Leif lies on the pool deck, bleeding from his temple. Eyes closed. Did my dad? Did he …?

  Blinking brings the room into focus.

  Beyond the prone body, a dark figure is hunched over Leif’s enforcer, who is kicking and struggling.

  “Stay down,” the figure growls, throwing a punch that has his victim groaning with pain. His legs curl up into his stomach as the goon rolls to his side, surrendering.

  My breath quickens when I clock the victor’s clothing. Not the crisp tan of a sheriff’s uniform. No worn cowboy hat over graying hair. There’s a long weapon brandished in one bronze hand. It’s not my dad. Dread clenches in my gut. What new hellish demon is this?

  Where did my dad go?

  Panic assails me, drowning rational thought. Forcing me to trip backward, careful not to fall in the glass-like pool.

  The dark figure unfurls, standing to his full height, attention on the guy cowering on the ground. Black boots. Dark wash jeans and a burgundy tee. He must have come with Leif, staying out of sight while his brother and sidekick tried to snuff out my life.

  “Rock.”

  His solid body swivels at my croak, the pool net clattering to the floor. Rock’s gaze skims over me. My skin is clammy under his careful scrutiny.

  “Val,” he says.

  “Rock.” My teeth chatter. “Y-You came along.”

  A raw, bloody-knuckled finger scrapes under his lower lip. A single, unmistakable nod. “Always, V.”

  Always. A single word that reverberates down to my core and makes it painfully obvious that the boy who used to be my best friend picked his family over me seven years ago, and is picking them a second time, tonight. It hurts, hurts, hurts so much more than I thought it would.

  Rock advances a step.

  I take another couple steps back. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He pauses, wary eyes on me. “I’m here to help.”

  “Help Leif, you mean.”

  Rock’s head shakes, and blue light catches on the makings of a brutal black eye. “You know that isn’t true.”

  “Do-do I?” I wrap my arms around myself, but can’t stop shaking.

  This guy sold me out. That’s what Leif said. I can’t let him near me. Rock takes another step.

  But if Rock is here to help Leif, why didn’t he let me drown in the pool?

  Lifting my chin, I take a closer look at him. The boy staring at me has an obvious current of despair in his eyes. My instincts are telling me he would never hut me. But I can’t reconcile that with the fact that he told Leif what I found.

  How far will Rock go to protect his brother?

  While I was lost in my head, Rock snuck closer. He’s so close I can feel the waves of chilled air wafting from his soaked clothes. He’s sopping wet. Rock was the one who jumped in to save me.

  My dad, he wasn’t really there. Whatever I saw wasn’t--

  Rock lifts a hand toward me, and I flinch.

  “Velvet,” he whispers.

  My insides go tight. I haven’t gone by that nickname in seven years, and now it falls from the lips of a boy who helped and protected a murderer. My dad used to call me that, and Rock picked it up to tease me. Hearing it now, from him, painfully drives home everything I’ve lost. My dad. My friends. Even Rock meant something to me once upon a time.

  I can’t manage to hold onto anything except how cold I am. My entire body is shaking so hard I almost fall over.

  “You okay?” Even damp, the hand Rock hesitantly lowers to my shoulder is comforting. The care in those two little words makes my body shake more violently. I can’t hold up under the fear still careening along my veins. The doubt about Rock’s loyalties and intentions. The possibility that he really is here to help me. My legs give out.

  Rock’s hands grip my waist. Eyes locked on mine, he tightens his hold, anchoring me.

  Breathing heavily, I try to pry my hands off his arms, but my clawed fingers decline to let go. My eyes won’t pry themselves away from his. In a soft, gentle swoop so slow I’m not positive it’s actually happening, Rock lowers his forehead until it brushes against mine. Warm skin pressing against mine. His fingers curl tighter on my waist.

  I let out a long, jagged breath at the depth in his eyes. The desperation uncovered there.

  Why won’t my hands let go? I’m stable. My legs will probably support me without help.

  I can’t forget whose side this boy is really on.

  Although it rends me in two to lob the accusation, I have to know. “You come to finish the job?” Speaking makes my throat rebel, and I cough into my shoulder.

