Sasha nodded. “That’s totally possible.”
“David got a crush on Kyle in a single night?” Allie asked in disbelief.
“Well, you fell for David that fast.” Julian’s eyes glinted in the sun. “I could tell, and Sasha could, too. You were all over him.”
Allie flushed, feeling shamed. “That’s hardly likely.”
Julian raked back his hair. “I knew David better than you, Allie. Sasha and I both did.”
“I understood him,” Allie said, though she couldn’t be sure how much she truly understood about David, how much she remembered, and how much she projected. She hadn’t known he was gay, but then, they hadn’t, either.
“There’s another possibility.” Sasha opened her palms, the cigarette between her slim fingers. “Maybe David left the gun loaded by accident. That’s possible, too.”
“This is bullshit.” Allie couldn’t stand to hear them blame David, a convenient excuse now that he was dead. “I don’t believe you. I think you loaded the gun, Julian. Or you, Sasha. Or you did it together—”
“Whoa.” Julian’s eyes flared open. He recoiled, frowning. “Are you seriously accusing me of murder? I shouldn’t even dignify that with a response, but just so we’re clear, once again, I didn’t load the gun, either intentionally or unintentionally.”
Sasha glowered, an icy blue stare. “Allie, come on, I didn’t load the gun, either. I told you. We didn’t kill Kyle. How can you even say that?”
“Julian, you were jealous of him, and, Sasha, you were mad because he made a fool of you.”
“He didn’t make a fool of me,” Sasha interrupted. “I would never kill anybody, and neither would Julian. We’re not the kind of people who kill people, Allie. Any more than you are. Did you load the gun?”
“No, of course not.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You know I am. I was afraid of the gun. It scared me.”
“Of course it did.” Sasha snickered. “You were afraid of the big scary gun because you’re so sweet and nice.”
“And you were excited by the gun,” Allie shot back, angry.
“You’re damn right I was! You wanna know why? Because it was fucking exciting!” Sasha raised her voice. “That’s why I don’t live here anymore. That’s why I left Wake Forest. All the girls were from suburbs like Bakerton. Their lives were small and so were their minds. Like yours, Allie.”
“Look, there’s no need for that.” Allie tried to get back on track. “I just want to know what happened.”
“We can’t know, it’s too late.” Julian puckered his lower lip. “Kyle and David are dead. Allie, you need to let it go.”
“Let it go? Come on. If you didn’t load the gun, don’t you wonder who did?”
“I wondered in high school,” Julian answered coolly. “But not anymore.”
“Why? What stopped you from wondering?”
“Time. Maturity.” Julian shook his head. “I can’t even remember what happened that night, for sure. My memory’s in bits and pieces. It skips, which is typical after something that upsetting. It’s called ‘traumatic memory,’ I read about it online. The brain remembers some things but forgets others. The latest thinking is that it forgets things in order to remember others.”
“Wow.” Sasha nodded, impressed. “Traumatic memory. I bet that’s true because there’s a lot I don’t remember from that night.”
Allie suppressed an eye roll. “Sasha, how do you know that you don’t remember things, if you don’t remember things? I remember a lot.”
“I don’t,” Julian interjected. “Anyway, traumatic memory is different for everyone. I read that, too. Everyone’s brain chemistry is different. Like, I still can’t remember who handed Kyle the gun.”
“Really?” Allie asked, skeptical. “You did, Julian. You handed Kyle the gun.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Julian shook his head again. “I remember David did.”
Sasha nodded. “I remember David handing him the gun, too.”
“No, Julian did, and David was with me.” Allie felt like they were gaslighting her. “Julian, you had the gun. The gun was your thing, not David’s.”
Sasha shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I can’t swear to anything that happened that night. It has to be because of traumatic memory, and I was drunk. So were you, Allie. You really went for it. You were totally out of it.”
“She’s right, Allie.” Julian frowned. “I was, too. I remember feeling my eyes were blurry, and it was so dark—”
“And raining,” Sasha interrupted.
