“From Micah, I presume.” When I don’t deny it, Sam scowls. “He shouldn’t be running around town talking up this case. He knows better. Next time you see him, tell him I said to keep his mouth shut.”

I roll my eyes and describe the scarf for Sam, every detail I can remember about the color and the fringe and the fussy pattern, the way it was long enough to be looped around a neck multiple times. I can tell by the way his eyes turn to slits that it’s hers. That scarf belonged to Sienna.

“How do you know all that?”

And there it is, my ideal opening. The perfect place to admit I saw it hanging from Sienna’s neck that first day. To step off this hamster wheel of lies and half-truths and come clean. Let the chips fall and trust they will fall the right way.

But that’s not how things work in a town like Lake Crosby, not with Sam steering suspicions. The story he would weave together from very few facts, the fabrication he so desperately wants me to believe. I refuse to give him the ammunition.

Because Sam is right about one thing. I am stubborn. Sometimes it takes me a long time to learn my lessons, but I always learn them.

I turn for the car, revealing the only part of the answer he needs to know. “Because when Jax showed up at my back door, her scarf was wrapped around his neck.”

24

June 12, 1999
10:36 p.m.

Somehow, they ended up in a tobacco field. Jax wasn’t sure how it happened, didn’t really remember much other than the music blaring and Paul shouting to slow down and suddenly they were airborne, flying over the field like the Dukes of fucking Hazzard. Jax hung his head out of the window and yee-hawed, or maybe it was Micah. They landed with a thud in the dirt and plants, teeth rattling in their heads, everybody laughing but Paul.

“Are you insane?” Paul unhooked his belt and flung himself between the seats. “I know you have a death wish, but Micah and I don’t. We’d really like to live, and we sure as hell don’t want to do that in a jail cell or worse, because if we get arrested Micah’s dad will kill us.”

Jax looked at Micah, and the two collapsed into giggles. They were way past buzzed now, wasted on too much tequila and thin mountain air. In the back of his head, Jax knew he shouldn’t be driving.

But he was also too drunk to care.

“He’s right,” Micah said, clutching his stomach. “My dad will murder us, and then he’ll bury our bodies somewhere nobody will ever find.”