Page 61 of Final Drive

The keys are already in my fist before I make it downstairs.

I tell myself I’m taking the usual loop.

That’s bullshit, and I know it before I clear the driveway.

Tyler’s map sits in the back of my head as I ride the long way around campus. Nothing’s open and almost nobody’s out. I could turn toward the lake. Take the road behind the boathouse. Ride until the anger burns itself out and go home before Eli wakes up.

Instead I turn toward the athletic complex.

The stadium lot by the football fields is mostly empty at this hour. I cut the engine near the entrance, well away from the cluster Tyler showed me, and sit there watching moths work themselves half to death against the security lights.

For five minutes, nothing happens.

Then the interior light comes on inside a car at the far end of the lot, backed into the shadow of the trees.

Two people. Close together.

I don’t move.

The passenger door opens and somebody gets out and stretches. Big through the shoulders. He goes around to the driver’s side and leans in the window, and even from here the kiss goes on long enough to tell me this isn’t the first one.

He steps back and the car pulls out.

As it passes under a light, I get the driver’s face.

Kinsley Adams.

I stay where I am.

The man watches her go, then turns toward a G-Wagon parked two spaces down. He crosses under the security light, and there’s no mistaking him.

Quinton Whitmore.

Every part of me wants to start the bike.

Ride across the lot. Block him in. Get off and find out whether he still looks so fucking pleased with himself when somebody his own size puts hands on him.

I don’t.

I gave Eli twenty-four hours.

Quinton gets into the G-Wagon and drives away without ever looking in my direction. Neither of them has any idea I was here.

I pull out my phone.

Jackson: Saw Quinton and Kinsley at the football fields just now. Kissing.

Tyler answers inside ten seconds, which tells me he never went to bed.

Tyler: You’re sure it was them?

Jackson: Saw both their faces.

Tyler: Good. That puts them together in person. Corroborates the messages.

Jackson: What’s the play?

The dots go for a while.