“Yes, pouring.” Julian looked over at Sasha. “See? I totally forgot that.”
But Allie hadn’t forgotten. She’d been wasted that night, but still. “The weather isn’t the point.”
Julian sighed. “Look. Allie, I know you’re upset, and I used to be, too. It’s awful what happened. It’s a tragedy, for sure. But I can’t explain what happened. I don’t know, and neither does Sasha. You have to be satisfied with that. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Allie recoiled. “It does to me, and I bet it does to Kyle’s mother. Don’t you think she’s still grieving? Don’t you think she’d want to know that Kyle thought it was a prank?” She turned to Sasha. “Sasha, what about you? Kyle played Russian Roulette for you. Don’t you feel guilty?”
“I’m not why he did it, Allie. His father is why.” Sasha dropped the cigarette butt and ground it out with her Louboutin. “And if you ask me, I personally think Kyle hoped the gun was loaded. He was depressed. His mother said so in the newspaper. He wanted to kill himself.”
“I don’t think that,” Allie shot back.
“I do.” Sasha frowned.
Julian interjected again, “We’ll never know. We can’t know the answer to that.”
“Oh, come on.” Allie raised her voice. “David didn’t think Kyle wanted to kill himself.”
“How do you know?” Julian asked, blinking.
“He was upset that night. Did you ever talk to him about Kyle?”
“I told you, no.”
“Then why do you think David committed suicide?”
“Hello, were we at the same funeral?” Julian snorted. “David was a closeted gay man with a pregnant wife. He never became a novelist like that author he idolized. And by the way, did you know that his idol committed suicide, too? They come in clusters.”
Sasha looked over. “You mean he was triggered.”
Julian nodded. “Be realistic, Allie. What happened twenty years ago has nothing to do with David’s suicide.”
“Then how did David kill himself? Do you know? I’ll bet he shot himself.”
Julian pursed his lips. “I heard he did, but that doesn’t prove anything.”
“I think it does.” Allie felt horrified and validated, at once. “He shot himself, twenty years to the day later. I’m sure he was haunted by what we did. I wonder if he told his wife or his boyfriend. He was sensitive.”
“My mother used to say that.” Julian laughed.
Sasha chuckled. “Julian, we’re not sensitive enough.” She waved her hand airily and knocked over her handbag, which tumbled off the bench, spilling makeup, cigarettes, and a pill bottle. “Oh, shit.” She jumped off the bench and collected the pills, with a label that read XANAX. Julian helped her, and Sasha set her purse back on the bench. “Thanks, Julian.”
“No worries.” Julian smiled.
Allie tried to pick up where she’d left off, but she was distracted. She flashed back to the night Kyle died. She heard the gunshot. She saw Kyle falling over. She smelled the blood. She remembered the four of them running away, panic-stricken except for Julian. “Julian, do you remember that afterward, you asked David to throw away the bottles?”
“No.”
“Did you ever ask him if he did?”
“No.”
“What did you do with your flashlight?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You thought
to clean up, isn’t that surprising?”
“No, I’m good in an emergency.” Julian smiled slyly. “That’s why I make the big bucks.”
Allie let it go, turning to Sasha. “Sasha, you ran. Why?”
“I was a runner. It seemed obvious.”
“Did you decide, right then? Had you planned it?”
“No, and I didn’t decide, I reacted.” Sasha’s eyes went flinty, her mascaraed lashes touching. “Is this an interrogation? Are you playing lawyer?”
“Sorry.” Allie dialed it back. She didn’t know what to think. Either they were lying or she was dead wrong. She couldn’t push it or they would leave. She had no one else she could talk to about Kyle. “Let’s start over a second. Assume none of us loaded the gun, even David, and we’ll never know who did. What about Kyle’s mother? Where does that leave her?”
“I don’t know.” Julian shook his head. “I don’t know her. Do you?”
“No, but I wish I could help her. If we wanted, we could tell her that Kyle didn’t really commit suicide. That we were there—”
“Are you insane?” Julian interrupted. “Are you saying you’re going to tell her?”
