“After I…we had words, I stormed out of the house. I don’t even know what I was doing there in the first place. It was a couple of weeks after you caught me with Shayna. And I had promised you that I’d stop using. And I wasn’t using. I didn’t even want to go to the stupid party. But then Lisa called me up…told me she was invited but didn’t want to go alone. I was still really angry.” A sigh. “I sneaked out. I didn’t ask Sammy for help, but I knew he would cover for me if he had to.”

So tell me something fucking new, Decker thought. He clasped his hands together to prevent himself from lashing out. He wanted to throttle the boy. Just take him by the shoulders and shake him to death. Instead, he reined in his anger but not impatience.

“Speed it up!”

“I’m getting to it. This is very hard!”

Decker swallowed, counted to five. “Go on.”

“Anyway, I bolted. Just started walking, swearing that this was it. Never again, never again, never again! And I really meant it. Suddenly, Ruby caught up with me, grabbed my arm, and told me to slow down…that she wanted to talk to me. It was like her whole attitude changed—totally. Completely different. Like two separate people. It was weird.”

And eerily familiar. Both of them—Darrell and Ruby—masters of different identities. “Keep going.”

“We started talking. We talked for about twenty minutes outside the house…about two houses away actually. Then she asked me to take a ride with her…just to talk.”

“And did you?”

“Not right away. First, we went to her car and talked there.” He looked away. “Just talking.”

Decker gesticulated for him to quicken the pace.

“She had pills.” His eyes started watering. “I know I’m weak. It totally sickens me how weak I am. But that’s not the point right now. We both got totally wired…blitzed.”

“What did you take?”

“Some kind of stimulant…uppers. After a few minutes, things began to happen.”

Fury coiled up inside Decker’s chest. He clasped his hands tighter. “What kind of things?”

“Amorous things.” Jacob couldn’t look at him. “I was high and so was she. She started touching me. She knew what she was doing. I got incredibly turned on.” He whispered, “I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?”

“You had sex.”

“It’s more complicated than that. She started the car and took me somewhere—I guess we were driving for about ten, fifteen minutes…it’s hard to get a time frame because I was so high and so aroused. We couldn’t have gone that far from the party, but it was somewhere pretty isolated, deep in the hills. She took me to this shack of a house…a place she’d obviously been before many times.”