Page 16 of We Are All Liars Here

“Oh I wouldn’t dare!” He snaps back at her. “Who could possibly put more pressure on poor drunk Billie? That girls gets an inconvenient cold breeze and she’s knee deep in bottles to cope.”

“Leave her out of this,” Kate warns darkly.

“I’m not saying she knows that she knows something! She works at the bar, lives in the trailer park—she will know something if she could only snap the hell out of her own self-pity for a damn second!”

Kate’s quiet in her consideration. Lips pinched shut, eyes screwed into slits. And her mind is working.

But Trevor is too heated up.

With a scoff, he shakes his head. Mumbling, he adds, “What you two see in that girl boggles my mind. Protect poor precious Billie at all costs, right?”

Dark eyes flick up at him from beneath long lashes. Kate’s warning glare.

It’s enough to silence him.

Still, Kate gives an almost answer, “You didn’t know her back then. We did.That girl,” she adds, “would take a bullet for me. For Preston. For anyone who’searnedher love. You don’t know her, Trev.”

Again, he just scoffs. But this scoff sounds oddly like “beer flavored nipples”.

Kate ignores his comment and turns to look out the curved edge of the window. “I need to tell her.”

Trevor’s eyes flutter in what should be a rapid blink but instead looks like he’s about to have a stroke. “What?”

Kate drops her gaze to the carpet. Again, her hands find each other on her lap and fingers entwine. A nervous habit. “Tell Billie about what we did to Cletus—about the blackmail.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” he spits.

“Because maybe it’ll get her to think. Maybe she’ll remember she overheard someone at the bar, someone’s talk about a deal they have with Cletus, or that he’s blackmailing a Rich Hill guy. Anything she remembers, anything at all, can be how we find the person hunting us. Blood Hood.”

Of all she said, Trevor frowns at one thing. “Blood Hood…?”

Defeated, she shrugs. “That’s what Billie called him. Blood Hood is… thiscopycat.” She shakes her head with a huff. “Look, it hardly matters what we call this guy. Billie can help us—”

“Don’t tell her.”

Kate looks up at him.

“We know she can keep the secret,” Trevor adds, as if to appease Kate’s defenses of Billie, but then, “She’s still a drunk, and I didn’t sign up to kill someone to save your future, only for word to get out about it. That wasn’t the deal we had. What we did, that’s murder, Kate.”

Silence is the answer she gives.

Defeat is climbing into the muscles of her shoulders, weighing them down. She slumps against the window.

And just as she does, Trevor pushes off the bench.

He kneels in front of her.

Taking her hands in his, he catches her gaze. “Question Billie. Feed her the theory that Cletus might have been working with someone to blackmail Preston over whatshedid—push the blame onto her and she’ll eat that up like cake. Her own desperation tonotbe the one responsible for all this will be enough. If she’s heard something that’ll help up figure out who…Blood Hoodis, then she’ll remember. But you don’t have to go putting our necks on the line. Billie’s… impressionable. Use it.”

Her head drops and her lips part around a long, defeated sigh. A sigh that says, ‘you’re right’.

And to Kate, he is.

It just meant mind-fucking her already fragile best friend.

Maybe pushing her over the edge.

Past her breaking point.

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