“I’m fine. We’re fine.” My voice sounds mechanical. My heart is still racing in my chest.
Seth looks down at his foot, then eases it up off the brake and onto the gas. The car lurches forward a foot or two and then stops.
“Shit.” He presses his foot on the gas. Another lurch, another stop. “SHIT.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth is set in a grim line.
Another car passes by. “Seth, could we at least get off the road—”
“I’m trying.”
He steps on the gas. Another lurch. Then we stop.
He turns the car off, curses again, looks down at his phone. “I’ll call Triple A.”
—
Two hours and a tow truck later, we find ourselves at a garage in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as a mechanic tells us there’s something wrong with…some part of the car that I don’t quite understand. The bottom line is, it’s almost five in the afternoon and the mechanic is going to have to keep the car overnight.
I’m hungry, tired, and dazed from being stuck in that dark car as the rain poured down and cars rushed past and I wondered each time if this one was going to be the one to crash into us and kill us. Seth nods as the guy talks, and then he pulls out his phone. “I’ll find us a place to stay.”
I’m startled. “We can’t just…uber home?”
“And what, uber back tomorrow? I need my car. Besides, we’re closer to Philly than we are to home.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, I didn’t exactly pack an overnight bag—” He just looks at me. I sigh. I know he’s right. But: “What am I going to tell my dad?”
Seth’s phone buzzes. He looks down. “It’s Kendall. She wants to know if we found Caleb.”
He starts to tap something out, then instead presses the phone to his ear. “Hey.”
While he tells her about our car, I rack my brain for something to tell Dad.
I can’t do it alone. I’m going to have to get Davy to help me.
But I don’t want to tell Davy where I really am, either.
And then I get an idea.
“Can I talk to Kendall?” I blurt out to Seth.
He looks surprised but says into his phone, “Addie wants to talk to you,” and hands the phone to me.
“Hello?”
“Hey. I need your help.”
“What can I do for you?”
She doesn’t sound sarcastic, at least, so I say, “Can you be my alibi tonight? In case anyone asks? I’ll tell Davy I’m staying over. We’re…bonding over our shared grief or something.”
“Sure,” she says after a moment. “Actually, I’m supposed to be hanging out with Gen tonight.”
I startle. “Gen? Why?”
Kendall knows Gen because I used to bring her over with me sometimes when we were younger. But they’d never been friends.
“I ran into her at the movie in the park. We ended up chatting and making plans to catch up. Seth told me about his theory, so I thought I’d ply her with booze, see what shakes out. I told you, I want to find out who did this as much as you do.”
I feel a little spasm of anger that Seth told Kendall about his Gen theory before me. But I need to focus. “Um. Okay. So I’ll say I’m with you?”
“Yup, and if anyone asks, I’ll say the same.”
She’s being surprisingly helpful. I guess she wasn’t kidding about wanting to be useful. “Okay, thanks. And did you happen to see Davy today?”
Kendall exhales. “Yeah. They were here earlier, holding hands by the pool.”
“You sound about as happy about that as I am.”
“It’s not that I’m not happy for them, they’re so in love, it’s just…Marion was really upset last summer when she broke things off. I don’t want to see her like that again.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“She’s my sister. I’m just trying to look out for her.”
“I know.”