Page 68 of No Place Left to Hide

“Bullshit, and you know it. I was trying to rein you in. Like fucking always.” She turns her back on me, and the boat starts moving again, much slower this time. She wheels us around until the shore is to our left and we’re headed back toward the lake house. She’s breathing heavy. I watch her shoulders rise and fall like she’s running a marathon.

I hobble up to my knees, still holding my arm to my chest, and glance back at Jena. Remarkably, she’s still in the same place—face down on the bench seat. Her braids have spilled across her face, but as I watch, she groans and rolls over.

“No more fighting,” she slurs. “Can’t we all just…?”

She doesn’t finish her sentence; it descends into mumbles as she throws her arm over her head.

“I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t know you were so reckless,” Claire continues. I glare at her. “It’s a miracle you’ve lived this long. I can’t believe you’d drink and take the boat out like this. What if you hit a sandbar? Or someone else’s dock?”

My hand balls into a fist. “Yeah, except I didn’t.”

“By sheer luck! Seriously, Brooke, what the fuck were you thinking? You have to be so fucking dramatic about everything.Claire’s the worst. I have no choice but to endanger everyone to escape her.Like, what the hell? You’re absolutely out of your fucking mind. No wonder nobody likes you.”

“Shut the fuck up, Claire.”

I can see the pinpricks of our deck lights ahead. We’re only a few minutes from the lake house but I might not make it. I’m one comment away from jumping over the side of this boat and swimming to freedom. Anything to escape her high-pitched bitchfest.

“No wonder you had to go to such great lengths to get rid of me. How pathetic is it that you have to ruin other people in order to get ahead? You Goodwins are all the same.”

“Claire. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“Or what?”

The wind blows the hair from my face. Claire glances at me over her shoulder, both hands locked on the wheel. She stands so tall inmyfucking boat, like she’s basking in the glow of coming out on top—again. And all I want to do is even the score.

So I do.

The fist of my good hand connects with her cheekbone, and her head snaps back. She screams and stumbles sideways into the captain’s chair, and I take control of the wheel again.

Claire is not in charge here. She doesn’t win tonight. I do.

She clutches her face with both hands. “You punched me!? You psycho bitch!”

“Just returning the favor. Now we have matching black eyes.”

Claire reaches for the wheel again, and I lock my arm around hers, meeting her glare from an inch away. I open my mouth to call her everyname I can think of, but her glare shifts from me, to the front of the boat, and her eyes go wide.

Before I can turn to look, the boat jerks to a fiberglass-crunching stop.

The next thing I know, I’m in the water.

Twenty-Six

Now

Nobody was supposed to get hurt,” Jena shouts. “I only wanted you to tell the truth!”

“The truth?” I yell back. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped you on the ass!”

“The Hecks have suffered enough! They deserve to know what really happened!”

If I needed any more proof that my best friend is part of this whole fucked-up scheme, hearing her echo the words that asshole in the mask said to me,whiletrying to kill me, is the nail in her coffin.

A tornado of anger, betrayal, hurt, and sadness whips through me until I ache. Tears spring to my eyes and I fight them back.

When I don’t say anything, she keeps talking. “I hoped you’d tell the truth right after it happened, but you didn’t. Instead your dad shows up at the hospital and tells me not to worry because he’s not pressing charges—especially since I’m a friend of the family and I alwayshave your back. Before I even know what’s happening, I’m signing astatement saying you were already home by the time the boat crashed. But that’s crazy, right? You wouldn’t do that. No way would my best friend allow me to take the fall for a crash I had nothing to do with.

“So I figured your dad must’ve had some kind of plan for you to come clean with the least amount of public backlash, but that didn’t happen either. Your entire family doubled down on the ‘accident’ and how tragic it was and how sorry you all were that this happened on your property. And then we thought you’d have to fess up once the special investigation revealed what really happened, but they ruled it an accident too. By then, it was clear you were never going to tell the truth.”

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