I can’t help but wonder if my father was there. If maybe this crime was part of what led to him ratting. If he had anything to do with it.
If Cayde had been there, watching them murder the man responsible for his brother’s death.
“It just keeps getting worse,” I mutter, “the farther down the rabbit hole we go.”
“This town is seriously fucked up,” Mia agrees. “It’s so much worse than we thought.”
“It really is. I—”
I stop dead as I turn the pile over, revealing a newspaper dated much more recently. For a brief second, I think I might actually throw up.
Hit and Run Claims Life of Blackmoor Academy Senior.
The photo next to the article is of a very pretty girl with dark hair and wide blue eyes, smirking at the camera as if she knows something the photographer doesn’t. A girl who looks very familiar.
It only takes me a second to place her.
It’s the girl from the photo that fell out of Jaxon’s wallet.
His ex-girlfriend.
And then I see her name, in bold print beneath the picture.
Natalie Browning.
My stomach flips, and I think I might actually puke up all of the coffee I drank in the past hour.
“What’s wrong?” Mia looks at me, her face full of worry. “What did you see?”
I push the article towards her. “This girl. She has my father’s last name.”
Mia looks down at it and then back up at me, confused. “Wait—your last name is Saint.”
“Yeah.”
“So—your dad’s name isn’t? Wasn’t?”
“My parents weren’t married when I was born. So they could put whatever name on the birth certificate. My mom’s last name is Saint, and they agreed to use it because it sounded cooler than Browning.” I laugh, but it comes out choked. “My mom was a lot more rebellious back then. When she was young and in love with my dad, they were just rebels living as part of a biker gang, not actual adults trying to raise a kid and keep the lights on and suck up to the families. She never did change her name, even after they got married, and my name was always Saint. I was always glad, too, because Browning was such a boring name.”
“Athena Saint does sound a lot better than Athena Browning,” Mia agrees. “But—” she frowns, her mouth twisting as she looks down at the article. “It’s not that rare of a name, Athena. Surely there’s another Browning family—”
“In Blackmoor?” I shake my head. “And besides, look at her.” I jab my finger at the photo. “Mia, she looks just like me.”
My chest clenches as I think suddenly of all the times Jaxon has touched me, all the times he’s kissed me, his mouth all over my body out on the cliffside, between my legs at the party. Him pushing me up against his door, his face almost desperate as he looked at me, wanting me, rejecting me anyway.
He’d said it was all about the town, but suddenly I have a feeling it’s something else too. That he wants me because I remind him of a woman he once loved and doesn’t want me all at the same time, for the same reason. That he feels guilty.
I’d thought she’d just broken up with him. Moved away, maybe. That they’d been high school sweethearts who broke up, first love and first heartbreak and all of that.
But apparently, it’s so much worse.
She didn’t leave him. Shedied.
I turn the newspaper back towards me, studying the picture of the crash. It’s dark and grainy, but the car somehow looks familiar to me.
“Apparently, no one ever found out who hit her,” Mia says. “It was just a hit and run. Tragic.”
“Just a hit and run?” I frown. “Do you really think it was an accident?”