This Is How It Ends (13 page)

CHAPTER 20

FOR A WHILE SARAH SAID
nothing. I tried to read her body language like she seemed able to read mine. She stood, walked a few steps, hands shoved into jeans pockets, which made her shoulders hunch together. She looked tiny, like a little wisp. If you saw her quickly, you might mistake her for a child, ten or twelve. Until you saw her face.

“I'm with someone,” she finally said, “a guy.” She looked back at me just long enough for me to see something in her eyes, like she was afraid to say it.

“Me?” I asked softly.

“You?” She raised her eyebrows. Her voice was amused and sad together when she said, “No, it isn't you, Riley.”

I felt like a total idiot. “I just thought . . . the way you were saying it . . .” Oh God, could the floor swallow me up, please?

Mercifully, she continued. “I've never seen him before. We're in a park, walking. There's a dog with us. We're holding hands. I don't know the park or the dog, either. The guy is older.” She paused. “Maybe I am too.”

How much older?
I wanted to ask.
Before or after my vision, when we're in bed together?
Suddenly I didn't want to hear any more.

“Even weirder . . . ,” she said, looking toward the window wistfully, “I'm in love with him. I don't know how I know that, but I do.”

Something hot and sharp was in my chest.
Jesus, I'm jealous. Of a guy Sarah doesn't know, who might not even exist.

“I feel like he's my . . . soul mate?” she said, mostly to herself. “It's the strangest feeling.” She gave me that half-sad smile again. “The connection I feel to this guy. And now I keep wondering, what if I never meet him?”

I tried to think of something funny to say to break the mood, but I didn't feel funny. This felt wrong and bad and not at all the way I wanted it to.

She looked down at her hands. “The worst part—” She stopped.

“What?” I prompted.

She shook her head.

“Whatever it is, Sarah, it's between us.”

She glanced up with just her eyes, head still bowed, then sighed and looked back at her hands. “The worst part is what it's done to how I feel about Trip. I used to think I loved him. Now I know I don't.”

And—shitty, awful, back-stabbing friend that I am—I felt happy.
She doesn't love him.

“So I want to look again,” she said more firmly. “I need to know. If I don't see anything, maybe I can just forget about what I saw, you know? Maybe I can believe that the binoculars are nothing. I can believe that they didn't predict what would happen to Nat's dad. Or you. Or me.”

“And what if you see something?” I said. “Wouldn't you rather just not know?”

“No,” she said immediately. “Just like you wouldn't.”

I couldn't argue with that.

Sarah came back to the sofa, where I still held the box. She reached over and took it from me, her skin softly brushing mine. She unlatched the case, took out the binoculars, and hesitated only a second before bringing them firmly, surely to her eyes. I watched it all, powerless. Her body suddenly got still, shoulders stiff, knuckles turning white.

I knew she was seeing something, and my nerves thrummed with anxiety.

“Sarah,” I called gently. She didn't answer at first, but then slowly she brought the binoculars away. I was scared by how she looked. Probably how I'd looked after the things I'd seen. Like she knew something much bigger than anyone should.

“Well, now I know,” she said dully.

“Did you see something? The same thing?” I pressed when she nodded, “That . . . guy?” It burned to say it.

“No. I was older,” Sarah said. “Much older. I don't know how I know that . . .” She trailed off.

I waited. “And?” I prompted. “What did you see?”

“Houses. Cars. All of them different. Newer than anything around today,” she said thinly. “I'm looking out a window at them, at life out there, passing by. And I'm thinking.” She paused, swallowed, searched out my eyes. “I'm thinking something good. Happy. But also sad.”

“Bittersweet?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I feel tired.”

I saw tears welling in her eyes.

“Sarah?” I reached over, gently touched her arm. “What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Oh my God. Just . . .” She put her hands to her face, blotting the tears, and breathed in deeply. Swallowing like she could push away the stuff she was feeling. “I could see my hands,” she said finally. “I guess that's how I know I'm old. They're all veiny and frail.” She looked at her smooth, delicate hands, turning them wonderingly. “I'm old in it, Riley. Really old. And I feel . . .” She hitched a breath, struggling for control. “Lonely.”

