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RIVER: Okay. Give me five minutes. Where are you?
ME: Stairwell. West wing.
RIVER: omw
I slip my phone back into my bag and wait. Savannah and I were in the bathroom long enough that the school has mostly emptied out. Unless people have to stick around for clubs or extracurriculars, they usually bolt for the doors at the end of the day. There’s always a logjam getting out of the parking lot.
I almost expect River to show up with the other three following him anyway, refusing to be left out. But the trust they showed Linc the night my mom was arrested runs both ways, and when the boy with the broad features and ash-brown hair opens the door at the bottom of the stairs, he’s alone.
His gaze lands on me immediately, and he climbs up to sit on the landing next to me, angling his body so he’s facing me more fully.
“Low? What’s up?”
I mirror his movement, turning toward him so that our knees almost brush. His brows are knitted together, the blue-gray of his eyes looking paler than usual in the light streaming through the windows in the stairwell.
Jesus. Where do I start?
There’s no good way to say it, no way to massage the words to make them less awful.
“Samuel Black,” I murmur, gazing helplessly into River’s eyes.
“Linc’s dad? What about him?”
“What if he did it?”
It takes him a couple seconds to fully process my words, and I watch the small changes in his expression as he goes from confusion to understanding to shock to something like disbelief.
“Are you serious?”
River’s always had a careful way of talking, as if he’s considered every word before it comes out of his mouth, and that’s more true than ever now. He’s staring at me like he can’t quite decide if I’m crazy or brilliant.
I nod, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Savannah said the father of Iris’s baby was an older man. Not someone from school, an older guy.”
“Sure, but that could be—”
“And I found a paternity test in Mr. Black’s desk drawer a couple months ago.”
River’s mouth snaps shut, and for the first time since I blurted out my suspicion, I see him processing it analytically, sorting through the puzzle pieces to see which ones fit.
And a lot of them do.
Too many of them do.
“He had access to my mom’s car. He could’ve planted evidence. And he knew she was out that night—the night Iris died. If she’d been home, she would’ve had an
alibi, but he knew she wouldn’t. And he had access to her apartment. Hell, he could’ve planted evidence there too if he wanted to.”
I hope I’m not speaking too fast for River to pick up the movement of my lips, but I can’t slow down. My entire body is revving like an engine, poised for action even though I have no idea what to do.
“Fuck.” He leans back slightly, and I lose his storm cloud eyes for a second as he gazes down the steps ahead of us, chewing on his lip. “Jesus fuck.”
When he looks back up at me, I suck in a breath.
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s nothing. But I had to tell someone.”
“No, yeah.” He shakes his head and then nods, and I can’t quite tell what he’s agreeing to or disagreeing with—or if he’s talking to himself.
Then something hardens in his gray eyes, and he moves to stand. “We need to tell Linc.”
