Ex-mas (7 page)

its curl. She had chosen this particular pair of Lucky jeans because they hugged her tennis-toned legs.

But she knew that wasn't what Beau was getting at. What he meant was that back in the day, she would have been rocking matching ratty Converse

and a ratty sweatshirt, the better to look like a homeless person.

Oddly, not a look she was al that thril ed to remember.

"You look like you belong in a magazine," Beau said, and it wasn't a compliment. "Al
glossy.
I can't even imagine how long it takes you to get dressed in the morning, to make yourself look like that."

Something cold bloomed between Lila's shoulders and slid its way down her spine. While Lila knew for a fact that Carly just rol ed out of bed three

minutes before homeroom looking perfectly adorable, she, on the other hand, had to get up pretty

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early to prepare the Lila Beckwith she wanted everyone to see. Sometimes it was exhausting, but she stil did it, because she had to.

"And the only thing I've heard you talk about in the past three years is your boyfriend and how popular you are." He made a derisive noise. His eyes were on the road. He wouldn't even look at her when he said it. "But the funny thing is, I don't think you actual y
like
your supposedly cool new friends, do you? Because you never look happy. Not the way you used to."

Lila gave him a cool look. "Let's get real, Beau," she suggested mildly enough. "You probably spend just as much time on your careless hipster costumes as I do on looking normal, and we both know you go out of your way to act like you're al ergic to the very
hint
of popularity of any kind. Which takes a whole lot more energy than just...hanging out with people."

"That's what you cal your
mission
to be best friends with Carly Hol ander?" Beau asked, laughing slightly. " 'Just hanging out'? What about the part where you had to completely turn your back on the person you'd been for your whole life in order to get her to be your friend?"

"She
is
my friend," Lila said quietly.

"Yeah, now," Beau said. He braked, letting the car rol to a stop at a red light. He turned to look at her, his blue eyes dark in the suddenly way-too-close interior of the car. "Once you completely changed. What was wrong with you before?"

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Lila didn't know how to answer that. How could she tel him that
everything
was wrong with who she'd been? How could she tel him that, when he'd been such a huge part of it?

The more Beau had disappeared into himself and his misery over his family, the more she'd felt alone. She hadn't real y had him anymore--he'd been

too angry and too closed off. So she hadn't had anything. She'd wanted more. And once she'd started wanting more, she saw what she had--and who she

was--in a brand-new, highly unflattering light.

Suddenly, he leaned toward her.

"What...?" She flinched away in surprise.

But he was only rummaging in the backseat. He pul ed a hoodie from the rubble on the floor behind him and shrugged into it.

"Just a little cold," he murmured, sliding an amused look Lila's way. "Relax."

Lila ignored him. Her attention was on the backseat. "You have another guitar?" she asked, incredulous. It was nestled by the back passenger seat, in a case on the floor. Lila was surprised the guitar didn't have a blanket wrapped around it, the way he usual y babied his instruments.

"It's my backup," he said.

"You have a backup guitar, which you keep in your car," she said. She laughed. "Wow. So you're, like, a traveling minstrel or something?"

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Beau threw her another unreadable look as the light changed from red to green. She braced herself for one of his zingers.

"You never know when you might need a guitar," he said, in such a matter-of-fact way that Lila bit back her next sarcastic comment. What did she know? Maybe in Beau's world, he was often cal ed upon to leap out of his Ford Escort and serenade people with his music.

She was trying to keep from snickering at that mental image when Beau pul ed into the Simi Val ey train station parking lot. The station looked identical to the last one, and Lila had a strange and unpleasant sense of déjà vu. She snuck a quick peek at her watch: Four seventeen. The train left the station at four twenty-one.

Beau pul ed the car into a parking space. Before he'd even opened his door, Lila was out of the car. Her feet flew over the crumbling cement parking

lot, and she was aware of Beau's breathing right behind her.

"Which track do you think it's coming in on?" Beau cal ed.