I reached for her, folded her into my arms, and she let me. I felt the shiver of her slight body, hesitated for a second, then put my hand on the back of her head. The coarseness of her hair was just like I remembered it from the binoculars.

We stayed like that for a minute. There were so many things running through me with her this close—excitement, tenderness, and worry. I was intensely conscious of where every part of her touched me, her legs pressing against my thigh, her head on my chest, breast inches from my arm. Maybe Sarah felt it, because she pulled back a little, looking up at me. Her face was serious.

I thought she was going to tell me more about what she'd seen, but instead she said, “You like me, don't you, Riley?”

“Sure,” I said. I tried to drag my eyes away, my heart racing. “Of course.”

“No,” Sarah persisted. “Not like ‘we're buddies.'” She held my gaze, the sound of her voice, low and raspy, raising goose bumps on my arms. “Like a boy likes a girl.”

Holy crap. I could barely think, my eyes drawn to her full lips, parted and moist. I shivered, knowing she already knew the answer. “Yes,” I answered thickly.

“For a long time?” she whispered.

I nodded, barely, and then—I couldn't help it—I kissed her. I don't even remember leaning in, but I must have, because our lips brushed against each other softly, the feel and taste of her making me dizzy. I pressed harder, felt her teeth, her tongue. My hand was in her hair, tangling about those thick coarse strands. Her breath came short and fast, her hands on my chest. And then she pushed away, eyes wide, gasping,

“My dad.”

Dimly I heard the clomp of footsteps, my sluggish brain processing what she'd said. And what I'd done. “Oh, shit.” I was breathing hard, drunk with how it had felt to touch her. “I'm sorry.” I moved to the far side of the couch, not trusting myself to be any closer, trying to smooth out my clothes and compose myself.

She looked down. “Don't be,” she mumbled, straightening her shirt, brushing at her face. “It's not your fault.”

Her father pushed through the door then, looking as flustered to see us as we were him.

“Oh!” His gaze shifted from Sarah to me and then back. “I didn't know you had a friend over.”

“This is Riley,” she said, gesturing to me. “From my physics class. Riley, this is my dad, Dr. McKenzie.”

I stood, holding the binoculars case—the first thing I could grab—in front of me as I crossed to shake hands with him. “Nice to meet you, sir,” I said, wondering if anyone in the history of man had ever been as embarrassed as I was right then.

His hand was dry and papery, especially compared to my hot, sweaty one. “Jim. You can call me Jim,” he said, oblivious to my flaming embarrassment.

“Uh, okay. Thanks. Jim.”

Sarah looked ready to burst out laughing, not oblivious at all. Which, despite my mortification, was a nice change from how she'd looked after the binoculars. “You done working for the night, Dad?”

He nodded absently, and I noticed his rumpled shirt and messy hair. Maybe he'd been making out with someone too.
Ugh, why does my brain think stuff like that?
“What are you two doing?” he asked. “Studying?”

“Yup,” she said breezily while I nodded along.

“Good, good,” he said. “Okay, well I'm off to bed. Don't stay up too late,” he told Sarah, glancing at me. “School night and all.”

“I was just going,” I said, starting to collect my things as he climbed the stairs. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he said, waving without turning around.

I could feel Sarah watching me from the couch, but I didn't dare look at her as I stuffed the binoculars and case into the backpack. Finally, when I couldn't avoid it, I met her eyes. “Well,” I said.

“Well,” she said back, smiling.

“This is awkward.”

She nodded. “We shouldn't have done that.”

“Right.” I tried to read her face to figure out what she was feeling, but I was no good at that. So I asked, “What do we do now?”

Her eyes sharpened like a hundred thoughts were running through her head. “I think we pretend nothing happened,” she said finally. “I don't think we want to tell anyone about the binoculars. Like you said, how could that help?”

I nodded.

“And I definitely don't think we want to tell them about . . . you know . . . the other.” She blushed, which was unbelievably cute.

“Right.”

