Page 32 of Deathmarch

That, at last, had the power to push tears into Allie’s eyes.

Harper watched her. “How come you’re not teaching?”

“Difficult to get a job without experience, and I couldn’t just move back to my parents’ basement until I found a school district that would take a chance on me, like a lot of people do after graduation. I kept waitressing, then I picked up some extra hours by applying at a Halloween pop-up store. When we were packing up on November first, the manager handed me a box of costumes to take out back, to the garbage. Martha Washington, wig and all, was on top. Gave me an idea. I asked the guy if I could have it.”

“And the rest ishistory?”

Allie didn’t smile at the pun.

Harper sat back down and stretched out again, resting his head on the back of the chair, eyes to the ceiling.

She lay down on the bench. She couldn’t sleep, but she could rest. Her brain was mush. She was loopy from exhaustion. She had to be, for asking what she asked next.

“Why did you break up with me?”

As he turned his head toward her, his eyes regained their previous intensity. “You know that new pickup your father skipped town in?” He waited, as if unsure whether or not he wanted to finish. Then he did. “He had me steal it for him.”

She sat up. “What?”

“When I was on the phone with you, I had Captain Bing standing on one side of me and my mother on the other.” Harper groaned. “Someone saw me take the truck. The captain came to question me. With my parents glaring at me, I told him everything. The guy I stole from turned out to be a friend of my father’s. He didn’t press charges. They made me a deal. I’d never go around to your house again, work off the price of the truck in one of the mushroom houses the guy owned, and I wouldn’t go to jail. I mean, no pressure. Captain Bing had the cuffs out, in his hand.”

Allie couldn’t string enough coherent thoughts together to form a sentence. She pictured Harper, his parents, the police captain. Not at all how she’d imagined the other end of the line back then.

“I hated you for that phone call. I hated you for a long time.”

“I don’t blame you.” Harper closed his eyes for a second before his gaze unerringly snapped back to her again. “I was going to explain everything, but they were all watching me. Took me three days before I could sneak over to see you. The house was empty.”

She pictured that too, him driving up, knocking on the door. She’d been halfway across the state by then.

“You straightened yourself out.” She tried to process the idea of this heavily revised past.

“I went to college too. I didn’t want to stay the same delinquent asshole anymore.”

“So, you’re a legit policeman now. Believe in the law and all that. No bullshit?”

“None.”

“You’re not framing me.”

“Nothing would make me happier than if you were cleared.”

A heavy silence settled between them, and then it stretched and stretched.

Allie lay back down and stared at the ceiling. She wished they hadn’t had this talk. She didn’t want to not hate him. He’d arrested her. She wished she’d never come back to Broslin. Wished that at least she could sleep so she wouldn’t be in a coma at the bail hearing later.

“I’m not going to be able to post bail.” She thought out loud. “Not for a murder charge.” That had to run to tens of thousands of dollars.

Her father’s bail usually hadn’t amounted to much—mostly, he was a petty criminal. His drinking buddies would pool resources and set up something with one of the bail bond places in Philly.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Harper said. “I’ll take care of it.”

She turned her head to stare at him. “Why would you?”

“We used to be friends.”

“A long time ago.”

“I didn’t forget.” The corners of his lips tipped up. “You asked me to teach you how to kiss.”