Lila felt like they were on
The Amazing Race
as she shouted back that they'd figure that out inside. She hurled open the surprisingly heavy station doors, narrowly missing a set of suitcases on the floor.

"Come on." Beau grabbed her hand and guided her out to platform three.

They stumbled out into the late-afternoon sunlight. There

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was the train, right on the tracks. But it was on its way out of the station. The back window seemed to laugh at them as it disappeared down the track.

Lila watched the flash of silver until the train became a smal er and smal er point in the distance. She slumped against one of the cement platform

columns, letting her hair fal down and cover her face.

"This sucks," Beau muttered, his eyes stil on what was left of the train.

"I guess we have to keep going," Lila sighed, feeling angry and defeated.
Again.
But there was no time to spare. She straightened, shoved her hair off her face, and pul ed the crumpled train schedule from her jeans pocket. "Next stop, Oxnard," she read. "Let's gun it."

"Hold on." Beau pul ed his iPhone from his pocket.

"We can't hold on," Lila argued. "We have to hurry!"

"We're not going to catch a train," Beau said, looking up from his phone briefly, the screen reflecting blue on his face. "We can't chase it from station to station--trains are faster than cars, and they don't have to stop."

"So, what?" Lila asked, ignoring the patronizing tone of his statement. She slumped back against the column, annoyed. "What are we supposed to do?

"

Beau plucked the schedule from her hand. He frowned at it, then fiddled with his phone, quickly tapping around on the

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screen. Lila waited as patiently as she could, trying not to bite her nails. Or launch into a screaming fit that would be anything but productive. Though it might make her feel better.

"The train takes seven hours to get up to Oakland," Beau said final y. "But we can drive up the I-5 and be there in like six hours. Five or five and a half, maybe, depending on traffic." He slipped the phone back into his pocket and cocked his head slightly as he looked at her. His shaggy dark hair fel over to one side. "Makes more sense than trying to catch the train at every station, don't you think?"

"Sounds great," Lila said absently. Because what sounded even better was the plan she was quickly outlining in her head. Oakland wasn't too far away from Stanford. After she captured Cooper and beat him to death, she could meet up with Erik. And then she could drive back home with her sweet, attentive, perfect boyfriend, and never have to spend another moment with Beau ever again.

It sounded pretty much like bliss.

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Chapter 8

***

NORTH OF LOS ANGELES

DECEMBER 22

5:03 P.M.

***

growing darkness. Beau drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, muttered under his breath, and stomped on his brake with more and more

force.

"This is ridiculous," he said loudly.

"It's rush hour and it's a holiday," Lila said with an unconcerned shrug. After al , they were only about an hour into the seven hours they had before they caught up with the train in Oakland. "Traffic would be terrible either way, but when you combine them..." She let her voice trail off.

Beau glared at her.

"I can't stand traffic," he said. Like it was Lila's fault.

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"I don't know how to help you with that," Lila replied, reveling in being the calm one for once.

They inched along, eventual y making their way past Magic Mountain and Santa Clarita, then up and over the Grapevine, the stretch of I-5 that snaked

into the mountains to the north of the San Fernando Val ey and down to the San Joaquin Val ey on the other side. Stil , the traffic persisted. The 5 was a major highway, but it was only two lanes, and, apparently, the preferred route of many truck drivers. An enormous Mack truck loomed over them, cutting off their vision. Its bumper displayed a cheerful red and yel ow sticker asking,
How's My Driving?.
Lila had a feeling, given the way the driver had barricaded them in, that he wasn't overly concerned.

"Screw this," Beau said final y. "I'm taking Route 1."

"Route 1?" Lila stopped pretending to be blithely unconcerned, sat up, and looked at him sharply. "The Pacific Coast Highway is on the coast. We're in the Central Val ey." The undertone of her statement was,
duh.

"Wel , now we're headed west toward the water." Beau inched the nose of the Escort forward. They were in the slow lane, and he squeezed his way through a tiny opening, pul ing the car into the breakdown lane on the shoulder of the road.

