“If you’d just explain to the police what happened—”
His head wagged stubbornly back and forth, hands buried in his hair again. “I can’t. This is the only way. You have to help me, Rose. No one can know.”
She tore her eyes away from Justin’s unmoving body to look at her friend. His skin was pale in the light of the streetlamps, his eyes wide. He looked like a trapped animal. “Shawn,” she said quietly, taking a step toward him. “It was an accident.”
He stared at her, clutching the shovel. “Everything will be ruined,” he whispered. “Please.”
She knelt beside Justin, taking his limp hand in hers. It was still warm. She remembered the last time she’d held his hand, right before everything between them fell apart. Had that been only yesterday?
“He was my friend,” she said, her voice hitching. She reached out to Justin’s still face, and gently closed his eyes. “We can’t pretend this didn’t happen, Shawn. You know we can’t.”
Shawn was quiet for a while, and Rose gradually realized that he was crying, his breath coming in quick gasps. “I’m sorry, Rosie,” he said finally, his voice barely more than a broken sob.
All she could do was nod, the lump in her throat bubbling up to her eyes, then spilling over.
He fell to his knees beside her, his shoulders shaking with sobs. “I didn’t mean it,” he repeated over and over, hugging his stomach as if to hold himself together.
She gathered him into her arms, rubbing his back. “I know,” she said, her own face wet with tears. Shawn buried his face in her shoulder, his grief soaking into the thin fabric of her shirt.
Rose’s eyes met Karl’s over Shawn’s head. “Run home,” she said softly. “Call the police.”
His eyes darted to Shawn. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Karl sprinted out of the glow of the headlights, his footsteps fading into the quiet night.
Rose knelt on the sidewalk as Shawn wept, trying not to think of Justin’s broken body on the ground or the Warrens in the high school. By now, the fire, if there was a fire, would have already started. She was too late.
If Justin was right, they were gone, too.
But also—if Justin was right, he was Stan. If Justin was right, he should still be alive.
Yet he was dead.
Did that mean he’d changed things?
If he was dead, did that mean Bill and Veronica had lived?
Or if he was dead, had it all been for nothing?
She didn’t want to answer that question. She didn’t want any of this.
Rose knelt on the pavement until her knees ached and she heard sirens in the distance, holding Justin’s killer until they were both washed in flashing red.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
NOAH
Noah walked to the school, even though he was pretty sure he was wasting his time. He’d mostly agreed to it just to get Justin to stop speaking nonsense. “It can’t be me,” Justin had kept repeating, getting more and more agitated as he moved toward Noah in the street. “I’m not supposed to be there at all. I thought I was, but I was wrong. That was Stan’s mistake. He thought it was supposed to be us, but it’s not. We’re here for something else. It has to be you.”
Noah couldn’t follow most of what Justin was talking about, but he didn’t need to in order to understand what he wanted him to do. He wanted Noah to go to the school to try to save the Warrens from the fire he was convinced was about to happen. It was easy enough for Noah just to say yes.
Besides, maybe Rose was already there. They’d planned to go to the school anyway. Didn’t hurt to check.
Rain was beginning to fall as he approached the school parking lot, the wind picking up to whip the trees that surrounded the lot into a frenzy, sending showers of wet leaves to the ground. Noah flipped up his collar, wishing he’d worn a coat with a hood, and walked around the corner of the building toward the main entrance, where the guidance office was.
Noah caught his breath, his stomach surging into his throat.
Parked in front of the school was an idling car. The headlights were still on.
Smoke swirled in the beams.
Noah crouched down as low as he could as he entered the lobby, pulling his shirt up over his mouth and nose. It looked like the fire had started in the office and was quickly spreading. Noah’s heart pounded as he calculated how long he had until it consumed the whole building.
He pressed deeper into the smoke, coughing into his shirt. Thick black clouds burned his eyes, and tears ran freely down his cheeks. Somewhere in here, Bill and Veronica Warren were in trouble. In Justin’s future, they were going to die.
Unless Noah could save them.
He couldn’t see anything. He edged forward, one arm outstretched, sliding his feet along the floor tiles, navigating by memory. The office should be directly in front of him. Justin had said that’s where their bodies were found, so that’s where Noah needed to look.
His fingers bumped against something unyielding. A wall? His hands explored the surface before him, following the painted cinder blocks over until he found the open door.
“Hello?” Noah called. He tried to edge into the office, but his feet nudged something soft on the floor. He knelt down and rubbed his eyes, blinking in the smoke-clogged space. Veronica Warren lay sprawled on her stomach halfway out the door, one arm stretched in front of her. Bill lay a couple of yards behind her, his feet pointed toward the door.
Veronica must have been trying to drag him out, then given up only to quickly pass out herself. Noah fervently hoped he’d have better luck.
Rolling Veronica onto her back, Noah heaved her up over his shoulder, stumbling slightly under her weight. Picking her up pulled his shirt collar down, leaving his face open to the smoke.
Noah glanced down uneasily at Mr. Warren, unmoving on the floor. He hated leaving him here, but it was either save them one at a time, or not at all.
Holding his breath, Noah carried Veronica toward the doors of the school, praying he’d have enough time to come back.
THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS LATER
Chapter Seventy-Eight
ROSE
Raising her bright-pink World’s Best Grandma mug to her lips, Rose cautiously tasted her coffee, then grimaced. Cold, again.
What she really needed was one of those insulated mugs with a lid—the students were always selling them for one fundraiser or another—but Noah, bursting with pride, had given her this one on the day their first grandchild was born, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t really practical for work. Being principal of Stone Lake High was an ever-lengthening to-do list of visiting classrooms, attending meetings, coordinating with staff, replying to emails, and making calls, and she could never manage more than a couple of sips in between tasks. One cup of coffee could easily last her the entire morning.
Maybe she should look into getting a microwave for her office. But then she’d probably just forget the coffee in there all day, instead of on her desk.
The secretary appeared in the doorway, rapping her knuckles on the doorframe. “Dr. Hanley, the Warrens are here.”
Unbidden, her eyes filled with tears. She ripped a couple of tissues from the box on her desk and dabbed at the corners, blinking furiously. Don’t cry, she ordered herself. It was just a scholarship meeting. That was all. She did a dozen of these at the end of every school year. Nothing to get worked up over.