Dark and Shallow Lies(74)

Hart is wrong. He has to be.

“Why Leo?” I ask, and Hart shrugs.

“Why not Leo? Somebody had to put a stop to it, didn’t they? Before Dempsey Fontenot tore the whole damn town to pieces.”

“Did Elora know that?” I ask. “What her daddy did?”

Hart nods. “I told her that part, too.”

“But Zale couldn’t know it.” I feel like I’m falling. Grabbing for solid ground. The edge of the cliff. A tree root. Anything. But all I get is a handful of air. “How could he possibly know that? He wasn’t even there.” My head is spinning.

My whole world is spinning.

Not Zale.

Please.

Not Zale.

I wanted an answer. But I didn’t want that one.

Hart tips his head back and laughs. He throws his hands up and gestures at the boarded windows. “How could he know that? Are you for real? Jesus. I don’t know, Greycie. It’s the Fucking Psychic Capital of the Goddamn World. You tell me how he knew it.” He looks me dead in the eye. “Maybe Elora told him herself. You said they were friends, right? She was keepin’ that from all of us.”

Hart’s words are suffocating me. I stand up and try to get a deep breath.

But I can’t.

Hart points at the black barrel.

“So right there’s why your new boyfriend would wanna kill Elora. Why he was probably plannin’ to kill you, too. Hell, Greycie, maybe he was gonna pick us all off one by one. All the Summer Children. That’s some real-life Shakespearean drama, right there. Sins of the father and all that shit.”

“But Zale really doesn’t know,” I protest. “He doesn’t know what Leo did. He doesn’t know any of that. He’s been looking for his father this whole time. He didn’t even know what my mother did, until I told him.”

Hart shakes his head. “Why the hell do you believe a thing this guy says? What kind of power does he have over you? We’ve been dickin’ around since you got here – tryin’ to figure out who might want Elora dead – comin’ up with nothin’. Jesus Christ. And you’ve been sittin’ on the answer since literally day one?” He shakes his head, like he just can’t make sense of it. “And you never breathed a word of it? Not even to me?”

I can’t stand the hurt on his face, so I look away.

“Any more secrets?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Right,” he scoffs. “Me either.”

Some kind of line has been crossed. And I know that it can’t be uncrossed. Things will never be the same between us.

My head is still reeling. I’m sick and dizzy, trying to come up with a reason I never questioned a single thing Zale said. Why I took him at his word, right from the very beginning. Why didn’t I ask more questions? Push him for more details.

Any details.

Then I remember what Zale told me about his mother. How she had a gift to calm the soul and settle the nerves.

With her, it wasn’t just snakes. She had that same way with people.

All those times he made me feel safe but hazy. Slightly drugged. Or drunk. Peaceful. But off-kilter. Like I couldn’t think straight.

Did I let him do that to me?

Had I let him soothe and charm me with magic eyes and an ocean-deep voice and a touch that took my breath away?

That tingle of bare skin against skin.

So that I never saw the danger? Like a cottonmouth hidden in the weeds.

The wind has picked up, and Hart’s curls blow around the edges of his eyes. Elizabeth is coming for us. She’ll be here . . .

soon.

The word reminds me of that one-syllable love note.

“I found something,” I say. “Tonight. Hidden in Elora’s room.”

Hart’s staring at me. “We tore that room apart lookin’ for clues. Me. Mom and Leo. Sheriff. The boys from the state police. None of us found shit.”

“You didn’t know where to look,” I tell him. And he laughs that dead-sounding laugh again.

“What’d you find?” He’s eyeing me warily. Like I’m a strange animal he doesn’t quite trust.

I pull out the piece of folded notebook paper and hand it to him. “Zale must have given it to her,” I say. And I feel so stupid. I look down at the water, so Hart won’t see the pain in my eyes.

But I know he feels it.

Hart unfolds the paper and stares at the delicate gold bracelet with the tiny charm. That little red heart. And the one-word love poem.

Soon.

The odd slanting S and those two egg-shaped o’s.

A fierce wind blows across the dock, and chimes ring out like alarm bells.

Hart’s face goes hard again, and he looks out toward the river. I follow his gaze, but there’s nothing to see. Without saying a word, he wads up the paper and pulls his arm back. Then he pitches the note and the bracelet as far as he can out into the dark river. And I cry out, because it feels like watching the last little bit of Elora vanish from my life forever.

“Why did you do that?” I’m close to tears. Everything seems so unfair. “It didn’t belong to you!”

“It didn’t belong to you, either.”

“You’re an asshole!” I tell him. And I mean it. “Maybe I wanted to keep it.”