. A long moment passed.
“You should have told me,” Gina said, half sad and half accusing.
“I wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet,” said Rebecca. “You know how this town is. You tell one person and it’s the same as telling twenty.”
“Oh, I know.”
“I know you know,” said Rebecca pointedly. Gina’s eyes flicked from Rebecca to Daniel and back again. Gina didn’t saysleeping bagand she didn’t saysorryand Rebecca didn’t saydistanceorMorganorholiday house committee,but she thought that maybe in a few days, when they weren’t at a party, when Daniel wasn’t there, they’d sit down and talk it out.
“Well. I think that’s great,” said Gina finally. “You guys are two of my favorite people.”
She opened her arms, offering a hug, and Rebecca hesitated only briefly before hugging her back. “We’re all in high school for the rest of our lives,” Rebecca had told Alexa earlier in the summer. Tragically true. But even high school sometimes offered redemption and second chances. Right? That was only fair.
“Okay, by the way,” said Gina, “you are not going tobelievewhat happened right before you got here.” She pointed, and Gina turned. She saw a woman she didn’t recognize walking away from the bar in a gold dress. And then she did recognize her. It was Sherri, with a new hair color, looking knock-your-socks-off gorgeous, disappearing into the shadows.
73.
Alexa
Alexa forgot to be scared for a little while, she was so busy complimenting Sherri on her dress and her shoes and even her earrings and her hair. Her hair was blond! Like the Sherri from the newspaper photograph. But done in a really tasteful way. Shanti, Alexa could tell.
After Sherri left for the party, Katie and Morgan headed right for the TV and started watchingPitch Perfect 3. Alexa wondered if she should encourage them to choose a more age-appropriate movie, maybePaddington,but she was still feeling jittery and she didn’t have the energy for a battle. She paced back and forth in the tiny kitchen and kept checking her phone—for what? she wondered. Because the bad man was going to text or send a Snap before he came over?
“You girls want to go somewhere?” she said, when she could stand the feeling of being trapped not a second longer.
“Ice cream!” Katie and Morgan said together, and Alexa said, “Sure, why not? Why don’t we go to Haley’s?” Haley’s wasn’t in the center of town so she felt a little safer with that choice.
They all left the house and piled into the Jeep and then Alexa thought,The Jeep! She couldn’t drive the Jeep around town while the bad men chased her down. “We just need to make a quick stop,” she told the girls. She swung down Olive Street and turnedleft on Merrimac, not too far from Brooke’s house. She parked the Jeep.
“Change in plans,” she announced. “Everybody out. We’re switching cars with my mom.”
“What’s wrong with this car?” asked Morgan.
“It’s running funny,” said Alexa. “I don’t want to take any chances with you two.”
She didn’t have keys to her mom’s Acura on her key ring, but she banked on the possibility that whatever horrendous Marshalls outfit her mom bought wouldn’t have big pockets (please, she prayed to the gods of fashion,don’tlet her be wearing something with big pockets) and that she would have left the keys in the center console, the way she sometimes did. Alexa would take the car, then she’d text her mom later and have her get a ride home with one of her friends. In the morning, if Alexa was still alive, she’d walk down here and pick up the Jeep. It would be a longish walk, but she’d try to appreciate the beauty of not being murdered.
Bingo! The keys were in the center console. It took some wrangling to get the Acura out of the driveway—this party was hopping, and there were cars parked every which way!—but Alexa had always been good at three-point turns. Peter, who could three-point turn out of a mason jar, had taught her well.
74.
Sherri
Sherri made her way toward the far end of the lawn. She was shaking, but she also felt really freaking amazing. The tequila had heightened her senses. The lights in the pool, which changed color like disco lights at a club, shone brighter. The music that the DJ was spinning sounded clearer. She felt the way Bobby looked like he felt when he did cocaine. Otherworldly. Invincible.
Don’t worry, Katie-kins,she said in her head, sending her message up into the summer evening sky and back down into their little half-house, where Katie and Alexa and Morgan were all together, safe.Mama’s back, even if only for one night. And everything is going to be okay.
A klatch of husbands stood around the corn hole game, and she headed toward them. She counted in her head while she waited for them to look at her.
One.
Two.
Three.
She’d met these husbands before. Some of them had been on the pontoon. One of them probably owned the pontoon, but she couldn’t be sure. She could tell that to a man they thought they’d never seen her.
