“I’m fine,” I say. “Thanks for your concern. I’m doing research for a project. Like my mom. I wanted to visit your brother to get a primary source. Maybe I’ll start a podcast. You never know. It could make a good story for my college applications.” It’s a ramble, me spitballing excuses. Better she think I’m shamelessly hedging my bets for an elite school than figure out the truth.

“I need some air,” I say, meaning it, and careening in the opposite direction, because that is away. Even if it’s also away from Ben.

A group of students I don’t recognize, but who evidently recognize me, are crowding the exit; the pointed glances and sniggers push me from my original plan. The only place left is the dance floor. Where I can disappear in the horde of bodies.

I hover at the edge, gracelessly bopping to the beat of some up-tempo song from a decade ago. The playlist is Natalie’s favorites, so guess she loved LMFAO in second grade. And then I see him, our eyes locking across the dance floor. Gabriel. I’d prepared myself mentally to see everyone but him. And, God, he looks good. Hair slicked back, in a crisp white shirt under a sharp velvet-lined red blazer.

But he doesn’t exactly seem happy to see me. Still, we close the gap between us, making our way around the fringes of the dance floor in an awkward hello.

“You look amazing,” he says. Complimentary, but there’s a guardedness there.

“Thank you. So do you.”

“You here with Vann?”

I nod. “Trying not to accuse anyone of murder. Normal homecoming-dance stuff.” I’m attempting levity, but Gabriel’s mouth remains a tight line.

“You know the sheriff kept me at the station until two a.m. last night. And he’s had Shields tracking me all day.”

So this is the next stop on my apology tour. “I’m sorry,” I say, but my heart is only half in it. Gabriel still isn’t exactly being honest. “But you’re the one who let me believe you were with Luke. Which you weren’t. He was with someone else. What are you hiding?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“But it isn’t the sheriff’s business either, apparently. You’re lying to them, too, about being alone during halftime.”

Gabriel confirms my bluff.

“You don’t understand this town. How it works.”

“So people just get away with murder?”

That earns me a flinch at the tacit accusation, then a scoff. “Yes. All the time. If they’re the right kind of people.”

“And are you the kind to lie for them?”

We stare at each other, unblinking. An unspoken face-off, where I can’t figure out why we aren’t on the same side.