Friends Like These(18)

Apart from having sex, we never did really make the transition past friends, which is why we broke up a month ago. At least, I think that’s why we broke up. Dan would probably claim we were totally in love for a while— five, maybe six perfect months. Right up until The River aired. Dan would probably also say we broke up because I didn’t like him being honest with me. That I don’t understand that being in love means telling the truth.

Whatever. Dan can think what he wants. That won’t make him any less wrong. Or us any less broken up.

“I am fucking calm,” I snap back at him, then turn toward the wall and try to lower my voice. I can feel Officer Fields’s eyes on me. “Why are you down there?”

“Seldon called me,” Dan says. “Told me you could use a hand.”

Unbelievable. The worst part is that it is helpful having a detective I can trust down there at the accident scene. The state team is good, but they can get perfunctory when they’re parachuted in. And, annoyingly, Dan is a very good detective. His attention to detail serves him well.

“Fine,” I say, though I still sound pissed. “What do you want?”

“You should probably come down here,” he says.

“They find something?”

Jonathan appears in the doorway to the dining room, staring at me expectantly. A beat later Maeve and Stephanie are there, too, in the opening to the living room. I should have chosen my words more carefully.

“Still no driver, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says.

“Then what?”

“Well, there’s no way this was any accident.”





JONATHAN


FRIDAY, 8:05 P.M.

The last thing I wanted to do was answer that door. Actually, I felt overwhelmed by dread. I’d been feeling uneasy ever since I’d seen the text on Peter’s phone: See you tonight. From some random, anonymous number. Could have been anything, obviously. But the key under the mat wasn’t helping. Peter was always reminding me that we needed to be vigilant about security and setting the alarm, that the escalating drug issue in Kaaterskill meant an uptick in petty crime. And here he was leaving the key to our front door under the mat?

But Peter was not there to ask. I’d invited him to come, of course, but he said no immediately. Peter grew up in Tampa, moved to New York state to attend Buffalo State. He thought my Vassar friends were stuck up. He thought most of the people I knew were stuck up, including my family. Definitely my dad was not warm and accepting, as evidenced by the fact that he was always threatening to cut me off if I did this or that thing he didn’t like. And he didn’t just mean he’d cut me off from the money. He meant cut me off completely from my entire family, including my mom and sisters. I knew, deep down, that my dad loved me. I think he was even trying to help— in his own way. Ever since I headed off to “artsy, aimless” Vassar over my father’s objections, he’d been convinced I was dangerously lost.

That’s what I’d been thinking about when I said we shouldn’t call the police that night on the roof all those years ago. And I was the one who’d said it first, even if everyone did eventually agree. Even Stephanie, with a little help from me. She and I shared the same sick obsession with pleasing our unpleasable parents— I knew which of her buttons to push. Alice did eventually make it very clear she wanted to go to the police. But that wasn’t until hours later and while I’d cared about Alice’s feelings, I’d cared more about my dad’s.

I know what you did. Alice’s mother’s most recent email popped into my head. She’d contacted us before. And she would again. As usual, I deleted the email immediately. Unlike some of my friends, I never had any interest in discussing her messages. Some situations just mandated denial.

The doorbell rang again. “You gonna get that or what, man?” Finch leaned forward on the couch, my couch, like if I didn’t get it, he would.

I bared my teeth at him in that polite yet menacing way I’d perfected from watching my father. “Thank you, but I’m all set.”

I swung the door open to find two men standing under the porch light. The guy in front was younger, maybe in his early-thirties, bright blue eyes glowing under his red baseball hat: ACE CONSTRUCTION. He was good-looking, solidly built, the same height as the older fireplug of a man behind him but all muscle and without the gut. The older man looked to be in his sixties, with white hair and enormous arms popping out from beneath his red-and-yellow T-shirt. ACE CONSTRUCTION was printed across the front of that, too.

Oh, yes, Ace Construction. I’d written lots of checks to them.

“You must be the contractors. I’m Jonathan.” I reached out a hand, which the younger one glared down at for a long beat before finally shaking it, too hard. “Peter’s not here. Can I help with something?”

Did they know that Peter and I were a couple? In Kaaterskill, some surprising people couldn’t care less that we were gay. The skinny old drug addict who worked the pumps at the Cumberland Farms hadn’t batted an eye when he’d come upon Peter and me kissing. But that sweet old lady with the rosy cheeks who ran the farm stand had once snatched a cherry pie right back from my hands. Hate was such an unpredictable thing.

Peter hadn’t told me the contractors were coming by. At least I didn’t think so. He was such a big talker, though. I did tune him out sometimes.