“I’m gonna get a soda,” I whisper. “Want anything?” Ava shakes her head and leans back, watching the fireworks ascend into the dark night sky.
I wrap my arms around my middle, holding my hoodie close to my stomach, and walk over to the cooler in the back of the crowd near the soccer shed. But instead of lifting it open, I tiptoe to the soccer equipment shed where Cal is leaning up against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. When I approach he doesn’t look up.
My hands shake and I shove them deep in my sweatshirt pocket before I start talking. “I saw you the other night. Up by Creepy Cliff.”
Cal meets my gaze. I can see his eyes are rimmed with red. He looks up, his handiwork exploding in the sky.
“Why?” I ask. “Why were you here?”
Cal starts fidgeting with his hands, like he used to do when the teachers would call on him in class. “I took a walk.”
“Bullshit. This place is miles from your house. You can’t stroll on over here.”
Cal leans back against the shed. “What do you want me to say, Goldie?”
Something inside me snaps and it dawns on me for the first time since Heller died that I’m furious. The rage and grief, all-consuming and hot, begins to boil in my stomach and I need to get it out. I need to scream at Heller and pound my fists against his chest and demand he explain why he left me here with this mess, these lies, this burden. But he’s not here. So I explode.
“I want you to explain this.” I hold Heller’s ID up so Cal can see it. His face pales and his jaw drops open.
“Where did you get that?” he asks, taking a step toward me. I instinctively back up, until I realize I’m out of sight of anyone from Alpine Lake. Now it’s just Cal and me behind the soccer shed.
“You dropped it,” I say. But as soon as the words leave my mouth, I wonder... what if Cal had something to do with Heller’s death?
Sure, he gave a comment to theRoxwood Read, but that could have been a decoy move. If that’s true, I don’t even want to think about what he could do to me. But I need to keep pressing. I need answers. “Why did you have this?”
Cal keeps coming toward me. I forgot how big he is. How wide his shoulders got over the years. So many seasons playing hockey made him hard and mean. He cracks his knuckles and reaches for me. For a second, I think he’s going to wrap that hand around my neck, but before I can scream, he snatches the ID out of my hand.
The anger leaves his face and his eyes are sad and somber, full of pain. “Heller gave this to me the day he died,” he says. “He told me to hold on to it in case anything happened to him.”
“Bullshit.”
“He told me he was coming here to get answers.”
“Answers to what?”
Cal shrugs. “I don’t know. But he said if he didn’t make it back home, to use the ID.”
“Wait.” Suddenly my brain is moving too fast and I’m trying to figure out what all of this means. “Heller came here knowing he might...”
“Die,” Cal says. “That’s what it seems.”
“What? Why?”
Cal shrugs. “I dunno.”
“Who would do something like this?”
Cal looks at me hard but his mouth is a thin straight line. He has no answers. No theories. That’s why he came to Alpine Lake.
I press my fingers to my temples, racking my brain for anything. Something. But then I remember the vigil.
“Jordan knew.”
“What?” Cal asks.
“Jordan Adler knew I wasn’t driving.”
“No way.”