“So . . . we just forget about it.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing there was no way in hell I could forget it. I was already replaying it and would probably keep it on repeat all week. And the way she'd kissed me back, her breathing shallow, I doubt she'd forget it either. Which made me feel like a bit of a studmuffin, as Trip liked to call himself.

I pedaled home, not thinking about the future. Not feeling the cold or the burn in my muscles or even the crushing guilt that should have come with making out with my best friend's girl.

CHAPTER 21

THE GUILT CAME THE NEXT
morning. When Trip picked me up.

“I tried calling you last night,” he said. “Where were you?”

“What're you, my mother?” I said, but my heart was beating triple time. Did he
know
? I hadn't even checked my phone. I pulled it out now. Four messages from Trip. Jesus, what was wrong with me? “Sorry, man,” I fumbled. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he said shortly. “I just wanted to tell you something. No big.”

“What?”

“Why don't you listen to the messages and find out? Unless you're too busy.”

“Come off it, Trip.” I remembered him telling me once that the best defense is a good offense. “You're acting like a jilted girlfriend.” I winced. Poor choice of words.

“‘Jilted?'” Trip said. “Were you playing Scrabble at the nursing home last night?”

“You got me.” I clicked through the prompts on my phone, held it to my ear, and felt my eyes go wide. “Holy shit,” I said. “They arrested Galen?”

“Sort of,” he said.

He was going to make me work for it, I realized. He really did act like a girl sometimes. “What does that mean? What happened?”

“Nat found her vase.”

“At Galen's?”

He shook his head. “She and John Peters were in town yesterday, walking to the library, and there it was, sitting right in Morris Headley's window at the antiques shop.”

“Holy shit,” I said again. “What did Galen have to do with it?”

“They went in,” Trip continued, “and asked Morris where he got it. Which of course he couldn't remember because he's half-senile and doesn't remember his name most days of the week.”

I nodded. During high season Bob Willets had gotten into the habit of dropping in on Morris in the mornings, just to make sure he hadn't opened the shop wearing only his boxer shorts, like he had one day last summer, scaring a busload of Red Hat ladies half to death.

“Nat said he spent, like, an hour flipping through papers, finally coming up with the ticket.”

“And Galen was the one who'd brought it in,” I guessed.

“Exactly.”

***

It was all the talk that morning at school. It had been scandalous that Nat's dad had been murdered, doubly so when she'd been held for questioning. And now one of her classmates had been hauled in? OMG, as the cheerleaders might—and did—say. The hallways were buzzing. I bumped into John Peters on my way to physics, so I heard the biggest piece of news first.

“My dad said they released Galen,” he told me, phone still in hand.

“What? Why?” I said.

“He swears he didn't take it from Natalie's house. Or give it to Morris Headley.”

“But you were there with Natalie,” I said. “You saw the ticket, right?”

“I did. And it was definitely his name on there.” John nodded. “But I guess they did a handwriting sample and compared it to the ticket and some other, older things Galen had signed. It didn't match.”

“So someone forged it?” I said. I was having a hard time following this. Galen was at the house, not at the house. Took the vase, didn't take the vase. My head was spinning.

“Seems that way,” John said.

***

Mr. Ruskovich called me up to his desk when I walked in. I didn't even hear him at first; I was still trying to unravel the things with Galen Riddock.

“I'm planning to reopen our unit on forensics today,” he said quietly. “I've already spoken to Sarah McKenzie but wanted to double-check with you also, since I know you're close to Natalie. We can always come back to this unit later in the year.” He watched me carefully, adding, “There's no shame in being affected by what's happened.”

I nodded. “I know,” I told him. “I'm okay with it, though. Really. It's an interesting lesson.”

Which it was, but sitting at my desk as he explained the formula for determining the angle of impact felt surreal. I knew that when he finished, he'd walk across the room and open that door. I kept picturing him doing it and finding myself suddenly back in the Clearys' living room, like the physics classroom was somehow a portal to that nightmare.