“No, I’m not, but I think about her. She was one of the first people I looked up on Facebook. She keeps her privacy settings high, but her profile picture used to be an old yellow Lab. I think it was the dog Kyle had with him that night. I used to stare at the dog picture and feel so ashamed. Can you imagine how awful she feels to have lost her son? I can.”
“Because of what happened to your mom, after your sister died?”
“That’s only partly why,” Allie answered, caught off-balance. So Julian knew. Sasha probably did, too. Allie’s mother had never fully recovered from her depression and had been in and out of the hospital until she died of pancreatic cancer, when Allie was in college.
“Allie, it wouldn’t help Kyle’s mother to know that he played a prank that went wrong.” Julian pursed his lips again. “You wish you could alleviate your guilt, but it’s not right to do that to Kyle’s mother. She’s suffered enough. Be real. You’re being selfish.”
“I’m not saying I would tell her, but it’s the truth.” Allie felt confused and frustrated. She couldn’t let it go, not after so long. “We’ve kept the truth a secret for twenty years. It’s made me sick to my stomach. Literally. There have to be options.”
“Correction. We don’t know the truth. We can’t even agree on what happened. We all remember it differently, and that makes sense because we were under the influence.”
“We know some of the truth. We know we were there.” Allie was saying what she’d needed to say for so long. She heard it pouring out of her to two jerks who didn’t care in the least. “What happened to Kyle changed my life. It changed me. I function on the outside, but not inside. I can’t tell anyone, and I can’t go on this way.”
“That’s your problem.” Julian met Allie’s eye, his expression softening. “You have to accept that we’ll never know more. A terrible thing happened to us, but there’s nothing to be done. Move on.”
Sasha nodded. “Allie, he’s right. You’re obsessed. You need to get past it, like us.”
“Allie, I should go.” Julian rose. “I’m late to a meeting. Take care.”
Sasha stood up, smoothing down her elegant skirt. “Bye, Allie. Bye.”
“Goodbye.” Allie turned on her heel, went to her car, and left the parking lot without looking back. She knew they’d talk about her after she was gone, but she didn’t care.
If she hurried, she could make it to the reception.
CHAPTER 52
Sasha Barrow
Sasha watched Allie drive away and began to panic. “Julian, do you think she’d tell Kyle’s mother?”
“No. She’s not gonna do anything.” Julian patted her shoulder, his expression melting like it used to, and Sasha knew he was still crazy about her.
“How do you know that? She said she couldn’t take it anymore. If she tells the mother, the mother could tell the cops.”
“She won’t tell the mother because it would upset her and Allie knows it.” Julian went to his car. “Sash, I’m sorry, I have to go. I’m late.”
“But she’s out of control.”
“Sash, don’t worry.” Julian opened his car door and got inside.
“How can I not? She knows everything.”
“What’s happened to you? You used to be so cool. Relax.”
“I can’t!” Sasha felt so anxious, her heart thumping, her pulse racing.
“Sash, even if she went to the police, we’d deny everything. There’s no proof. It’s just her word against ours. Two against one.” Julian closed the door and slid down his window. “Sasha, she’s nothing.”
“She’s not nothing. The cops aren’t nothing.”
“We’re talking the Bakerton Police Department, not Interpol. I know them. Browne sponsors their baseball team.” Julian rested his hand on hers. “Listen, why don’t you stay at my place tonight, instead of a hotel? We can talk it over. Go out to dinner.”
“Maybe I will,” Sasha answered, leaving her hand in place. She knew he’d ask, and Julian was better than the chain hotels out here. She didn’t have family here anymore. Her father had moved to Singapore, and her mother to London. They’d divorced a long time ago, amicably, of course. Everything about her family was amicable. It just wasn’t intimate.