  Rock, my oldest friend, lets out a fevered breath that skates over my cheeks. “You know me better than that.”

  “Do I?” This foundational question is barely a puff, a whisper. My lungs stutter with the difficulty of drawing in air. Whether from the engorgement of water I’ve upchucked on the pool deck, or the heat from Rock’s nearness, I don’t know.

  I widen my mouth to ask him about the video, but the words won’t come. I can’t bring myself to drag his most unforgivable transgression into the blue-tinged light. My forehead parts from his as my attention falls to his bare wrist. “The deputies found a leather bracelet at Gracia’s house after it was tossed. That’s when I knew.”

  When my focus returns to his face, Rock simply stares back. Lips slightly parted. Doesn’t move. Our faces are inches apart, ragged breaths hopelessly intermingling. This is it, then. One half of me wants to cling to the Rock I used to know, the boy who stood up to his bully of a brother for a scrawny little girl. The other half knows those kids are gone. Years of living apart have painted us in so many layers it would take agonizing work to strip them away to uncover the delicate buttery yellow of true friendship underneath.

  Rock doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even try to justify the role he played in the burglary at my house. The note he left on my dresser after he helped Leif ransack it.

  His refusal to deny it slashes me down the middle. My two halves are splitting and curling away from each other, leaving me in jagged and misshapen chunks on the floor.

  The silence is all the acknowledgment I need.

  Six months ago, Rock helped Leif get rid of a girl’s body. A couple weeks ago, he broke into my house. Broke into the Cuocos’ house, too. He and Leif were probably looking for a half-filled notebook. The one I stole and hid at school. The very same one that details Gracia’s meetings with the older Agani brother, and cites the casino hotel room they used for their rendezvous.

  Devastation courses through me, edging out the panic. After so many years, I can’t trust Rock.

  It’s ironic that I coerced him into cooperating with my investigation by holding a video over his head, and it’s a video playing on a homicidal loop in my mind that breaks us irrevocably.

  Resolve hardens into an impenetrable diamond case around my heart. After tonight, Rock Agani and I will never again be friends. We will never be able to uncover that pale yellow that painful years sealed over. I clench my jaw. This boy helped cover up his brother’s most vicious act.

  So be it.

  Metal clanks as I handcuff Rock to the top of the pool ladder and slip out of reach. I take careful, measured steps without moving my eyes off him. In the corner of my vision, Leif stirs. A hand lifts to the purpling bruise on the side of his face as a groan splits his lips.

  But Rock is the only Agani brother whose posture collapses in naked devastation. Wide shoulders hunch over a hearty pillar of a body, eyes nailed to his own black boots. His free hand clutches at the top of the ladder. He doesn’t make a single tug against the cuffs.

  With an aching resolve, Rock’s face meets the solidifying calculation in mine. “I never would have hurt you, V. You have to know that.”

  The cracks in my already battered heart widen, threatening to split inside its crystal cage. I doubt they’ll ever be mended. My voice comes out firm. Unyielding. “You knew he killed her, and you covered for him.”

  Rock looks away, giving me his profile.

  The yip of sirens closing in catches my ear as the door on the far side of the gym bursts open, crashing against the wall. The bright red rubber lifesaver tube bounces off its peg and rolls into the water with a plunk.

  Sheriff McCandles has arrived.

  Too Soon

  Portia is coated in red light when Deputy Sykes escorts me out of the gym to the waiting ambulance. “You’re alive!” She lunges for me but is strong-armed by Kelley. “I just need to see if she’s okay,” my best friend screeches.

  I nod, and Deputy Kelley withdraws her arm. Porsh runs to me, face pale. Wisps of hair stick to her sweaty forehead. Her hands clutch her mahogany skirt.

  I sink onto the ambulance’s tailgate and let the EMTs look me over, answering their questions through chattering teeth. No matter how hard I try to wrangle them, my lungs won’t slow down, instead sending my chest rising and falling on rapid puffs of air. I might be in shock. The plastic blanket the EMT wraps around my shoulders helps a little, but my hair and clothes are completely soaked. Icy, chafing water drips down my neck.

