“I didn’t sleep with her.”
Rachel scowled. “Lucas, you spent the entire night with her. She told everyone so.”
“She lied.”
Rachel tugged at her hand. “Let go of me.”
“No. Sit still.”
“Lizzie told everyone you and she spent the night together. She showed me the charm you gave her.”
Now it was Lucas’s turn to scowl in confusion.
“What charm?”
“A gold heart—exactly like the one you gave me,” Rachel whispered, looking away.
After a moment of silence, Lucas cleared his throat. “Okay, let’s start over. What the hell are you talking about?”
Still avoiding looking at him, her hand lying limply in his, Rachel answered. “As you know, Roger’s body was held by the coroner for almost a week after he was found dead, while they investigated whether he’d died of accidental causes or...or something else. It wasn’t until two days afterward that we could hold the funeral. My mother was in terrible shape. The rumors were already starting to fly that you’d had something to do with my brother’s death. Sam was loudly demanding an investigation, and my mother said she’d always known the McBrides would destroy what was left of our family. I couldn’t tell anyone I’d been seeing you, because I knew they would get hysterical and forbid me to ever have anything to do with you again.”
“That was why I didn’t call you during those early days. I knew your family needed you and that you couldn’t be with me.”
She stared at her hand in his. “Did you leave a bouquet of red roses at our door on the day of Roger’s funeral? They were addressed to me and they had no signature. My family assumed they were from my classmates. I thought maybe they were from you.”
“They were.”
She nodded as he confirmed her suspicions. “They were beautiful. They helped me get through that day, because I knew you were thinking of me, even though we couldn’t be together. I thought that once everything had settled down, after Chief Packer had proven to everyone’s satisfaction that you’d had nothing to do with Roger’s death, you and I could start seeing each other openly at last. I knew Mother wouldn’t like it...and I knew Sam would hate it, but I didn’t care about him. I just wanted to be with you.”
“But things didn’t settle down,” Lucas said grimly. “Packer was convinced I’d pushed Roger off that bluff. He was trying everything he could to prove it, even though he had no evidence. Sam was running around calling me a murderer, and most of the townspeople believed him, since they’d always suspected I’d come to no good, anyway. Packer hauled me in several times to question me. And every time, I told him I had
no alibi for the night Roger died.”
“Every time you said that, you only increased his suspicions about you. And then Lizzie Carpenter told everyone where you really were that night.”
Rachel had to force her voice through her tight throat as she remembered the devastation she’d felt over Lizzie’s revelation.
“Rachel...”
She swallowed and pressed on. “Lizzie and her mother came to our house the week after the funeral—almost two weeks after Roger died. While my mother cried all over hers, Lizzie and I went into the kitchen to make coffee. Lizzie told me what everyone was saying about you, and then she assured me that she knew you hadn’t had anything to do with Roger’s death. She knew, she said, because you had spent that entire night with her. That was the first time I had heard about it, though she’d already told Chief Packer and several others.”
Rachel had had to listen to Lizzie rave about her “night of passion” with Lucas for nearly half an hour, she’d had to pretend that Lucas meant nothing to her, and that she didn’t care who he’d slept with. It had been the most difficult half hour of her young life.
“And then she showed me the charm,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the painful memories. “Like the one you’d given me. She said you’d given it to her that night—the night you spent with her.”
Lucas’s hand tightened around hers. His voice was low, urgent. “Rachel, she lied. I didn’t give her a charm. And I didn’t spend the night with her. I didn’t even see Lizzie the night Roger died.”
Frowning deeply, Rachel turned her head to look at him, studying his face intently. “You’re saying you really had no alibi that night?”
“No. I drove to Atlanta—alone—and I spent the evening in a bar, drinking with a fake ID. I didn’t get home until well after midnight. I wanted to think about the stuff Roger had told me, and to decide how much of it I should tell you. And I kept wondering whether he really would be able to break us up.”
Rachel’s mind was spinning. “But why did Lizzie say what she did? Did you ask her to lie for you, so you would have an alibi?”
“Of course not. That was all her idea.” He drew a quick, sharp breath, then let it out in a sound of disgust. “Lizzie and I dated for a while in high school. But I never went out with her after I started seeing you. She kept trying to get me back—I don’t know why. Called me all the time, followed me around. She annoyed the hell out of me, to be honest.”
“Did you give her the charm while you were dating?”
“I never gave her a charm. You were the only one...” He stopped abruptly. “Hell.”