Mr. Ruskovich split us into teams of two, pairing Matty with Chuck and me with Sarah. Maybe he thought that was a good idea, us both being friends with Nat. But it was really, really awkward. I'd barely been able to look at her today, dreading our shared class as much as I couldn't wait for it. And now she slid into the desk beside mine, pulling it close enough for us to both see the notebook. I felt her in my space like she was coated with something radioactive.

Sarah stared at our notes, biting her lip nervously. She glanced at me, then quickly back down, her cheeks flushed pink. “Let's use this one,” she said, pointing to the length and width measurements of the first of our three splatters, labeled
D
. “One of them is a whole number, so it'll be the easiest.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to focus but really more concerned with making sure I didn't accidentally touch her. Mr. Ruskovich sauntered across the room toward the closet. I watched as he plucked the key and inserted it into the knob. Sarah tensed beside me as the door clicked open.

Seeing it again was a huge relief, because the truth was that it didn't look much like the real thing at all. The drops on a blank white sheet were a world away from seeing them in your friend's house where you'd once met her dad in pretty much the same spot where he'd been killed.

“How you doing?” I asked Sarah softly. She met my eyes, and I tried to ignore the connection between us, so strong it felt almost visible.

“Okay,” she whispered. “It's weird. But I think we can do this. Right?”

I nodded with much more confidence than I felt. “Yeah,” I said, not sure if we were talking about physics or us or both. “We'll concentrate on the equations. It's just math.”

We were about halfway through the first problem when Chuck and Matty stood to start mapping their calculations. I knew they'd get in there before us, which was fine, except for Matty's smug grin and the
L
he flashed me before they went in.

Mr. Ruskovich was having us work with six splatters—three for them and three for us—and we were taking turns mapping them. The only problem, as Mr. Ruskovich explained, was that by the end we'd be maneuvering around lengths of string taped across the closet, like the laser beams you see in heist movies when the thief has to make off with a priceless statue.

“And it's critical you don't touch or move any of them,” he stressed. “Precision is key. Your convergence point needs to be as exact as possible, because you'll also use it and the angles you've figured out to determine the height of the suspect. You don't want to imprison the wrong person because you contaminated the crime scene.”

Pretty unlikely here, since Mr. Ruskovich had built in a wide margin of error, with suspect heights ranging from the extremely petite four-foot-tall Miss Scarlet to the gargantuan Mr. Green at ten feet.

“What is he, the Jolly Green Giant?” Chuck had asked.

“Or the best new prospect for the Celts,” Mr. Ruskovich suggested.

“They need it,” Matty muttered.

We'd started on the third problem by the time Matty and Chuck returned to their seats. Sarah was flying through the equations.

“I didn't know you had such skills,” I told her.

“Oh I got skills, boy.” She smiled, and I flushed, reading double entendres into everything she said. “It's actually really cool if you can forget about . . . you know, the other stuff.”

By the time we got into the closet with our string and tape and protractor, I'd done a passable job of forgetting the real-life crime scene. We taped one end of string to splatter
D
, and Sarah used the protractor to measure the angle, directing me on how to position the other end. “A little higher, higher, lower.” When she was satisfied we'd gotten it just right, I taped the string to the far wall. Sarah double-checked the angle, pronounced it good, and we started on the next, me doing the protractor work this time, both of us careful not to disturb anything as we taped our second string. It met up with our first one and the ones Matty and Chuck had done at nearly the exact same location. We stood back and surveyed the scene.

“Cool,” Sarah said, eyes gleaming.

She took a quick measurement of the height of the probable point of impact. “We should be able to figure out who it is already.” Sarah slid into her seat and worked through some inscrutable set of formulas while I started on splatter
F
, our final one. After a few minutes she nodded. “Matty was right. It's Professor Plum.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How can you be sure?”

“Look at the angle of impact of the two we've already done, the point where it happened, and think about the direction of spatter and the weapons. It couldn't have been someone as short or tall as any of the others.”

I looked at the scrawls on her notepad. “Uh . . . okay.” I had no idea how she'd figured that out so quickly. I'd always known Sarah was smart. It was part of what made her so amazing and her thing with Trip so confounding. I watched her toying with the numbers again, her brow furrowed.

