The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,71
was saying, polite and surprised, but she spoke over him.
“I saw you,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” he said. His eyelids moved in a flurry of puzzled blinking.
“The night Molly Dufresne died. I saw you on Trish Deerbold’s lawn.”
His mouth dropped open as if her words had unhinged it, but then she saw his widened eyes go sly and secret. His body stilled, and he deliberately closed his mouth. His eyebrows came together as if he were confused, but it was a polished emotion, manufactured and glossy. He wasn’t half the actor Thalia was. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He got the tone right; it was a single note higher than his usual speaking voice—but he couldn’t control biology, and his cheeks flooded with ruddy color.
“Yes, you do,” Laurel said, her voice steady now. “You were standing back out of the crowd, behind everyone. They were all looking at my house, facing away from you. But not me. I was looking back at them, and I saw you.”
“You couldn’t have,” he said. It came out sounding truthful, genuine. But he wasn’t saying he hadn’t been there. He was only saying that she could not have seen him, and the round spots of color in his cheeks ripened.
“You thought you were too far back, safe in the dark, but you have highlights,” Laurel said, touching her own bangs. “They’re meant to catch the light.”
His eyes narrowed. “You saw some hair glowing in the dark? And that makes you think it was me?”
“I know it was you,” she said. Her heart was pounding itself against her rib cage, moving the blood through her so quickly she could feel it pulsing at her wrists and in her throat. But her voice came out strong and certain.
All at once the pretense dropped away from him, and his skull seemed to bulge under his skin. “This is not your business,” he said quietly, but so fiercely that he was practically hissing. He came at the car, darting forward, his hand reaching for the passenger-side handle.
Laurel took her foot off the brake and stomped down on the gas. The SUV screeched forward, and then she jammed on the brake. She stopped six feet beyond him. He’d come all the way into the road, following her, so he was directly behind her. She could see him in her rearview mirror, that hectic color still staining his face. She had a terrible urge to throw the car into reverse, tear backward over him and crush him, and end this. Her foot trembled on the brake. She stabbed the button for the driver’s-side window and leaned out, looking back at him. “Pervert,” she yelled, loud enough for anyone whom the horn had called to hear.
He held up his hands, a propitiating gesture, his lips pursing as if saying “shush.” He peered all around as if checking for witnesses.
“I know you,” she yelled.
Stan Webelow’s chest heaved as if he had already run his five miles; fresh sweat was popping out on his forehead and his shoulders. He started forward almost involuntarily, as if his body had decided to rush the SUV without his consent.
Laurel whipped around and hit the gas, lurching forward, then smoothing out and speeding away. She kept glancing into the rearview mirror to make sure he was growing properly smaller. Her hands gripped the wheel so tight it was hard to tell how badly they were shaking.
Her blood sped through her, thinned and quickened by adrenaline. She’d done something real, the way Mother had once, the way Thalia always did. It wasn’t enough to take to the police, not yet, but she had been right. He had been there the night Molly died, and he was hiding something ugly. She could pull Thalia off of Molly’s poor family and sic her on Stan. Thalia would find a way to prove he’d been there, something solid that they could take to Moreno. They needed only enough to turn the detective’s calculating, clever eyes on him. Moreno would root him out, and then Molly could rest.
Laurel drove directly home, but when she opened the garage door to put away the SUV, she saw that her side was empty. Thalia and the Volvo were both still MIA.
Laurel pulled into the garage and then hit the button to close the garage door. She stayed in the SUV until the door had closed all the way. She hadn’t expected to be alone. What if Stan Webelow came here? She’d baited