Grace was a dead-end town whose residents led dead-end lives-meaning there were plenty of dark, dingy spots where you could drown your sorrows. And none of them carded.
They ended up nestled in a booth in the back of the Tavern, a nondescript bar and grill for the over-forty set, complete with a washed-out seventies decor and surly, middle-aged waitresses who’d been working there since the decorations were new.
Privacy guaranteed, or your money back.
Harper, after downing half a gin and tonic-her first in weeks-was already slurring her words. Kane, more on half-formed instinct than out of any reason or desire, had opted for root beer.
“When did you join AA?” Harper joked, flopping forward in her chair and propping her head in her hands. “Gonna leave me all alone to drown my sorrows?”
“Someone’s got to drive you home,” he pointed out as she downed the rest of her drink and waved the waitress over for another one.
“S’okay I’m used to alone,” she slurred, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I mean, they’re always there, everyone’s always there, staring at me. Alone is good. They should all go away.”
“You want me to stop staring at you?”
She let out a sharp bark of laughter, then slapped her hand over his. “Not you. You’re the only one. You…” She stopped talking, distracted by the prospect of fishing the slice of lime out of the bottom of her glass.
“I…?” he prodded.
“What? Oh. You don’t give me that ‘How are you doing’ shit or ‘Isn’t it terrible aren’t you traumatized what can I do’ blah blah blah.” She made a fake vomiting noise. “You don’t care about what I do, you don’t care about anyone but yourself. Thank God.”
“Uh, thank you?” he asked sardonically. He leaned forward. This was the moment, he realized. Kane hated nothing more than not having the answers, and ever since that day in the hospital, he’d had nothing but questions. Her guard was down. She would answer. “Where’d you get the drugs, Grace?”
“Huh?”
“That day. The speech. What were you high on? And why?”
She shook her head furiously. “Not you, too!” But after a flicker of anger, she sighed loudly and slumped down in her chair. “Nothing,” she said. “I told you. I told them. Nothing.”
“Come on, Grace,” he pushed. “They found them in your system. Everyone saw you up onstage-I heard what a head-case you were.” And I saw the way you pulled out of the parking lot. I saw the car skid out, I saw you drive away. “ You were on something.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Believe me. Don’t believe me. Who cares. And what’s the difference? It’s over now.”
“Yeah, I guess. What’s the difference?”
He is sitting in the waiting room, breathing shallowly. The scent of citrus-scented air freshener is overwhelming-but not enough to mask the smells beneath it. Old age, decay, vomit, blood, death. He hates hospitals. He hasn’t been in one since he was a kid, sitting by his mother’s bed, pretending not to know his father was crying out in the hall.
It’s too soon, too fast, and no one knows everything, but as always, Kane knows enough. He has his sources.
One crash. Two girls, both thrown from the car. One with traces of psychotropic drugs in her bloodstream. One dead.
“Mr. Geary.”
The cop sits down across from him. It’s a woman, which he’s not expecting. She’s short and stocky in a dark gray blazer, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. Right out of central casting, he thinks. Not a coincidence-she probably takes her cues from Law & Order.
The thought depresses him.
“I’m told that you have some information that can be of assistance to us, Mr. Geary.
“She has a sexy voice.
He shrugs. “I saw them leave the school,” he says.
“Can you describe what you saw?” She doesn’t ask what he was doing loitering on the back steps when the rest of the school was stuffed into the auditorium for a mandatory assembly.
“Harper ran out of the school.”
“How did she appear?”
“What do you mean?” He knows. But he’s not in the mood to help.
“Did she seem upset? Disoriented? Ineb-”
“She seemed in a hurry. She didn’t stop to talk. She ran down to the parking lot. Kaia was standing there, by her car.”
“What was she doing?”
The question hadn’t occurred to Kane before. He didn’t know the answer. He never would. “Standing. Staring. They talked for a while. Then they got into the car and drove away. ”
“Who was driving?”
It is the question he has been waiting for. She asks it casually, as if uninterested in the answer. He responds the same way, without pause, without hesitation, without thinking of Harper grabbing the keys, jumping inside, and tearing out of the lot.
“Kaia” he says with certainty. “It was her father’s Beamer. She always drove. ”
They believe him. The evidence has all burned away. There’s only his word. And when Harper wakes up, groggy and confused, she believes him too.
“I can’t remember,” she says, her voice soft but angry. These days, she is always angry. “Nothing. Just school, that morning, then… here. I can’t remember. “ She closes her eyes and knits her brow. She can’t rub her forehead-her arms are caught in a web of wires and tubes. He surprises himself pressing his palm to her head, brushing her hair off her face.
“There’s nothing to remember,” he tells her. “You two got into the car. And Kaia drove away.”
It’s the last time he sees her. Soon she’s done with visitors, except Miranda. But he knows she believes him.
They all do.
Some days, he even believes himself.
He drove Harper home, stopping only once for her to hop out and throw up in some bushes.
“Sorry,” she said weakly, climbing back into the car.
“We’ve all been there,” he assured her. “Just as long as you don’t hurl in my car.” He patted the dashboard fondly. “Then I dump you out on the side of the road and you can find your own way home.”
She chuckled-then moaned and leaned forward, cradling her head in her arms as if the laughter made her brain hurt. He knew the feeling. “That’s what I love about you,” she said in a muffled voice. “There’s no confusion about where your loyalties lie. You look out for your car-”
“Of course.”
“You look out for yourself-”
“Naturally.”
“And the rest of us can find our own way home.”
“You know me too well, Grace.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You always have.”
chapter
____________________
3
“Can I carry your books for you?”
“Can I get you a soda?”
“Could I stand in line and get you some lunch?”
“She said I could stand in line!”
“But you got to drop her stuff at her locker-”
“Girls!” Harper massaged her temples as the two girls abruptly stopped their bickering.
“What is it?”
“What do you need?”
She sighed. She’d been waiting for this moment for three years, ever since she’d spent one eternal day sophomore year traipsing around after a bitchy blond senior with an undeserved superiority complex. King and Queen for a Day was a senior tradition-on paper, it meant that each underclassmen showered his or her designated senior with affection and treats. In reality, it meant spending the day being primped and pampered by your own personal servant-or, in Harper’s case, two.