“We don’t work together. We don’t have any connections like that. We haven’t spent much time together lately.”

“Someone like Blake has probably pissed a lot of people off in his life,” Karen said. And all the eyes in the room swiveled to her. The word “pissed” coming out of her mouth struck us all as a bizarre breach of decorum for Karen, who usually peppered her speech with phrases like “Oh, heck” and “Cussy darn.” She looked right back at all of us. “Well, he did drop my grandson.”

“He didn’t drop him, Mom.”

“Well, whatever he did, I don’t like him. He drank a lot at your wedding.”

“What about the toast he made?” I asked. “Or the china he went out of his way to find after Amanda mentioned it?”

Karen hesitated for a moment. “Well, I don’t like this. I don’t like any harm coming to members of my family.”

But my mind quickly shifted, trailing off in a different direction. Karen was right—Blake had no doubt made a fair number of enemies in his time. If he’d been involved with Jennifer while he was on and off with Samantha, there was no telling how many other women he might have dated. And any one of them might have had a jealous boyfriend or husband. Any one might come trailing their own version of Kyle Dornan.

But how did that connect to me? Why would a jealous or bitter boyfriend or husband decide to come after me? And why say something about the girl getting killed?

“Excuse me,” I said, standing up. “I’m going to call him.”

“Good,” Karen said. “It sounds like he needs to be asked some tough questions.”

I ignored her and walked out to the living room, the line ringing and ringing as I moved.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

I hung up and tried again, and I kept expecting him to answer.

He’d been there for me so many times. I’d counted on him for so much. Despite everything he had dragged me into with Jennifer, I still expected him to come through. To answer.

Maybe I was a fool. But how hard was it to let go of the belief we had in people we cared about the most?

How hard was it to believe he could be letting me down at the biggest moment of them all?

I never would have let him in the house, never would have gone along with any of it except for the looming threat of the exposure of my role in the accident.

I sensed someone behind me. I knew it was Amanda.

I tried again and received no answer.

“He’s not there?” she asked.

“He’s not answering.”

“He’s supposed to be at our house, Ryan. You left him there, using your computer. Shouldn’t he still be there?”