Layne did the six questions of the warm-up automatically, grateful for the distraction, for the need to keep her eyes on her paper.
A folded piece of notebook paper landed in the crease of her textbook. Layne unfolded it under the edge of her desk.
Are you afraid of me?
The breath poured out of her lungs in a rush.
Then she put her pencil to the paper.
A little.
She watched his face as he unrolled her note. No regret, no disappointment. Just flat acceptance.
With a little spark of challenge.
Layne’s palms were sweating on the pencil. She scraped them across her knees.
All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait for that free period.
The intercom over the chalkboard crackled to life. “Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes?”
“Could you please send Gabriel Merrick to the guidance office?”
Just about everyone in the classroom turned to stare at him—including Layne.
“Are you in trouble?” she whispered.
He shrugged and shoved his math book into his backpack. “I have no idea.”
Then he swung out of his chair and moved down the aisle. He was gone before she noticed the new fold of paper tucked beneath the corner of her notebook.
Truth: don’t be.
Gabriel walked down the silent halls, his shoulders hunched, his backpack a dead weight.
The guidance office? If you were in trouble, they called you to the principal’s office. He knew that routine by heart.
The guidance office called if there was a college recruiter here for an interview—and that had happened exactly zero times in Gabriel’s high school career. The guidance office called if you were involved in an altercation with another student, and Vickers thought you could talk it out—but that wasn’t something they’d call you out of class for.
Then he remembered the first week of school, when Allison Montgomery had been called to the guidance office during chemistry. Her father had been killed in a car crash.
Nick. His heart stopped in his chest.
But then it kicked back into action. Nick was here, at school. If something serious had happened, Gabriel would have heard about it. Same with Chris.
Michael.
But if something had happened to his older brother, wouldn’t he be running into Chris and Nick in the halls, right this very second?
Then he remembered what had happened last night. Gabriel had no idea whether Ryan had made it to school today, but he remembered the way they’d found Simon in the girls’ locker room. The way the poor kid had had the crap kicked out of him.
Maybe this had nothing to do with Gabriel at all.
He pushed through the double doors into the main office. Completely empty. No secretary behind the desk, no students waiting on the bench outside the principal’s office.
Weird.
But he shoved through the swinging door into the guidance area. The school worked hard to make it look welcoming: a red and blue shag rug covered the tile, and four plush armchairs lined the back wall.
The five policemen standing there killed the welcoming vibe.
Gabriel stopped short. He actually felt the blood drain from his face. Didn’t they send cops to tell you something bad had happened to your family?
He couldn’t even remember the last words he’d said to his older brother.
And where were Chris and Nick?
Fear had his chest in a vise grip. He had no idea how his legs were holding him.
Ms. Vickers was standing in front of her closed office door. She looked as pale as he felt. “Gabriel?”
He’d never seen Vickers look rattled. His mouth was dry. “Yeah.”
One of the cops stepped forward. He was the oldest of the five, probably in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair. “Gabriel Merrick?”
“Yeah. Yes.” His voice cracked. He could barely get the words out.
“Could you set the bag down, please?”
The backpack? It hit the floor with a thunk. “What happened?”
The officer took another step forward. “You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER 35
Layne sat with her father and Simon, but she couldn’t eat her dinner.
Really, she was amazed the food on the table was even edible, because she hadn’t paid one bit of attention to cooking it.
Gabriel had been arrested.
He’d disappeared from math class, but she’d heard about it in the lunch line. It was all over school. The wild stories were completely unbelievable—Gabriel was wanted in three different states, he’d attacked the guidance counselor with an aerosol can and a lighter, he’d been caught running a meth lab. But the most common story was that he’d been arrested for arson, for starting the fires all over town.
The most popular story included the detail that someone had reported him for starting the fire at the farm.
Simon had found her, had demanded answers. Did she know? Did she believe it?
She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t forget that lighter tumbling out of Gabriel’s sweatshirt. The haunted look in his eyes.
She also couldn’t forget the note he’d left her, when she’d admitted she was afraid.
Truth: don’t be.
She’d given Simon the only honest answer she had: I don’t know.
Layne had gone looking for his brothers, but she didn’t know their schedules and had no idea where to search. She’d looked up the number for the landscaping business as soon as she got home, but the phone went unanswered.
So she’d spent the last hour gathering her nerve.
If her imperfections had been enough to drive her mother away, what she had to tell her father might be enough to do the same to him.
As if sensing her gaze, her father glanced up from his iPhone. “You’re quiet tonight.”
She swallowed. “I have a hypothetical legal question.”
He put the phone down. “In my experience, hypothetical questions usually aren’t hypothetical at all.”
She swiped her palms on her knees. “If you had a case where someone could give your client an alibi but that person would get in trouble for speaking up, would you still want the alibi?”
An eyebrow rose. “Define trouble.”
She looked at her plate, pushing the beef in a circle. “Her father would disown her.”
Now she had his full attention. Simon’s too.
“Are we talking about you?” her father said. His eyes narrowed. “Who needs an alibi?”
“Gabriel Merrick,” she whispered.
“For what exactly?”
“For arson.” Her father’s face looked like thunder now, so she rushed on, stumbling over her words, afraid she would cry before she got it all out. “They think he started the fires that have been in the paper, but I know—I know—”
“You know what, Layne?” Her father’s voice was ice cold. “What do you know?”
“He didn’t. I know he didn’t. At least—”
“You don’t know anything, Layne.” Her father’s fist was tight on the table. “Arson is a big deal. They don’t just arrest someone on suspicion. There will be proof, and an investigation—”
“Apparently someone reported him for starting the fire at the farm. But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.” Her hands were shaking. “Because he was with me.”
Her father was staring at her. Simon, too.
Neither said anything.
She took a deep breath. “We were lying on the hill by the back paddock. He—”