And Henry had found Kennedy’s lipstick in this garage the day Mariana was killed.
21
Henry steps into the room, dropping the empty bag at his feet, fist still clenched at his side.
I let the novel fall into the open desk drawer. “I’m sorry, I—”
He crosses the room in a flash. “Why are you going through my things?” he demands, reaching past me to push the drawer shut.
It slams, and I flinch. Not knowing what to say, I back away. For the first time in my life, I’m actually afraid of my best friend.
“Henry?” a deep voice calls from the doorway. Bram wanders inside, and I feel a whoosh of relief. “Sorry, I sent her in here to grab a—oh, there’s one.” He ambles over, picking up a pen from the holder on the desk. “I can’t seem to find any in my room, and we all know Adam can’t read or write.”
Henry’s eyes narrow as he scrutinizes us. “Aren’t there pens downstairs?”
“Apparently not,” Bram says lightly. “Phil, you ready to write up that grocery list?” He keeps his focus on Henry. “She offered to accompany me to the market. Isn’t that sweet of her?”
Henry remains unamused. “She’s sweet all right. Is it okay if I speak with her in private, please?”
Bram’s eyes flick to mine in an unspoken question.
I nod, letting him know it’s okay. Henry seems to have calmed down in his brother’s presence. Still, I shiver, thinking of the way his temper flipped like a switch.
Bram takes the pen and ambles out of the room, glancing over his shoulder at us before leaving the door open.
“Are you going to tell me what’s actually going on?” Henry asks the moment his brother leaves.
I consider this. All signs point to Henry having a secret relationship with Kennedy. To Henry being the hooded figure with Kennedy moments before she was murdered.
Henry, who looked like he might have done something to me if Bram hadn’t intervened.
But I can’t forget that he’smyHenry, the boy who sat next to me on the school bus every day until he was old enough to drive. The boy who stayed up with me on the phone every night after my mom died. The boy who listened to me cry when my dad went through a breakdown and deleted the home videos because he couldn’t bear hearing his dead wife’s voice on them.
Hasn’t he at least earned the chance to explain?
“I know you asked Bram to pull that fire alarm,” I admit, leaning against his desk. “I know it was you in that school security footage with Kennedy the day she died.” It may’ve been a bluff, but his face falls, confirming everything. “I think you were the boy Lydia was talking about, the one who was secretly dating Kennedy. Maybe secretly because you knew Adam wouldn’t approve. Or maybe there were…other reasons.” Red-hot shame creeps up my neck.
“Datingher?” Henry shakes his head. “Hayden, no. I told you last week, none of us were dating Kennedy.”
“But you knew something, didn’t you? About why she was onthe property like Lydia said.”
“Because she was stalking Bram!” Henry pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I couldn’t exactly tell anyone—especially not the cops—that my brother wanted to get rid of that girl. That he had a motive for killing her!”
He’s right about that. Telling the cops that Bram wanted Kennedy out of his life would’ve been detrimental. “So what happened?” I ask, not sure I’m ready for the answer. “You were trying to help Bram? You had him set off the fire alarm so you could confront Kennedy in the woods, and then…” I don’t finish the thought, that something happened there in the woods, something that left Kennedy lying on the forest floor with blood seeping from a wound in her head.
“I was trying to help Bram, yes,” Henry says, taking a seat on his desk chair, “but it was more complicated than whatever you’re thinking. It was about more than asking her to leave Bram alone.” He proceeds to tell me about a tutoring fiasco involving Kennedy. About how obsessed she sounded in Bram’s room. About finding Kennedy’s lipstick in the garage the day Mariana died.
It tracks with Bram’s version of events—at least up until the lipstick.
“I thought,” Henry continues, “that Kennedy might’ve been there in the garage the day Mariana died. I tried talking to her at school, but she refused. She didn’t want to talk or even be seen with me. She threatened to call for help if I so much as got near her. I tried getting her number off Bram’s phone, maybe to poseas him in order to get her to meet me. But he must’ve deleted all traces of her.
“That’s when I came up with the plan to set off the emergency alarm. While everyone was forced out of the school to the fields, too distracted to notice the two of us, I thought it would be my only chance. I considered pulling her off to the side yard, hoping that if she did protest, the alarm would drown out the sound of her voice.” Red streaks up the sides of his neck. “It didn’t come to that, though. I was able to trick her into coming with me to the woods. All I had to do was tell her that Bram was waiting for her. She seemed confused at first. Apparently, she’d asked him to meet herafterschool. On the way there, she pulled out her phone, like she didn’t quite believe me. I knew why. I’d been trying so hard to talk to her while Bram had been firm that he never wanted to speak to her again. In the end, though, she agreed to come with me.” Henry pats down his disheveled hair, and seeing him in his pajama bottoms, his sea green eyes wide, I don’t have to wonder why Kennedy trusted him.
“I only planned on confronting her,” Henry says, rubbing at his face. “I wanted to catch her off guard, just to find out if my theory held any weight. That day she came over for math tutoring and I overheard her conversation with Bram, she didn’t sound…right. But I had no idea if not beingrightmeant she was capable of killing a girl.”
He inhales, turning away from me to pace the room. “Well, she was furious when I asked if she’d been in the garage the day Mariana died. She denied it, even after I showed her the lipstick.” Henryfrowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “She threatened to leave, since Bram clearly wasn’t there in the woods. So I acted indifferent, saying the cops could just test it for her DNA. And that’s when she panicked and demanded I give her the lipstick.” His speech comes faster now, breathier. “I told her I would, in exchange for the truth. I said I was sure Bram would be with her now, as long as she confessed. That after the hell she put him and our family through the past year, she owed it to him.” He adjusts his glasses. “It didn’t take long for her to cave. She started crying, begging me not to tell anyone that on the day Mariana died, she’d tampered with a wire in Mariana’s engine while we were out of the shop and then lured Bram away into the woods.”
My breath hitches. Kennedy had murdered Mariana Sanchez. And Henry found out.