"What the--" Lila's voice was drowned out as the cars around them exploded into an orchestra of honking. She locked eyes

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with two irate guys in a Lexus and shrugged, sheepishly. Like she had any control--

"Aack!" Lila let out a sudden, unexpected squeal as Beau shifted the Escort into reverse and gunned it. The car shot
backward,
down the road on the narrow shoulder. Hurtling in reverse, Lila felt like she was going to be sick. Final y, Beau hit the brakes and put the car back into drive. He pul ed off the gridlocked freeway onto a bumpy, muddy path. It was far more random-farm-path-through-an-orange-grove than back road.

"You're insane," Lila said, twisting around to watch the 5 disappear into the dusk behind the car's tail ights. Beau fol owed the "road" under the freeway and toward the coastal mountains that separated the Central Val ey from the ocean and al the famous little beach towns. "Why don't you relax about the traffic? So what if we sit for a while? We have seven hours!"

"We're not sitting in traffic if we don't have to, and we don't have to," Beau said, like that ended the discussion right there. He slammed his foot down on the gas. The old car shuddered in protest and then shot forward, bouncing along the bumpy road.

"Oh, I get it." Lila sniffed, bracing herself against the dashboard. "This is some guy thing."

"It has nothing to do with being a guy," Beau retorted. "It has to do with not wanting to sit in traffic on a road trip that's already a pain in the ass."

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Lila opened her mouth to yel back at him, but there was something in the flinty look he shot her that made her think twice. He looked a little too much like the Beau she'd been more than happy to walk away from that day in the cafeteria courtyard, with his nasty
groupie
remark stil ringing in her ears. The angry set of his shoulders convinced her that she wouldn't much like that same kind of interaction while she was trapped in a moving car, bumping through someone's crops.

So she stared out the window instead, and tried to concentrate on the stars that appeared in the twilight sky above the farmland, the ones she could

never see at home.

More than an hour later, they were racing up the 1 with the ocean to the left and a practical y empty road in front of them. Beau made it over the mountains and down into the sleepy little seaside town of Cambria, then headed north. Even though they'd lost an hour, and Lila's watch told her it was after seven, they hadn't seen much traffic since leaving the 5--a fact Beau had enjoyed pointing out to her. Several times.

The night outside the car was inky black and without any hint of moon, so there was only the winding cliffside road, the sensation of towering trees on one side, and the empty stretch of the ocean on the other.

Lila had always wanted to go to Big Sur, and now she was
in

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Big Sur, and she couldn't see a thing. In fact, she'd seen nothing but Beau for hours.

No wonder she was cranky.

The moment they entered what vaguely resembled a town, Beau pul ed the car off the road.

"What are you doing?" Lila asked, sitting up straight and frowning at him.

"I'm hungry," Beau said. He ran a hand over his face tiredly.

"We do
not
have time for some big meal," Lila said, stil frowning. Beau could eat enough for an army, and liked to take his time with it, too. Once, he had eaten so much at the local Denny's that the waitress threatened to cal the paramedics if he didn't stop. Natural y, Beau had sauntered out without looking like he'd just ingested two orders of cheese fries, Moons Over My Hammy, two Denny's Slamburgers, three milk shakes, and a truckload of hash

browns. Lila felt a little queasy at the memory.

"If I'm going to survive this trip," he said, looking at her meaningful y, "I definitely need to keep my energy up."

Beau pul ed the car off the road and parked it in a cliffside parking lot. "I'l even buy you something, if you're going to sulk about it," Beau said, smirking.

"I'm not hungry," Lila said through her teeth.

She didn't want whatever Beau might buy her. She would, in fact, rather starve. She fumed as she watched him lope across

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the parking lot and disappear into the store. Probably, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't real y matter that they were stopping for a few minutes.

But nice of Beau to consult her! His idea of a compromise was to ignore you until you did things his way. Which most people did, because it wasn't worth the hassle to try to fight with him. That's what Lila had always done--until the day she hadn't.