thirty-four

Jude drives on back roads and drops me off with a key at the motel rear, saying, “Go on in. I’ll wait ten minutes. Make sure no one’s watching.”

I could tell him that I’m sure no one will see us at this hour and if they do, they’ll be too wasted to recognize me.

I’m inside, sitting cross-legged on the bedspread, when he enters, sodas in hand.

“Is Ale-8, okay?” he asks. “The Coke machine’s down.”

“Thanks.”

“And as you can see, two beds. So if you do want to shut your eyes, it’s okay.” He sets the sodas on the nightstand between the beds. “I’ll ask, though, that you let someone know you’re here. Just a friend or whatever, so someone knows where you are and who you’re with.”

I type a text. And then I send it to myself. His warning is basic safety, but also reassurance that he’s not going to knife me in my sleep. Not after he’s told me to let someone know who I’m with.

After I hit send, I wonder if I was supposed to counter with “No, no, that’s fine, I trust you.” But his nod is genuine satisfaction. No games here. No need to read between the lines. I like that.

“Are we going to talk about Lennon?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He’s sitting cross-legged on the bed and he fusses, adjusting and getting comfortable, but mostly just fussing. He uncaps the Ale-8 and chugs it. Then he rubs his thumb over the label.

“Jude?” I say. “I’m not trying to invade your family’s privacy, but for my own safety, I need to know why you would suspect your brother of lying about Edie.”

“I know. I’m not trying to duck the subject again. I realize that was wrong. It’s just…” He uncrosses and refolds his legs. “I’ve never discussed this. With anyone. And I should have. That’s the problem. I had a responsibility to talk to someone about it, but I didn’t know who or how. I’m the only person I can trust to understand Lennon, to have his best interests in mind.”

“I would never share—”

“And then I left,” he says, as if I didn’t speak. “I decided I was the only person who could help him and I left. How does a brother do that?”

“You were dealing with your own issues.”

He shakes his head sharply. “He’s my brother. He was in trouble. I left. That’s unforgivable.”

I think of Cadence. Of all the times I’ve lain in my shack thinking How could you leave me? and then hating myself for being so selfish. I know why she left. After Colton’s suicide, she couldn’t get away fast enough. Couldn’t get me out of her sight fast enough.

But I needed you, Cady. I really was trying to help—if I was being selfish, I wouldn’t have wanted you to go to college, right?

I need someone I could have sent that text to, the text that says where I am and who I’m with. But you left. And not just when you walked through that door. You left me long ago, on the first weekend you decided I was fine at home alone with Dad.

“I know there are millions of kids who’d gladly trade their lives for mine and Lennon’s,” Jude is saying. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. It just means we can’t talk about them. Not with anyone except each other. We do have friends. Hell, Lennon has probably a hundred numbers in his contact list but…”

“Lots of guys you’d hang around with on a Friday night. Not lots you can share your secrets with.”

“Exactly. Sometimes, for me, it felt like being in the middle of this huge party, with all these people and all that noise and I’m in a bubble, and no one can really get to me and I can’t really get to them. I—” He runs his hand through his hair. “Lennon. This is about Lennon. It’s not the same for him. But he still has problems—real problems—no one else knows about because no one sees that side of him. They just see Lennon Bishop—the guy everyone wants to hang with.”

“The charming side,” I say. “He can make people like him, even if that’s not who he really is.”

“What?” He catches my expression. “No, it’s not a front. It just…”

“It doesn’t go very deep. He can act like he cares about people, but it’s superficial.”

“No.” Frustration laces his voice. “I know what you’re getting at—suggesting he’s a sociopath, the charming fake who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He’s not like that.”

“Okay.”

Jude shifts on the bed. “But he is charming. He can be manipulative—he knows exactly how to get what he wants. He’s impulsive, too. Seriously, crazily impulsive. He doesn’t think before he acts, and sometimes people get hurt, and he does feel bad about that, but it won’t stop him. It’s like he just can’t help himself. He lies. A lot. Like you saw. I used to tell myself they weren’t real lies. He’s creative and exuberant, and he can’t help twisting the facts if he can make a better story. But that’s an excuse. He lies. Compulsively.”

“Which is why you think he lied about Edie.”

He says nothing, just takes another gulp of soda.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s imagine the impulsiveness and the lying and the need for attention all roll together, and he decides to fake having been attacked. He could have somehow inflicted those injuries on himself. But Edie really is missing. So somewhere in that story, there’s more than a grain of truth. There has to be.”

He nods, his gaze on the green bottle as he rubs his nail over the label.

“Jude…”

“I’m afraid.” He sets the bottle aside. “I’m just afraid. For him. For Lennon. To even be thinking…”

“Tell me about Lennon,” I say.

He reaches for his Ale-8 again and then stops and folds his hands in his lap instead. “It’s not as if he’s ever done anything or I suspect he has or anything like that. Just things that…worry me.”

“Spit it out, Jude.”

“Okay, so…For example, horror movies. Say a new one comes out, one of those gory ones, and our friends want to go see it. Lennon won’t. Absolutely won’t. He avoids movies like that, games like that, books like that. But sometimes I’ve caught him watching, online or whatever, and he laughs it off, says he’s trying to build up a tolerance. But…”

“You think he avoids them because he likes them more than he should.”

Jude walks to the window and looks out. “I’m reading too much into it. I do that. An idea gets in my head, and I can’t get it out.”

I remember how Lennon stared at One-Eye strung up in the tree. I remember the look on his face, the one I mistook for shock. He’d been unable to pull his gaze away until I did it, and then he flushed, embarrassed. Not embarrassed at his shock. Embarrassed to need his gaze pulled away.

I also remember when I told Jude how Lennon had reacted. How Jude tensed, the reaction seeming odd.

“Your brother has a fascination with violence,” I say. “He’s afraid of what it makes him think. He—”

“Can we drop this now?” He turns, still at the window. “I’ve put the possibility out there. I feel like I’m betraying my brother by even suggesting it. This is a guy who’s never even been in a fistfight. I have. I’m the one with a temper. Lennon isn’t like that. At all.”

“Okay. But we need to discuss—”

“No. I put it out there. I warned you. That’s enough.”

He pulls his keys from his pocket and strides across the room, saying, “This was a mistake. I’m sorry.” He yanks open the door. “The room’s paid for. Stay as long as you want. Just lock up behind me.”