“What did you mean by ‘Every dog has its day?’”

“I wrote that on all my pictures.” He gave a self-conscious shrug. “I know what people thought of me—the annoying twerp with bad social skills. But I never saw myself that way, and I wanted to prove you all wrong, stroll into my ten-year reunion like a boss. That’s all.”

Lila dropped her head a touch. “I’m sorry for my part in all that. I wasn’t a very good friend back then.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His smile returned, and he handed the picture back to Lila. “I found a woman who…Well, she’s everything to me. I got two great kids, and at the end of the day, I don’t really care anymore what you guys think— No offense.”

“None taken.”

He returned to his search and soon held up an external drive about the size of a cell phone. “I think this is it.” He attached the drive to a cable on his desk and opened a file to show a picture from the party, although not the picture of John and Lila.

“May I?” Lila asked, and Sean slid the mouse to her.

She clicked through the pictures slowly, looking at each one carefully. Three pictures in, she came to the one of John holding her wrist. She moved on, slowly, until she came to a picture of a boy shotgunning a beer. He had his head tipped back, and his face was mostly covered by the beer can, but Lila could see enough to know that it was Silas Jackson.

Lila inhaled sharply. “Do you know that guy?” she asked.

Sean looked closer and shook his head. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

“Can you email me a copy of this one?”

“No problem.”

Lila clicked on the next picture, and her heart nearly stopped. It showed two girls in a red-faced argument. Lila saw herself at the edge of the crowd, a beer in her hand. But it wasn’t the two girls fighting that caught her attention—nor was it seeing herself standing half drunk at the edge of the fray. What made Lila’s blood freeze was the image of a boy in the background. He sat on a cushioned chair alone, invisible to the rest of the partiers, and he wasn’t watching the fight like everybody else. The boy stared at Lila.

It was Gavin Spencer.

Chapter 52

When the jailers called Gavin’s pod to dinner that evening, he stepped into line with the other men. The guy ahead of Gavin looked like he belonged there, tall and broad-shouldered, his greasy hair dangling down between his shoulder blades. He glanced over his shoulder at Gavin and gave a sneer—then a smile. Gavin should have trusted his instinct and moved to the back of the line, but he hadn’t.

They marched, single-file, into a concrete hallway, one jailer at the head of the group, one at the tail, the odor of forty unwashed men filling the small space. Gavin hated chow time. He needed to eat, so he made that walk three times a day, but he loathed being lumped in as just another dreg in an orange jumpsuit, no different from the toothless meth heads and the idiots who blew their snot to the floor when there was a tissue within reach.