Seth barks out a laugh. “If all of this is true, he already did lie to you. Over and over again. It’s not safe for you to be alone with him.”
I glare at him. “Why do you want to make him the bad guy so badly?”
“Why do you want to make him the good guy so badly?” he counters.
“Guys, stop,” Kendall breaks in. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” She pauses. “Another thing I’ve been thinking about: What was Thatcher even doing back there? What was Fiona doing back there?”
“Maybe Fiona was meeting someone,” I say. “Maybe—whoever gave her the money?”
“Or maybe there was no wealthy benefactor, and she finally found old Mr. Bier’s treasure,” Kendall says. “And that’s how she was paying for ballet school.”
I roll my eyes. “Sure.”
She tilts her head at the darkening sky to the north, in the direction of the Bier property. “Just because we never found it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.” Kendall’s phone buzzes. She looks down. “It’s my mom. Be right back.” She heads off down the path toward the house, pressing her phone to her ear, leaving Seth and me alone.
He looks at me, and I don’t know if he’s going to go on about Jeremy or bring up our kiss, and I’m not sure which I want less.
“Do you remember how obsessed with that treasure we were?” he asks.
That wasn’t the question I was expecting. I shake my head. “We were young and dumb.”
He smiles. “You were obsessed. You would get all worked up about how messed up it was that me and Kendall and Thatcher were looking for it, too, because we were already rich.”
“It was the principle of it. Not that I thought we were really going to find it.”
“Do you remember when we were digging near the ravine and my shovel hit that rock?”
I remember. We couldn’t have been more than eight, nine. “We all stopped what we were doing and dug like crazy in the spot you were at.”
He nods. “It was you and me and Thatcher and Fiona. We went nuts; dirt everywhere, pebbles flying—”
“The hole we dug was huge,” I say. “We could all fit inside it.”
“And we just kept digging.”
“And the only thing down there was that big rock.”
You would think it would’ve been a disappointment, digging for an entire afternoon and only hitting some long-buried rock at the end of it. But when we were done, sitting in that hole, coated in dirt, panting from the heat and the effort, the sun low in the sky, shadows long—I remember leaning back against the wall of dirt we’d made, closing my eyes, and having one of those moments you’re not usually conscious of when you’re little: a sudden rush of joy at being alive.
“It might not be a bad idea to take a look,” Seth says.
“Look at what?”
“The area around where he—they—died.”
“What would we be able to find that the cops didn’t?”
“They might not have been looking in the right place.” Seth’s thoughtful face is on. “What if Fiona actually found something?”
“You really think she found the Bier treasure and that’s what she was using to pay for school?” I shake my head. “If there was something back there, wouldn’t we have found it already?”
“Things shift,” Seth says. “Time has a way of turning things up.”
I look to where the sun is in the west. It stays light out late in July. We’ll be able to see for two more hours at least.
“I went to the ER after our fight, you know,” Seth says suddenly.
I blink. “What?”
“When your boy paid me a visit at Columbia.” His hand hovers near his pocket. “I can show you what he did. If you want to see.”
I hesitate a moment too long, and Seth is pulling out his phone, scrolling, and handing it to me.
I catch my breath. The face in the picture is barely recognizable. Eye swollen shut, stitches above one eyebrow, nose with a bandage across it, a cut across one cheek, bruise on his chin—
“And that’s with me fighting back,” Seth says, “with my buddy and another guy pulling him off me as soon as they realized what was going down. He could have killed me, Addie. He wanted to. I could see it in his eyes.”
My voice is caught in my throat. Seth’s phone is still in my face, the damage Jeremy did to him all I can see.
I close my eyes, push it away. “Okay. I get it, Seth.”
Seth’s voice is gruff as he takes his phone back. “You seem to have this idea that Jeremy Reagan is some perfect shining beacon of humanity. I just want you to know the truth.”
“I already told you I’m sorry.”
“And I already told you. It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, nothing’s ever my fault,” I mutter.