Bram gives a headshake. “I mean more than the physical stuff. He was in a bad space…mentally.”
My heart wrenches. Adam, always the toughest guy on the football field, hurting like that. It makes sense though. His formerfriendsnot only turned on him but used the worst thing he’d ever experienced to humiliate him.
“I wanted to get him away from the school before he did something.”
“Didsomething?” I ask.
Bram lifts a hand. “Don’t forget this is Adam. He’s been like a lobotomy patient ever since the accident, but somewhere in there is the guy who would’ve marched right into Neil and Todd’s classes and dragged them out of there by their shirt collars.”
Another fair point. In fourth grade, Adam punched a kid in the face for joking that Henry woregirl glasses. “Anyway,” Bram continues, “I told Henry to take him home. He handles Adam better than I do. You know that.”
And I do. I’ve seen the brotherly dynamics unfold countless times. Bram isn’t patient like Henry, who is careful and tactful as a crisis negotiator. Despite how close Bram and Adam are when it comes to managing conflict, Bram’s methods resemble usingkerosene to douse a fire. “And where did you go when you were supposed to be in class?”
His eyes lower. “I can’t tell you that, Hayden.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want to lie to you again.”
My jaw clamps. “Henry and Adam never went home,” I say. “They were there in the parking lot, waiting for me.”
“Henry said it was easier to wait out the bell than to go home and come back later for you and me.” Bram sighs. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it?” I ask. My frustration rises like a river and I’m a dam about to burst. “You really won’t tell me what you did during all of sixth period? You claim that you weren’t the person shown with Kennedy in that video, and yet, you were in the woods! You were the one who found her body!”
He flinches at this accusation. “I see those detectives are really keeping key details under wraps.”
I shrug. “Theytold me.Youdidn’t. Even though I was there with you yesterday. That’s the real reason you didn’t want to be at school when the cops showed up. Because you had no excuse whatsoever to be there in the woods with Kennedy’s body.”
“I just—it was a lot yesterday.” He rubs at his face, and I notice a long scratch on the back of his hand. “I didn’t think I had to go around telling everyone I was the first person to find her.”
“What happened there?” I ask, pointing to the scratch. Was that what the cops were looking for when they examined my hands? Maybe this is just another reason why they’ve set their sights onBram.
He frowns, lowering his hand to look. Then he shrugs and tucks it down at his side, in between his body and the armrest. “Mom fired the gardener, so I was trimming that obnoxious magnolia out back. You know, the one that’s always blocking the path. It’s not life or death, Phil.” He uses his old nickname for me, the shortened version of my surname that used to drive me crazy at the same time it made me feel like one of the boys. I’ve started to feel different about the name over the last couple of years—this term of endearment meant for only me.
But right now, there’s no warm, comforting feeling about it, since his tone is patronizing and he isn’t making eye contact.
“Bram, yesterday afternoon you weren’t wearing your sweatshirt, and I sort of…told the cops.”
He squints, not following. Before he can say anything, I blurt, “I thought I was helping you! The guy on the surveillance footage was wearing a sweatshirt like the one I gave you. So I thought it was proof that he couldn’t be you.” I dig my fingertips into both temples. “Only now, I think they’re going to try to use that sweatshirt as evidence.”
“I see,” Bram says, the words measured. But his face is stormy, his quiet fury sending an unsettling spike of fear through me. “Andwhyare you telling me this?”
“In case you have it and want to…I don’t know, get rid of it.”
His eyes lock on to mine. “Get rid of it. Because I killed Kennedy, and then”—he tilts his head—“what exactly? Used the sweatshirt toclean her blood off my hands?”
Yes, exactly that. Maybe that. “No, Bram—I don’t know! The cops have ways of twisting everything. If they get ahold of that sweatshirt, they could use it against you.”
He’s silent a moment, this logic seemingly having dulled his rage. Taking up the remote again, he turns to the television. “I can’t get rid of it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have no idea where it is,” he says in a clipped tone. “Yesterday afternoon in the cafeteria with Henry, I took it off and set it down on a bench. With everything going on, I forgot it. And when I went back a few minutes later, it was gone.”
My insides go cold. “Someone stole it?”
If this is true, whoever stole Bram’s sweatshirt could be the person on the footage. Someone impersonating him, maybe even framing him.
