She nodded, looking at nothing.
“I thought you might.”
He sighed, clutching the steering-wheel with both hands, remembering the look on Mason's face.
“How many were there? Scott? Mason? Patty? Her boyfriend, Niel? Did Mason kill Patty, or did you?”
“We both killed Patty,” she said in a flat voice. “Billy always felt guilty about it. He was going to tell.”
He started the engine.
“Get out.”
She turned to him, her face suffused with suppressed weeping.
“I did love you, you know.”
He didn’t want to hear this.
“Just shut up and go.”
She remained rooted where she was. Sighing, he started the car and began driving, aimlessly, both of them silent. Inexorably, his meandering took them eventually to the lake’s edge. He stopped the car and they both got out.
She began walking to the water’s edge, her back to him. With a dead feeling in the pit of his stomach, it occurred to him then what she expected... that she was right... that it had to be done.
The sound of the shot was very loud, and echoed across the lake. Soon afterward, there was a second loud report.