Locust Lane(63)

“Christopher stayed?”

“Yeah. What you gotta understand about Christopher, he was totally in love with Eden. It was painful to watch, because she basically saw him as this little kid. She’d make out with him sometimes if she was drunk or stoned enough. But no way was she going to fuck him. Christopher just wouldn’t take the hint, though. He’s not exactly experienced with girls. Anyway, by the time we got home, forget about sleeping. You saw me. That’s why I was so upset, this craziness Eden was saying. I was just so worried what would happen to Jack if that got out. And then the next afternoon we heard, you know, that she’d died. We had no idea what was going on. It was surreal.”

“What set her off, do you think?”

“The drugs. Jack said she was passed out when suddenly she went all psycho. He thinks maybe it was a flashback to being attacked by one of her mom’s boyfriends. Anyway, after we found out she was dead, Jack didn’t want me to tell anybody about her freaking out. And I definitely didn’t want to talk about the drugs because…”

“Because why?”

“You can’t tell anybody.”

“I won’t,” Alice said, wishing the silly girl would stop making her lie.

“They were Dad’s.”

“Wait, Geoff gave you drugs?”

“No. I stole them.”

“Hannah…”

“I thought it was the Molly he uses! He would’ve never given it to me so I just helped myself. But I guess I took the wrong ones because these were like the anti-Molly. They really knocked us out for a couple of hours.”

“Does he know you did this?”

“Oh yeah. He was royally pissed. Especially after he found out Jack told his father.”

“Wait, Oliver knew that you guys were using Geoff’s drugs?”

“Yeah.”

So there it was. The reason Geoff was helping cover this up. Why he was lying about being awake, why he was messing around with the house’s security footage. Because if he didn’t, Oliver would let it be known that it was his dope that set off Tuesday night’s events. “Local Man Provided Drugs to Eden Killer” wasn’t exactly the press you wanted in the run-up to the launch of your new company.

“It doesn’t even matter now because the cops know we were using. Christopher told them and I guess they did tests on Eden.”

“But they don’t know they were your father’s pills?”

“That’s what I mean! Telling them wouldn’t change anything. Except messing Dad up.”

“Where did you tell the cops you got them?”

“From Eden.”

“But didn’t Christopher know?”

“Not that I got them from Dad.”

“Hannah…”

“Jack didn’t do anything! If we tell the cops she was talking that shit then … I mean, you see what’s going on this morning. People have it in for him. They’re just so jealous.”

“But why would Eden say it, then? Those are some serious charges. You think she’d really lie like that?”

“Girls lie.” Hannah shook her head. “It’s my fault, too.”

“How’s it your fault?”

“I put the idea in her head. I told her the Parrishes paid off Lexi. We were pretty stoned, I guess, and she was telling me about all the weird shit that’d happened to her with guys. And so I told her about Lexi and Jack. She was amazed by how much money it was.”

“But Hannah, really? Doesn’t it make more sense that something actually happened? I’m not saying Jack attacked her but sometimes people get their signals crossed.”

Hannah looked at Alice, her eyes narrowing.

“What, like he was trying to cheat on me with Eden while I was in the other room?”

“No, no, I don’t mean…”

Alice stopped talking. That was more or less exactly what she meant.

“Jack didn’t do anything to Eden, Alice. He didn’t touch her at the house and he didn’t go back there after we left and kill her like Christopher and this fucking bullshit on Twitter is saying.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. Of course.”

“So it’s okay that I didn’t tell the cops about any of that stuff, right?”

“Yes,” Alice said, since today seemed to be the day for lies.

Appeased, Hannah lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

“I just love him so much.”

Alice resisted the temptation to whack her stepdaughter on the head with the nearest blunt instrument. Even though it seemed you could get away with that in this town.

“I know you do, sweetie,” she said instead.

“I mean, I’d do anything for him.”

Evidently, Alice thought. And then Hannah’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen and immediately answered.

“Hey,” she said as she sat up.

It was Jack. Sitting up had caused the sleeve of Hannah’s baggy T-shirt to ride up a couple of inches, revealing a thin crescent of bruise on her biceps. It appeared to be just the edge of a much bigger one, angry and new. Alice was tempted to pull up the sleeve, to demand to know what the hell she was looking at. But she knew what she was looking at, and sensed that revealing herself now would be a mistake.