She looked up. “What?”

“Uh . . .” I floundered.

“You're still in awe of my skills?” She smirked.

“Actually, yes.”

Sarah held my eyes for a second. “Are you thinking what I am?”

Unless she was thinking how unbelievably hot she was, no. “What?”

She cast her eyes quickly over to our classmates and teacher, all busy with their work. “We should use this.” She gestured at the paper.

“Use wha—” I stopped, my jaw literally hanging open. “You don't mean at Nat's . . .”

I almost told Sarah no way, but I was finding myself sucked into the whodunit along with all the Buford High gossipmongers, the developments with Galen turning it into a real puzzle. If the receipt at Morris Headley's had been forged, did it mean someone was trying to frame Galen? Or had he just been smart enough to fake his own signature when he'd pawned it, as unlikely as that seemed?

I nodded. “Okay. Let's run it by the others.”

***

It didn't go so well.

“No way,” Natalie said immediately. “You can't be serious.”

I looked at Sarah, wondering if we'd made a terrible error in judgment.

“Nat,” she said calmly. “The cops are getting nowhere. Things keep going around and around. Why shouldn't we look into it a little?”

“I . . . just . . .” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “No.”

Sarah watched her for a second, then nodded. “Okay,” she said, soothing. “You're right.” She put an arm around Nat. “I'm sorry. We were just trying to help.”

“I think we should still get together, though,” Trip said. “We can do it at my house and just talk through what we know. There's a lot going on here, and I'll bet you any money we're hearing more than the cops are.”

“Not that they'd have a clue what to do with it anyway,” Tannis said.

“We'll do it Saturday night. Okay?”

It was a typical Trip suggestion that wasn't so much a suggestion as a command. I could see that Natalie wanted to say no, had had enough of all of this, but instead she asked, “Do you mind if I bring John?”

“John Peters?” Trip asked.

“Duh! Who else?” Tannis rolled her eyes. “He's Nat's new boyfriend, dummy.”

“He's not my boyfriend.”

Trip raised his eyebrows. “Why do you want him to come?”

“He might be able to help.”

Trip thought about it for a second. “Yeah, okay. As long as you think he's not going to be pissed that we're, like, messing in ‘police business.'”

***

After Natalie and Tannis left, Trip turned to me and Sarah. “Listen,” he said. “What you suggested to Nat earlier?”

I nodded, anticipating a rebuke.

“I think it's a great idea. Probably stupid to mention to Nat,” he added. “I mean, do you really think she wants to go back to the living room and measure her dad's blood?”

“No.”

“But you should do it.”

“Behind her back?”

“It's for her own good,” Trip said. “You still have the keys?”

I did, having locked up when Trip loaded the car the last time we'd been there. I'd found them in my coat pocket later but when I tried to return them to Nat at school, she'd told me to “throw them in the sewer.”

“You can't take Tannis, obviously,” Trip continued. “She'll just puke her guts out again. I wouldn't even tell her, just in case she decides to tell Nat. I can come, but it'll have to be after practice, which gets pretty late. It's not like I can contribute much anyhow. Let's face it. This is a job for nerds . . . like you two.” He smiled broadly.

Sarah stuck her tongue out at him, and he tried to grab it. She shrieked and jumped away, laughing.

I watched them, thinking,
Is this for real?

Is Trip really flirting with his girlfriend, who I have the hots for—and who I made out with just yesterday—and then sending me off alone with her for hours on end?

I guess he figured there was no chance she'd be into a nerd like me.

But I knew that was just a lame-ass excuse to make myself feel better. The proverbial devil on my shoulder. The reality was that Trip trusted me. He'd never in a million years think I was the kind of guy who'd make a play for his girlfriend.

And I was an asshole for having betrayed that. It wouldn't happen again.

“What do you think?” I asked Sarah directly, vowing to get myself in line, stop thinking about her. I hoped she'd make it easy and back out.

But of course, she didn't. “I already told you I think we should do it,” she said. “If you're game, Riley, I'm in.”