Don't Look Back(59)
I waited for vertigo to slam into me, but as I stood at the edge, I realized the height didn’t bother me. In fact, there was something thrilling about being up so high. “I think I still have
a bit of an adrenaline junkie in me,” I said.
Carson’s laugh was strained. “That’s kind of good to hear,
but do you think you could move back from the edge a little?” He’d stayed near the trees, and I wondered if he was afraid
of heights. “Do you think if we fell from here, I could’ve survived it?”
“It’s possible. Crazier things have happened. Or she could’ve
jumped.”
Turning around, I stared at him. That wasn’t something
I’d considered.
Carson eyes flinted away from mine, narrowing on the
empty space beyond the tips of trees. “It’s just a possibility,” he
said quietly. “People do insane shit like that all the time.” But everything I knew about Cassie told me she wouldn’t
have done that. Not alone ... I swallowed, unable to wrap my
head around the budding idea forming there.
“Feeling... or remembering anything?” he asked. I shook my head, disappointed. Nothing was coming to
the surface besides more questions and confusion. Walking back
toward the cluster of trees to the right, I started chewing on my
nail. Large pines reached around the boulders jutting out of the
ground, and beyond the rocks was nothing but the fall—the fall
I had to have taken.
“Lucky to be alive” was an understatement.
Time passed in silence. Carson remained on the other side,
letting me stay here as long as it took. I leaned against a tree, eyes narrowed on the edge of the cliff. I was ready to give up, tell him we should head back, but then a cold shiver danced down my
spine. It was the only warning.
This wasn’t like the visions I’d been having. There was no
gray film, and I didn’t see anything. I just felt it—heard my own
thoughts as if the past had been layered under the present, but
now was resurfacing.
In a blink of an eye, Carson was in front of me, his expression pinched with concern. “What is it?”
My mouth worked at a reply as my heart sped up. “I shouldn’t
have been here.”
“That night?” he asked.
Nodding, I turned to the tree, running my hand along the
rough bark. Touching the tree made me feel like one of those
psychics on those TV shows Veronica had been talking about,
but I just knew I’d been here—right here. “I think ... I was hiding behind these trees. It’s like I wasn’t supposed to be here, but
I was. I know that doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s okay.” Carson followed me around the tree. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything. “She wanted
me here—Cassie. She wanted me to see them together.” “See who, Sam?”
I shook my head in frustration as I opened my eyes. “I don’t
know, but I think I knew she wanted me to see them—to know.
And I know it was a guy—a guy she wanted me to see her with.” Carson took a step back, inhaling sharply. Our eyes met,
and the cold feeling was now working its way up my spine now. He reached out, taking my hand. “Sam, do you know who
she was with?”
“No, but I think I have an idea.”
The look on his face said he was thinking the same thing I
was, and it was terrible—heartbreaking in a way that made me
soul-sick and dizzy. Things clicked into place, one tiny disturbing clue after another.
“Del,” I whispered.
Chapter seventeen
We’re meant to be together.
Wasn’t that what Del had said? And from the glimpses of his world and my own, there was a lot of expectation revolving around our relationship. Enough to kill for, so an affair would remain hidden? Secondor third-generation rich kids, like royalty...
So many times I’d tried to bring up Cassie, and he’d grown visibly uncomfortable and refused to talk about her. The most recent memory of Cassie asking if she could have Del resurfaced and lingered. Had they been sleeping together, and she wanted me to know? Lured both of us to the cliff, and Del, not knowing I was there, had pushed Cassie?
I felt sick.
The ride back to Carson’s house was tense and silent. Both of us were wrapped up in dark thoughts. He parked the truck in the driveway and killed the engine. Facing me, his eyes were somber, lips drawn tight. “I can’t believe it. As much as I dislike him, I can’t picture him doing something like that.”
I didn’t want to believe it, either. “Maybe it was an accident.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay. If it was an accident, what about you? Did he accidentally push Cassie and then you?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered around my poor nail. And Cassie falling really didn’t make sense the more I thought about it. The very first memory I’d had was of blood on the rocks—the flat sandy-colored rocks that covered the cliff.
“And Del doesn’t have the balls to do something like that,” Carson said, mostly to himself.