3.

3.

I lean back against the booth’s thin leather cushions and pull my hands away from the journal, staring for a moment at Gavin’s elegant script. The words themselves seem to shiver and twitch across the page.

I look up at Gavin, who’s nonchalantly devouring the stack of blueberry pancakes he ordered while I was reading.

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

Fortunately, Gavin speaks for both of us, after swallowing a forkful of syrup-drenched pancakes. “That whole thing was horrible, and I feel awful that it took a tragedy like that to sober me up. But after everything died down, when I finally dried out . . . I knew things had to change. I haven’t had a drink since.”

I reach toward the journal but don’t touch its pages. It’s as if I’m afraid of something happening to me if I touch it, which is ridiculous. It’s only a journal. Paper bound by a leather cover.

That’s all.

“You wrote this. After it happened?”

He reaches for his glass of orange juice, compliments of the waitress, takes a sip and says, “A week after I threw my booze out, I knew I had to write it. So I did.”

My throat feels dry and tight, my forehead warm for some reason. “Why? For self-therapy? Closure? You turned what happened into a story so you could . . . deal with it? Get it out of your system?”

Gavin lays his fork and knife down and folds his hands. “What do you think? Better yet, what do you believe?”

I look into his eyes, a faint sense of vertigo stealing over me. “That you made most of this up. Gleaned it from whatever you knew about Emma’s situation before the incident and from whatever you learned from the news and Fitzy and Father Ward afterward. Except . . . ”

He raises an eyebrow. “Except?”

I release a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “Except a lot of those details—Bassler House, Dan Pital’s class ring, how John tried to rape Emma—we didn’t release to the press, to anyone. I’d only been Sheriff for a few months. County Sheriff Mitch Rhodes took point, handled the PR, keeping a tight lid on everything, especially the more shocking details, the details in your story. And . . . ”

“And?”

“The body. Daniel Pital’s body.” I comb my hair with my fingers. “Holy Mother of God, Gavin. Emma literally hasn’t said ONE word about what happened to Dan’s body. Is . . . is this . . . can it be true?”

Gavin sighs deeply, picks up his knife and fork but doesn’t begin eating right away. “Something happened to me about five years ago. It ended my writing career but it changed me, too. Changed me inside, in my head. And that’s why I started drinking so much, even as I somehow managed to earn my teaching certificate and land a job back here. Somehow, deep inside, I knew if I sobered up, started writing sober . . . ”

He points at the journal with his knife. “Somehow, I knew I’d eventually start writing stories like that. Stories with truth in them.”

Feeling a little dizzy, maybe even feverish, I shake my head. “I don’t understand. The truth of what?”

“Things.” He shrugs and says, “Read the next story, about what happened to me five years ago, because when I finished Emma’s story and realized what was happening to me, I wrote about that too, trying to sort things out.”

I stare at the book, a chill creeping down my spine. “You mean . . . there are more stories in here? Written by you?”

Cutting a hunk out of his pancakes, he says, “More stories, yes. Written by me?”

He stuffs a forkful into his mouth, chews thoughtfully, then whispers, “Honestly? I’m not sure . . . ”