One Foot in the Grave - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,30
is someone killed your former girlfriend and her death, it seems, is about to be pinned on you, Wyatt, which means this could be like looking for a needle in haystack. So I’m digging through the haystack.”
He turned back to the skillet, flipping four pancakes. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He paused, considering, then said, “Herbie was in the middle, I guess. He wasn’t unpopular, but he wasn’t in the upper echelon.”
“How many kids were in a graduating class?” I asked.
“About a hundred to one-twenty,” he said. “It’s a county school. Kids from Ewing and the surrounding towns like Drum.”
I nodded, writing that down. “And where was Herbie from?”
“Ewing. Most of the kids were. There are more kids in the surrounding area, but there’s a Christian high school in Ewing, and some of the more rural kids homeschooled, or at least that’s what their parents told the school district. No one really pushed them on it.”
He grabbed two plates from the cabinet and placed two pancakes on each before pouring more batter into the skillet. He set a plate in front of me, along with everything I would need to enjoy it—a fork and knife, butter, a bottle of maple syrup, and a cup of coffee. “I don’t have any nondairy creamer, but I do have half-and-half.”
“That’s fine,” I said with a slight frown, feeling uncomfortable with the air of domesticity rolling off him.
He pulled the carton out of the fridge. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Nope. I’m good.” I poured some half-and-half into the mug and stirred it with my fork before taking a sip. “Did you have any enemies in high school?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” he asked.
“No,” I said, harsher than I’d intended. “I didn’t.”
He turned to face me. “Even with your father being who he is?”
High school seemed like light-years away, and talking about my past as Caroline felt off and wrong. “I went to a private school where everyone’s parents had money. I was shy and quiet.”
“And from what I gathered, you had Jake looking out for you,” he said with a bit of an edge of his own.
My back stiffened. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you don’t have any right to judge me. Was I an asshole in high school? Yeah, I was. I had a chip on my shoulder because in the eyes of the school, I was the kid to knock off a pedestal, even if I never wanted to climb onto it in the first place. But I was a Drummond, and my father had expectations, even in school. Even with sports. And people hated that I was a Drummond, so plenty of people stepped up to challenge me. If I didn’t defend myself well enough, my father would be quick to rake me over the coals at home for not acting like a leader. So yeah, I was admittedly an asshole with absolutely no real friends. Until Heather.”
I set my mug on the counter, my edge softening. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it was difficult.”
He shrugged and flipped the pancakes in the skillet. “It was like Heather could see right through all my layers of bullshit.” He snuck a glance toward me and just as quickly looked away. “Just like you.”
Had Heather been more tolerant of all his secrets? Or maybe he hadn’t had them back then. Did it matter?
One thing was certain, I didn’t like being compared to her. At. All.
“So you and Heather started dating?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. “During our junior year, her father got a job in Virginia, but Heather refused to go with them. So her aunt offered to let her stay with her until she graduated from high school.”
“Did she go to college?”
“For a while, but she flunked out her second semester. Too much partyin’.”
“But you didn’t go to college?”
“My father believed it was a waste of time and money. He thinks life teaches you all you need to know. My mother had to convince him to pay for Max’s college.”
The heir and the spare to the Drummond kingdom. Since Wyatt was the heir, Max had very much been treated like the disposable son. Until he wasn’t.
“Did you and Heather break up when she went to college?”
“Yeah. She said she didn’t want to be tied down, and my father wasn’t all that crazy about her. Heather was much too headstrong to suit him.”
“But you got back together?” I asked.
“Not right away. She went to live with her parents for a couple of years