  Portia hovers, waiting for a declaration that I’m going to be fine. Once they’ve finished and moved into the gym to tend to the Snakes, she speaks. “Art thou hurt?”

  “Ay, a scratch.”

  A nervous giggle. “Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.”

  “That’s the bard-obsessed girl I know.” My body is hurtling uncontrolled in a downward run from the mountain peak of adrenaline, and I’m shaking badly. Teeth chittering. Hands holding the blanket so tightly my knuckles look clawed.

  Portia’s eyes sweep over my wrecked frame. In a swift move, she whips off her auburn wool cloak and drapes it over my shoulders. I protest the water will ruin it, but she pulls it snug around my neck. “Cloaks are replaceable, but you aren’t.”

  The gym door opens. Several deputies march Leif, Rock and the third guy out in handcuffs toward a waiting squad car. Leif snarls against the restraints, but Rock is silent, body hunched. All three are loaded into the back of Sykes’s patrol car and driven away.

  I sniff, wiping my nose. I may never see Rock Agani again.

  The first thing I did after McCandles arrived was to give him Gracia’s phone and a rundown of what he’d find on it, if it still works. A grim, deep frown swallowed his features as I talked. My guess is Leif was already at the top of the sheriff’s suspect list, and my identification of him in the video will confirm his suspicions.

  I asked him if he knew where Dino Agani’s car was, since there might be traces of Gracia in the trunk, and McCandles assured me they’d look into it. For the first time in the past couple months, I’m relieved it’s not my job to figure out the particulars of Gracia’s case. It’s not my responsibility to notify the Cuocos that the killer has been found and is in custody. While it would be satisfying to help my departed friend’s loved ones get closure, it won’t bring their daughter back.

  It won’t bring my father back.

  Yet another squad car arrives. The entire department is coming out to make sure one of their own is still breathing. Jonesie smiles at me from behind the windshield as my mom jumps from the vehicle--before it’s even stopped--and barrels past everyone to wrap me up in her arms. There is a lot of gushing and squeezing and checking for injuries before I convince her I’m mostly in one piece.

  “Oh, Baby. I heard the call over the radio and nearly had a heart attack. Luckily Jonesie was at the station and offered to bring me down here. I don’t think I could have driven, I was so upset. Valencia Veronica Lamb. You are never allowed to investigate a murder ever again. You hear me? It’s not worth all the stress. And the gray hairs. See all these? Every single one is your fault.”

  I can’t help but laugh at her effusiveness. It’s nice. She feels a little more like my mom and a little less like the woman who has been trying to hold herself together since Dad disappeared.

  My stomach flaps. I edged too close to something I need time to process. I don’t tell her that Dad came to me while I was drowning. It hit me while I was sitting on the ambulance tailgate: I almost died tonight. My body stopped fighting and began to shut down. A few more seconds, and my mom would be alone.

  And seeing my dad down there, under the water? I know what it means. I’m just not ready to admit it out loud. Closing my eyes, I narrow my senses to the pressure of Mom’s arms wrapped around me like an octopus on its favorite chunk of coral. The solidness of her form against mine is deeply reassuring. Drawing a deep breath, I relax into her clinging arms.

  But the more seconds that pass, I wonder if I’m making a mistake keeping what I saw from my mom. If she had a--what can I even call it? A vision?--and didn’t tell me, I’d hate it. I hate not having all the facts, and it bothers Mom too.

  I have to tell her. Even though it might crush her and make her revert to the pod person she was in the first weeks after he left. I know now what I’ve refused to entertain in the past. My dad is dead and gone. Something happened to him the night Gracia died, and although we may never know what it was, she deserves to hear the truth.

  At least after tonight we know what happened to Gracia. I’m glad I won’t be with Janice when she finds out her ex-boyfriend was arrested and that my dad is innocent. She’s going to be pissed. And a little heartbroken.

  I sniff. Mom has been the recipient of enough hearsay to last a lifetime. Her arms tighten around my shoulders. “Honey, you’re okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you.” I do it. Rip off the bandage. I tell her how Dad came to me when I was running out of air. I was drowning at the bottom of the gym pool, and he appeared with an outstretched hand to take me with him. I can barely get the words out before we’re both bawling.

