“Yeah?” His eyes—a little greener than his brother’s—light up with hope. “What did he have to say? Can he help you? Help her?”
“No.” My stomach drops out like I’m on a rollercoaster, and my voice is scratchy as I say, “He killed Iris.”
“What?”
I can feel the shock resonating from Chase, and I hope like fuck I kept my shit together better than he is right now when I found out. If my face looked anything like his, Judge Hollowell definitely knows I’m onto him.
“Are you sure? How do you know?” Dax shakes his head, not so much in denial as like he’s trying to clear it. To make room for this insane new piece of information.
“I’m sure.”
I tell them everything, starting with Mom’s revelation this morning about what a monumental fuck-up Scott Parsons is and ending with the moment I wrapped River’s car around a pole. When I finish, they’re both quiet for a moment. They wrapped their arms around me again as I spoke, enfolding me in the space between them, warming me with the heat of their bodies.
“Holy hell,” Chase breathes at last. “It makes sense. It all makes such perfect fucking sense now. But I can still hardly believe it. What the actual fuck?”
Before I can answer, the tow truck I called while I was waiting for the guys to arrive trundles around the corner. I found a receipt from a mechanic in the glove box, and I told him to take it there.
We don’t speak as we wait for the guy to hook the bashed-up car to his truck and haul it away, but I can tell Dax and Chase are still trying to wrap their heads around what I told them.
When all that’s left at the scene of the accident is some broken glass and pieces of a busted taillight, we all pile into Dax’s car. Chase gives me the front seat, then sits in the middle of the back so he can poke his head forward between the two seats.
“We gotta tell Linc and River about this,” he mutters, chewing on his lip.
“Not over text. Nothing in writing.” I turn to face him too quickly, and the sudden movement makes my head pound.
“Right.” He nods. “I’ll tell them to meet us at our place. After we take you to the ER.”
“What? No, I don’t need to—”
“Fuck yeah, you do. You’re bleeding from the head, Low. You were just in an accident. I don’t care if you found out the damn Easter Bunny killed Iris; you’re getting checked out before we do anything else.”
I sputter uselessly, glancing at Dax to see if he’ll back me up—but the look on his face tells me I’m shit outta luck on that count. I’ve never been to the Lauder boys’ house before, but when he puts on his turn signal and takes a left onto a recently plowed street, I’m certain he’s not taking me to their place just yet.
Deciding it’s not worth putting up a huge fight about it, I lean back against the headrest, letting my eyes drift closed.
“He set my mom up,” I mutter. “He wants her to go to jail, maybe for the rest of her life, so he can get away with murdering the teenage girl he knocked up.”
“It’s not over, Low.” Dax’s voice is low in my ear, filling my senses as I block the rest of the world out. “We won’t let him get away with it. We’ll find a way to stop him.”
“From what you said, it doesn’t seem like he figured out you made the connection between him and the man in the mask—hell, he might not even know you saw anything at all, since he didn’t hear what you said to Dunagan the night your mom got arrested,” Chase adds.
“Maybe.”
My thoughts start spiraling again, and I blink my eyes open as the world I was trying to block out comes crashing back in. I can’t keep it away for long, no matter what I do.
The three of us fall into a loaded silence that stretches out until we reach the hospital. There’s so much to say, but I get the feeling we’re each waiting until we join up with the other two boys. We all need to be together for this.
And besides, I have no fucking idea what to say. I agree with Dax’s sentiment wholeheartedly. We can’t let Judge Hollowell get away with this.
But how the hell do we stop him?
I don’t have the first damn clue.
Our stint in the ER waiting room isn’t long, and after about fifteen minutes, we’re ushered into a room. A man named Doctor Liley comes in and examines me, asking me questions about the accident as he shines a light in my eyes and tests my reflexes.
He gives the twins—who insisted on coming in and are flanking me on either side, each holding one of my hands—the same look Walt gave them, like he’s trying to figure out exactly what’s going on between all of us.
Jesus. I wonder what kind of look he’d give us if all four of the guys were here.