His eyes shift above me, like he’s looking for an escape. His lips form a thin line and his voice lowers. “I’m disappointed in you, Kenley. I know you and Rose had your troubles, and you feel significant guilt over the fact you didn’t listen when she came to you for help, but that’s no reason to come to me with a bunch of cockamamie conspiracy theories. Both of these girls were lost to us in tragedies, but there is nothing that ties them together other than living in the same town, thirty years apart.”
“But there is something that ties them together.” I speak over the lump in my throat.
“Really? Because I remember Jacqueline as an edgy-alternative girl with few friends and a bad attitude. She rebelled against the system, longed to get out of this town, and probably flirted with whatever dark force she encountered that night.” He exhales. “Rose was a ray of sunlight, with dozens of friends, proud teachers, and a sharp eye on the future. Tell me what you think the two of them have in common.”
I hold his eye, the one that looks so similar to my ex-best friend, and speak the truth.
“You.”
23
Ozzy
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah,” she says. I notice her hands are still trembling an hour later. “I did.”
“What did he say after that?”
“Nothing really. He just stared at me for a long minute and then turned to go shake someone else’s hand.”
“Wow.”
We’re sitting in her car, parked on an isolated road that overlooks the water. I drove, because she was too upset. Not upset, upset, more like a rush of adrenaline and shock that she’d gone through with it.
“I guess if we learned anything today, Kenley Keene, it’s that you have balls.”
Laughter bubbles from her, and her hand reaches across the seat to grip mine.
“I’m not looking forward to this game tonight, there’s just so much potential for—”
“Drama. Yep. But we need to go.”
“I know, the guys want us there, and I suspect Finn’s going to get dragged into that halftime presentation.”
I kiss the back of her hand, while she looks out the window toward the water. I was skeptical this relationship would work—that Ezra and Finn would really be into sharing—that I could do it, honestly, but it’s been a better fit than I expected.
“Confronting Waller like that was probably easier than what I have to do next.”
“What are you talking about?”
She takes a deep breath and exhales. “I think Coach Chandler and Rose were sleeping together. I think I should tell someone. McMichaels, maybe? Mr. Russell?”
The information surprises me less than it should. “You have evidence?”
“A gut feeling. I overheard him again talking to Kayla James—it was even more disturbing.” Her jaw tenses. “He’s targeting a specific kind of girl—her dad is sick and he’s offering to find her support.”
“I know he’s a creep, but it seems pretty standard for a teacher to offer help in a situation like this.”
“From inside a storage closet outside the locker rooms?”
I feel my eyebrows shoot up. “That’s where he was talking to her?”
“Yep.”
“How did you overhear this?”
She grimaces. “Ezra and I were in there, you know, hanging out.”