Emma held Thayer’s gaze. “Promise me. For Sutton’s sake.”
His jaw tightened, and he turned away from her. After a moment, he gave a short nod. She looked out over the tawny mountains, where fluffy clouds drifted against the deep blue. “Garrett was definitely in the canyon the night Sutton died,” she said softly, hugging her knees. “When the cops took me in for questioning I saw a security photo that showed his car in the parking lot. And Louisa mentioned that he came home in the middle of the night. She remembered it because he’d been so upset. Something really freaked him out. She thought that he and Sutton must have broken up.”
Thayer remained perfectly motionless, but she could see the muscles in his shoulders tense.
“I don’t have a way to prove it, though. Everything is circumstantial. You didn’t see anything suspicious in the canyon that night, did you?” Emma glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Storm clouds were gathering across his face, grim and foreboding. A sudden fear dawned on her: What if she’d overestimated Thayer’s self-control? What if he couldn’t keep his promise? Before he’d gone into recovery, his temper had been almost as legendary as Garrett’s. The way he looked now, she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t run after Garrett and tear him apart right this moment.
“Besides the headlights heading straight for me? No.” Thayer’s eyes narrowed. “So you think Garrett ran me down, too?”
Emma nodded, picking at one of the small distressed holes in her jeans. “He’s violent. At first I chalked it up to the breakup. But I think it goes deeper than that.” She met his eyes. “Everyone keeps hinting about something that happened to Louisa, something really traumatic. Do you know what they’re talking about?”
Thayer blinked in surprise. “Yeah, I do. It was pretty f**ked up.”
My ears pricked. Thayer took a deep breath. “Last year, Garrett took Louisa to this party. It was almost kind of a joke—she was just this awkward, naïve little freshman. I think he got it in his head that he was going to initiate her into high school life or something. You know, get her drunk for the first time, introduce her to all his friends. But the party got really out of control.” Thayer shuddered. “I was there. Not that I remember much of it—I was pretty blasted. Anyway, at some point in the evening Garrett lost track of Louisa. I guess at first he didn’t worry much. I mean, it was a party. He just assumed she was swimming or dancing or whatever. But after a while he started to panic. No one had seen her in hours, and people were starting to leave. He tore the place apart looking for her. Finally he ended up calling the cops.”
Emma suddenly realized she’d been holding her breath, and took a deep gulp of air. A part of her knew what was coming and didn’t want to hear it—but she needed the truth.
Thayer’s eyes were distant and glazed when he spoke again. “They found her in the pool house, unconscious. Pretty badly beaten up.” His lip curled in disgust. “She’d been raped.”
“Oh my God,” Emma whispered. A queasy feeling spread through her body.
“They caught the guy,” Thayer continued. “His name was Daniel Preuss. He’d graduated by then, but he’d been on the soccer team. He was a really good friend of Garrett’s.”
The memory rose up in me as Thayer talked. I hadn’t been at that party—it’d been the week of the state championship, and I’d been in Glendale with the rest of the tennis team. Garrett and Louisa had been out of school for a few weeks, but I remembered when he came back. He’d looked so vulnerable, so lost. That made it easy to ignore his mood swings, his temper tantrums—because after each violent flare-up, he looked so anguished. I’d made excuses for him every time.
But he’d been more broken than I’d realized. I pictured his face that night in the canyon, twisted into a mask of rage, the terrible things he yelled at me. How jealous he’d been that I was out there with Thayer. How he called me a slut for wearing shorts, his breath angry and hot with whiskey. He hated the fact that I’d wanted to sleep with him—and hated himself for wanting to sleep with me, too. What happened to Louisa shattered him, and he’d punished me for his own fear and self-loathing about not being able to protect her.
Emma’s stomach curled into a tight little ball inside her, her head spinning. “That’s . . . awful,” she breathed.
Thayer nodded. “Yeah. Garrett never really recovered.”
In spite of everything, a twinge of pity shot through Emma’s chest. She couldn’t even imagine the kind of pain Louisa and Garrett had been through. Then again, she thought, the same thing had happened to her—someone had hurt her sister beyond belief, and she had to live with it. Sutton hadn’t deserved what happened to her any more than Louisa had.
She looked up to see Thayer watching her closely. “So you think what happened to Louisa made him snap?” he asked.
Emma sat up, straightening her legs out in front of her. “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter, does it? He killed my sister, and I don’t care what his excuses are. He’s dangerous, and I have to find a way to prove it.”
Thayer was silent for a long moment, studying her face.
“You know, you’re so much like her.” He gave a sad smile. “Not just the way you look, I mean. When you get that determined gleam in your eyes, you remind me so much of her.”
Emma found that she was leaning slightly against his shoulder, their arms just touching. She knew she should shift her weight, put more distance between them, but she couldn’t seem to move. For just a heartbeat, something magnetic pulled her toward Thayer.