He killed the engine, but left the radio on, the speakers pouring music into the night. The only light came from the dome in the center of the car and the distant industrial plants across the water. Sitting on the tailgate left her face shadowed, almost a silhouette. Crickets and tree frogs sang in the distance, and if he listened carefully, he could pick up the water smacking the rocky breakers.

She perched on the edge of the tailgate, pulling her skirt against her thighs, though there wasn’t enough material to cover much at all.

It made him think of Ryan Stacey again, and Gabriel felt his grip tightening on the coffee cup. He gritted his teeth and looked out at the darkness. “I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “I was sitting like fifteen feet away, and I saw two people making out—”

“We were not making out.”

“But I could have stopped him—”

“You did. I let him kiss me.”

She let him—she let that guy—she—

Layne glanced over. “You stopped him before he could get much farther than that.” She picked at the lid of her coffee cup, her voice bitter. No, rueful. “I should have known better.”

Gabriel needed to get a handle on his thoughts before the car caught on fire. “What on earth made you go to that party?”

“It’s stupid.” She pushed a curled strand of hair back from her face. “My mother has always wanted me to be like those girls. She became friends with all their moms and begged me to spend time with their daughters. She used to buy me expensive clothes. Every other day, she’d come home from the mall with another bag from some hot new store. I never wore them. Some I threw in the charity bin behind the school. Some I shoved in the back of my closet. I hated them. I hated her.”

He remembered the tentative conversation in her bedroom. “You didn’t want to be perfect.”

“Sort of.” She hesitated. “No, I could never be perfect, and she knew it. I think that was the point. It was all this big cover-up. The clothes, the horses, it was all one big sham. Her perfect, imperfect daughter.”

Gabriel remembered Ryan’s little comment before he’d punched the shit out of him. She’s all deformed under there.

It made him think of that moment in the woods, when he would have kissed her. His hands on her ribs, and she’d pulled away.

Had he misread that entirely?

Layne turned and looked at him, her eyes piercing and sharp. “How much did you see? When he was . . . you know. How much did you see?”

Gabriel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It was dark,” he said truthfully. “Not much of anything.”

“Come on.” Her voice was hard.