Emma nodded, picking at one of the small distressed holes in her jeans. “He’s violent. At first I chalked it up to the breakup. But I think it goes deeper than that.” She met his eyes. “Everyone keeps hinting about something that happened to Louisa, something really traumatic. Do you know what they’re talking about?”

Thayer blinked in surprise. “Yeah, I do. It was pretty fucked up.”

My ears pricked. Thayer took a deep breath. “Last year, Garrett took Louisa to this party. It was almost kind of a joke—she was just this awkward, naïve little freshman. I think he got it in his head that he was going to initiate her into high school life or something. You know, get her drunk for the first time, introduce her to all his friends. But the party got really out of control.” Thayer shuddered. “I was there. Not that I remember much of it—I was pretty blasted. Anyway, at some point in the evening Garrett lost track of Louisa. I guess at first he didn’t worry much. I mean, it was a party. He just assumed she was swimming or dancing or whatever. But after a while he started to panic. No one had seen her in hours, and people were starting to leave. He tore the place apart looking for her. Finally he ended up calling the cops.”

Emma suddenly realized she’d been holding her breath, and took a deep gulp of air. A part of her knew what was coming and didn’t want to hear it—but she needed the truth.

Thayer’s eyes were distant and glazed when he spoke again. “They found her in the pool house, unconscious. Pretty badly beaten up.” His lip curled in disgust. “She’d been raped.”

“Oh my God,” Emma whispered. A queasy feeling spread through her body.

“They caught the guy,” Thayer continued. “His name was Daniel Preuss. He’d graduated by then, but he’d been on the soccer team. He was a really good friend of Garrett’s.”

The memory rose up in me as Thayer talked. I hadn’t been at that party—it’d been the week of the state championship, and I’d been in Glendale with the rest of the tennis team. Garrett and Louisa had been out of school for a few weeks, but I remembered when he came back. He’d looked so vulnerable, so lost. That made it easy to ignore his mood swings, his temper tantrums—because after each violent flare-up, he looked so anguished. I’d made excuses for him every time.