“Liar.” I peer past him, then glance up and down the freeway in both directions. Nothing. No traffic. No witnesses.
I recognize this spot. It takes help fourteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds to arrive at this location. I know because that’s what Agent Trapper, the lead investigator on our case, told me the 9-1-1 records showed. He said we’d gotten lucky and a farmer had driven past, noticed the destroyed guard rail, and called for help. I guess Agent Trapper and I have different definitions of “lucky.”
“You know where we are?” Chris asks.
I shake my head, just to be difficult.
If he thinks this is going to traumatize me and make me confess, he’s more delusional than I suspected. I’ve come back to this spot a few times. This section of the road is farmland on one side, and a sharp rock embankment on the other, dropping fifty yards before shearing off into more grass. There was a guard rail here when we went through, and I remember seeing newspapers with pictures of the shorn metal, the gaping hole. They replaced it, made it sturdier. More difficult to kill someone. I’ve climbed over the new rail and sat on the edge of the cliff, watching the tall grass sway beneath, calling. I sat here and thought about what happened, what I’d seen. I touched the scar on my leg and tried not to believe. Up or down. The choice is easy when someone makes it for you.
Chris helps me stand but leaves my hands cuffed behind my back. We walk to the front of the truck and stop near the rail, peering down. The view is the same as I remember it.
“Alex died right there,” he says, pointing to some vague place below, as though I’ll ever forget it.
I don’t say anything.
“He texted me that morning and said he was worried about you. I thought he was concerned for your safety, but now I think he was afraid. Worried about what you might do to him.”
I scoff but don’t reply.
“He told you the truth, didn’t he?”
I glance over. Chris’s face is hard, pensive. There’s a stoicism there, too. A tightness in his shoulders, but a forced ease in his posture, the way he’s leaning against the metal, his hands gripping the edge. It’s personal but it’s not. Like us.
“You tell me,” I say finally. “I don’t know what’s true.”
He meets my eye. “He told you about the money.”
My breathing stops for a split second, enough for Chris to notice. Enough for me to force air out and back in and pretend it didn’t happen.
Alex didn’t tell me about the money.
My father did.
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” he says.
“Alex didn’t know what my father was doing.”
Chris nods. “He did.”
“He didn’t.”
“You knew, too.”
“I didn’t.”
“He was helping him.”
“No.”
“And so were you.”
“You’re grasping.”
I watch his hands uncurl from the rail.
“Alex didn’t know anything,” I tell him. This is what I told the police. Something tells me he’s already heard it. The story I practiced. The story I want so badly to believe. “He just wanted to run the theater. He didn’t want to believe my dad did what they accused him of doing. But when the verdict came back, it was too much. We were in the car and he lost control.”
“You’re lying,” Chris says.
“I’m not.”
He grips my chin and makes me face him. “He knew about the money, because he’s the one who lost it.”
I try to jerk away but I can’t. “That’s not true.”
“Why do you think he needed my help?”
“I can’t think of a single reason.”
“Because he knew he was in trouble.”
“No. He wasn’t. They only arrested my father. If they had something on me, they would have arrested me, but they didn’t. Same for Alex.”
“Then why did you kill him?”
“He was driving, you asshole!”
“Why did he take this route? It’s twice as long to the theater!”
I try to turn my face but he won’t let me. He’s inches away, watching my eyes, watching everything. I’ve kept this secret for far too long, from everyone but myself. There are some things you can’t deny, no matter how hard you try.
“Because there’s a cliff,” I say finally, my voice breaking at the admission. Like saying it out loud is what makes it true.
Chris scowls. “Why would he want to drive past a cliff?”
I feel tears on my lashes. “To kill me.”
THEY THOUGHT IT WAS the lifestyle I missed. My father, my brother, my friends. The homes, the cars, the jewelry. They thought the