  Portia tears up and joins our huddle. “I’m so sorry about your dad,” she whispers. “When I didn’t hear from you, I got so worried.”

  I pull out of my mom’s arms and wipe my cheeks. “I’m harder to kill than I look.”

  They both glare at me.

  “Too soon?” Yep, too soon.

  Mom called the cavalry as soon as she and I stepped foot inside our house. Now, she, Mrs. Abernathy, and Mrs. Court are in the kitchen whispering. It’s been a while since all three of our moms were together, and it sounds like they’re catching up on all of the crap that’s gone on in the past couple of months.

  Despite the fact that it took my almost dying to bring them together, I’m glad they’re talking. Mom needs to reconnect with her friends like I do mine. Months of living like a nun have made her smaller, somehow. It’s hard to put into words, but I want my vibrant, happy mom back.

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch, smothered in blankets. Portia and Destin are on the other leg of the l-shaped sofa, sharing a blanket. Her head leans on his shoulder, the picture of contentment. His arm drawn around her shoulders pulls her closer.

  Destin has always been affectionate with both of us, but this is on another level. It’s still strange. I keep expecting him to unwrap himself from around her and drop his head into my lap like he used to. But now I’m wondering if the reason he always sat like that with me is because he sensed there could be something between him and Portia and was avoiding it. He must have known there was never a chance of he and I being anything other than platonic. That must have been why he was so comfortable with me.

  My friends are focused on the screen, where Portia has queued up her favorite adaptation of Macbeth. I have no idea why she asked to watch such a depressing film, but it’s not like I had any other ideas, so the bloody queen it was.

  Even though I’m bundled up with a steaming cup of hot cocoa, I’m still cold. The chill has drilled down to my bones and replaced my marrow, turning every inch of my bones to ice.

  I can’t stop thinking about Rock’s face as he was loaded in the back of a squad car. His eyes had fastened on me, piercing and unreadable. I thought I had lost him seven years ago, but the back and forth we’ve shared the past couple of weeks made it obvious there were still threads of friendship binding us together.

  Not after tonight.

  It’s difficult to be friends with someone who betrayed me and almost got me killed.

  I can only imagine how Rock feels about me tonight, since I handcuffed him to the pool ladder and left him there for McCandles and the deputies to take into custody.

  I bite my lip, staring at the last drops of hot cocoa swirling in the bottom of my mug. Rock’s decision to protect his brother isn’t on me. His arrest isn’t my fault. I won’t carry that emotional burden, no matter how much it sucked watching him being driven away in that patrol car.

  I won’t ever forget the ire in Leif’s eyes, either. Good thing he’s going to be locked up for years, or I would have to watch my back.

  I offer to get my friends drink refills, carrying their empty mugs to the kitchen. It may be uncomfortable being the third wheel to their new coupledom, but I’ll adjust. Portia and Destin are my best friends, and I won’t lose them. Not like I lost Rock.

  A loud bang on the front door makes me jump, thankful that the cups in my hands are almost empty, or I’d have lukewarm cocoa all down my front. I set the mugs down on the counter as Mom moves toward the noise.

  Whoever is at the front door knocks a second time, even louder. “Valencia! You in there?”

  Disbelief makes my brows furrow.

  Mom opens the door, and Portia gasps.

  Janice stands on our porch, eyes skimming until they land on me. “You look like a drowned cat,” she quips, taking a couple steps inside.

  Mom’s eyebrows rise at me over Janice’s shoulder as my frenemy toes off her shoes and advances on me.

  “I feel better than I look.” Why is Janice traipsing across my living room?

  Destin watches from the couch, still holding Portia’s hand, even though she has pushed to a stand. Her body is braced, eyes locked on the unexpected newcomer.

  The tension ratchets up, but none of us sever it by talking. Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Court emerge from the kitchen to see what is happening. “Janice, nice to see you,” Mrs. Abernathy says. “Portia says you’re a tough editor, but fair.”

 

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