Dylan avoided her for those three days after the prom because she’d scared the hell out of him. She’d given herself to him so completely and so freely, he’d lost his damn heart to her that night. If he saw her before he left, he wouldn’t have left her. And he had to go. He had to get out from under his parents’ expectations and demands, the plan they’d mapped out for his life without his consent or happiness in mind. Jessie had paid the price for his choices. Some people believed Jessie left town brokenhearted over him. Others told stories he didn’t want to think about. Rumors abounded, but the circumstantial evidence all pointed to one thing. Buddy killed her. He wanted the facts from Brian, because without Buddy only Brian knew the truth. At least, Dylan hoped he knew what really happened.
“What did Buddy do to Jessie, Brian?” He didn’t want to push too hard. Brian was drunk and sunk deep in a mire of misery.
“Well now. That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Maybe the old man buried her in the woods, or dumped her in the quarry lake. Maybe he put her in the foundation of one of the houses, buried her under a mound of cement, and smoothed it out with no one the wiser. Maybe . . .”
“Stop it.” Dylan banged his fist on the table, making the shot glasses jump. “I don’t want to hear what you think happened.” He’d heard enough wild, gruesome speculation from everyone in town. “Tell me what you know.”
“Look at you, wearing the sheriff’s uniform. What the hell does it matter now if anyone knows what happened that night?” Brian slumped in the booth seat, his face a mask of misery.
Fortifying himself with another swig of beer, his eyes locked on Dylan. “What I know? Hell, I don’t know anything. Not for sure. If he did kill her that night, then I hope he’s burning in hell and she was the welcoming committee.” Brian shook his head and took another swallow of beer.
Everything stopped. Dylan couldn’t breathe, his chest so tight his heart stopped beating. If Brian wasn’t sure she died, then . . . No. He couldn’t let himself think the impossible. Everything pointed to her death. He couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere.
“She probably had a beeline straight to heaven. Did you know he’d pick a fight with her just to see if she’d fire and flash, or if she’d back down?”
“I never knew Jessie to back down from anything.” Dylan remembered the girl he knew as a child and loved one night. The kind of person who planted her feet and met any challenge head on. Jessie fought hard for herself and what she wanted and put her whole heart into everything she did. Like loving him.
“That’s just it. Something came into his eyes when he went after her. Like he hoped, just once, she’d back down. Let him win. Oh, he was drunk enough to delude himself into thinking he won in the end, but deep down, he knew.”
“What happened that night?”
“Who the hell knows?” Brian took another swallow of beer and focused on a crack in the table. “We came home from a jobsite. He’d worked her hard that day. I think she framed an entire room. By herself, no less. He just kept picking at her. Wouldn’t let up.”
Brian took a swallow and lost himself staring at the table. “She was in the kitchen, scrounging for something to eat. The old man knocked the cupboard door shut, flipped her around, and slammed her up against the wall with his forearm braced across her throat. He got right in her face and her eyes were huge. And then she did something odd.”
“What?”
“She smiled.”
Dylan studied Brian, noting the sheen in his eyes that had nothing to do with the booze.
“She’d been miserable since the day you left. I don’t know what happened between you two at the prom, but I know something changed about her. When she realized you were gone for good, she barely spoke. That night, when the old man went after her, she smiled, like she felt as if for once she deserved it, welcomed it. He backhanded that smile right off her face. Split her lip. I can still see the spurt of blood and the trail it left down her chin.”
Dylan winced. He didn’t want to think about what she’d endured that night, or all the other nights. What he hadn’t known then about her situation, he sure as hell knew now. Brian confirmed all his worst fears. She’d borne the brunt of her father’s anger, and Brian witnessed it all.
“What did you do?” Anger and sadness choked off his words.
Brian drained the rest of his beer. He stared down at the scratch on the table for a long minute. Tears filled his eyes. “Nothing I could do. If I said anything, tried to stop him, he only hit her harder. More. When we were young, I tried, but he’d shove me out the door and lock me out and he’d beat the hell out of her every time I screamed for him to stop.” Brian went quiet, lost in the past. “Jessie would yell for me to go, stay out of it. Run, so he didn’t turn on me too.