“It’s 981 Cobblestone Trail Road. I’ll call Francie, my farm manager, and she’ll let you in. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” Sasha forced a smile, and Julian reversed out of the space, leaving her feeling panicky. She went to her car, climbed inside, and rummaged in her bag to find her Xanax. She popped one dry and eased back into the driver’s seat. It wouldn’t take long for the pill to work its magic.
She pulled down the visor to check her makeup, frowning at her reflection. Her skin wasn’t as pretty as it used to be, and she knew it wasn’t only from smoking, because every model she knew smoked. She was thirty-five, which was eighty in fashion years. Her crow’s-feet were deeper, and new wrinkles creased her forehead. She thought of what Julian said.
What’s happened to you? You used to be so cool.
Sasha flipped the visor up, realizing that Julian was right. What had happened with Kyle had changed her. She used to party in high school, but never like this. She used to drink, too, but she hadn’t used. She’d had goals, back then.
She thought back, with regret. She’d wanted to be a fashion designer, not a publicist. She’d dreamed of owning a fashion empire, but she didn’t earn enough to support herself, without her trust fund. She jetted from city to city, show to show, and man to man, surrounded by artists, models, and photographers. It looked like a party, but she was getting too old to be a party girl, and she had nothing to fall back on. Her parents disapproved of her lifestyle. She’d never achieved anything near either of them. She hadn’t accomplished anything.
Sasha used to win, but no longer. She’d lost something. She’d lost everything. Her direction, her drive, herself. When Julian had called her about David’s suicide, it had shaken her up. All of the memories had flooded back. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kyle.
The Xanax was kicking in, and Sasha began to feel calmer. She could acknowledge that her life was going nowhere, but it didn’t upset her. Her panic about Allie ebbed away. Sasha would be on her way to Paris tomorrow, beyond anybody’s reach.
She eyed the grassy field through the windshield, watching the leaves moving in the breeze, and the shifting sunlight and shadow on the mowed grass. It was so strange to be in Bakerton again. The Pennsylvania terrain was burned into her brain, the hills and trees just like Brandywine Hunt, in the woods.
Sasha’s thoughts floated on a pharmaceutical cloud, back in time to that Saturday night with Luiz, when they’d had sex, then loaded and unloaded the gun. She’d decided that she definitely didn’t leave a bullet in the gun. She’d become absolutely sure over time. S
he was pretty sure now. She’d run into Luiz last year, and he owned an export business with offices in New York and Rio. The sex had been phenomenal. Again.
Sasha would love to talk to him again. He was even good at phone sex. He’d speak to her in Portuguese. She picked up her phone and scrolled through the names, numbers, and country codes.
She pressed CALL.
CHAPTER 53
Julian Browne
BROWNE LAND MANAGEMENT read the sign, and Julian drove into the parking lot, took the space next to his father’s blue Maserati Quattroporte, and got out of the car. Browne had expanded over the years, taking over the Chester Springs Corporate Center, a modern tan brick complex with a lunchroom, a gym, and a day care center, which had been his father’s idea, since his latest wife had a little girl. The marriage, his father’s fourth, was already on the rocks. Had probably started on the rocks. Julian retained his primacy as the first son, having gotten in on the ground floor, family-wise. He never bothered getting to know his father’s wives because they were like booster rockets that soared in the early stages, then fell back to earth after fulfilling their purpose. To get his father up.
Julian hustled into the entrance, the proverbial spring in his step since he was in love with Sasha all over again, even though he had everything he wanted sexually since he’d moved beyond voyeurism. He could see that what happened with Kyle had changed her. She’d lost her direction and her self-confidence, but he still couldn’t wait to see her later. The whole mess with Kyle hadn’t changed him at all, except for the better.
He entered the building and strode along the air-conditioned hallway past a framed lineup of Browne properties, blueprints, and awards like Best Single-Family Home; Best Architectural House Plan, Condo; Best Architectural House Plan, Townhome; Best Builder Marketing Campaign; Best Builder Direct Mail Piece; and many others except Best Builder, which Toll Brothers won every year, driving his father crazy. One day, Julian hoped Julian Browne Land Management would win.
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