we all needed a drink,” Leo said brightly before walking the rest of the way into the house and heading straight for the kitchen. “How about some orange juice with your vodka?” he suggested.
“If you change that to some vodka with my orange juice, I’m game.”
There was no point in pretending I was going to any classes today. Even if I showed up, I’d be there in body only. My mind would be a million miles away. Or, more like the three miles to the marina, where Tristin was undoubtedly hiding out on his borrowed boat.
Once we all had drinks in our hands, we wandered into the living room. Hayle and I took spots on the couch, while Leo sat in one of the chairs across from us.
When no one spoke after a couple of minutes, I decided to break the silence. “What happened last night?”
Leo looked at his brother. “Do you want to do the honors, or should I?”
“Go for it.”
With a smile of sheer satisfaction, Leo said, “We got Mark to confess to drugging Hadley and that it was all Bodie’s idea.”
If I was Catholic, I would have made the sign of the cross. But, instead, I merely pressed a hand to my mouth and spoke around it. “Seriously?”
“And I recorded the whole thing,” Hayle added with a matching smile.
“Oh, yeah,” Leo said. “Play the recording for her.”
Hayle set his phone on the couch between us, and I listened as he and Leo worked together to get Mark to admit that he’d given Hadley the GHB Friday night.
“What do you all think of this dirtbag drugging a college girl?” Leo’s disembodied voice said loudly through the recording, and I laughed out loud. He’d clearly been playing to the crowd at the bar, and given the panic in Mark’s response, it had worked.
Toward the end of the recording, I heard something that sounded a lot like a fist hitting flesh. I didn’t even need to hear Leo’s subsequent threat to know he’d punched Mark. Maybe I should have been disappointed that he’d resorted to violence when it wasn’t necessary.
I wasn’t.
“What happened?” I asked Hayle as he hit stop on his phone. “Did Mark turn himself in like he promised?”
“According to Detective Dyck—” Leo laughed at the name, and Hayle rolled his eyes before continuing. “Mark showed up at the station in the middle of the night. He heard about Bodie’s accident and immediately assumed it was us. Guess the fact that he wanted to blame us for something else we didn’t do spurred on his confession.”
I stared down at my hands. I didn’t want to ask this question, but I had to. “You two really had nothing to do with—”
“No,” Leo said sharply. “Absolutely not. I can’t believe you would even think that.”
I forced myself to look at him, and nothing about his fierce expression suggested he was lying. “I don’t. I just had to make sure.”
Hayle’s voice was softer but no less urgent when he said, “It wasn’t us. After leaving the Backwoods Tavern, we drove straight home.”
“Why didn’t you come find me when you got home?” I’d done most of the legwork on unearthing Mark’s involvement. The least they could have done was tell me all of this last night.
“We wanted to wait until the confession was official,” Leo said. “We were hoping we’d have a reason to celebrate this morning, and, instead...”
“The police showed up to question you all,” I answered for him as I slumped back into the couch and covered my eyes with my arms. “What a shitty, shitty way to start the day.”
And, to think, memories of my midnight tryst with Tristin had kept me smiling all through my shower.
Tristin.
His name alone caused a burning ache in my chest. Whether it was from rejection or longing or plain hurt, I didn’t know. He’d been through a lot. I knew that. But I couldn’t keep excusing his behavior. Not if he was going to treat me like a beetle stuck to the bottom of his boot.
“What about this newest...issue?” I asked, not really wanting to utter Bodie’s name yet again. “Do the police really think one of you is responsible?”
“I don’t know,” Hayle answered. “But once Dad agrees to release our security system records, Leo and I should be cleared.”
“Where is your father?” I’d all but forgotten about Vincent this morning. Which was strange but also a bit of a relief. I might have returned to Moss Harbor to uncover his role in my