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“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Oh, God.” Byron was backing away from the car, disappearing into the darkness.

“I'm the one who's supposed to be freaking out, not you!”
Jimmy
leaned toward Cam's inert body, his hands shaking. The cold rain, evaporating against his body, rose up in smoky wisps.
Don't be dead don't be dead please please please please don't be dead.

“C-C-Cam?” Jimmy slapped Cam's cheek and shook his massive shoulders, but Cam was limp and unresponsive. His body began to slip on the rain-slicked seat, falling toward the driver's side. Jimmy tried to shove back, but he was helpless against the weight. Cam's head plopped heavily in Jimmy's lap.

“Aaaaghhh!” He pushed open the door, jumped out, and looked around for Byron. “I think he's . . . he's . . .”

The siren's wail was growing closer. How would he explain this?
You see, officer, in New York City no one gets a license until they're in college. But my dad taught me to drive on weekends, on Long Island. No, I don't have the regi-stration either. The car belongs to—belonged to . . . him . . . the deceased.

He'd have to get out of here before they came. He looked past the car. There was a gully, a hill. It was pitch-black. He could get lost in the night.

Asshole!
No, the cops would figure it out. Fingerprints. Friends knew he was driving—Reina Sanchez, she had to know. She was all over Cam. She'd tell them. So it wouldn't only be manslaughter. It would also be leaving the scene of the crime. What was that? Life in prison?

Stay or go, he was screwed either way. Because of a deer. A fucking stupid deer. Without the deer, everything would have been all right.

“BYRON!” he shouted.

In the distance he heard Byron retching, with characteristic heroism.

Cam was now slumped into the driver's seat, his right shoulder touching the bottom of the steering wheel.

He used me. He convinced Byron to get me to drive so he could go to a party. And now he will never ever be accountable. Because he's . . .

Dead. He was dead. He would never move again, never talk.

And that opened up several possibilities, some of which were

Unthinkable.

An idea was taking shape cancerously fast among his battered brain cells. If you were thinking something, it wasn't unthinkable—that was Goethe, or maybe Wittgenstein, or Charlie Brown. The idea danced between the synapses, on the line between survival and absolute awfulness, presenting itself in a sick, Quentin Tarantino way that made perfect sense.

It was Cam's dad's car. It would be logical that Cam would be driving it.

No one will know.

He grabbed Cam's legs. They were heavy, dead weight. He pulled them across the car toward the driver's side, letting Cam's butt slide with them—across the bench seat, across the pool of animal blood and pebbled glass.

Jimmy lifted Cam into an upright position, but his body fell forward, his torso resting hard against the steering wheel.

HONNNNNNNNNNNK!

The sound was ridiculously loud. Around the bend, distant headlights were making the curtain of rain glow. No time to fix this now.

Jimmy bolted for the woods.

“What are you doing?”
Byron called out of the dark. He was standing now, peering into the car. “Jesus Christ! You're trying to
make it look like Cam drove
? What if he's alive? He'll tell them you were driving!”

Jimmy stopped, frantically looking around for something blunt. He stooped to pick up a rusted piece of tailpipe, maybe a foot long. It would do the trick. He knelt by the driver's door and drew it back.

“
JIMMY, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?
”

Byron's eyes were like softballs. He grabbed Jimmy's arm.

Jimmy let the tailpipe fall to the ground. He felt his brain whirling, his knees buckling. He felt Byron pulling him away.

As the cop cars squealed to a halt near the blaring car, he was moving fast but feeling nothing.

Also by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Deathday Letter

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse paperback edition June 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Shaun David Hutchinson

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Mike Rosamilia

Jacket designed by Karina Granda

Jacket photographs by Thinkstock

The text of this book was set in Tyfa ITC.

Library of Congress Control Number 2012016007

ISBN 978-1-4424-3287-1 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8318-7 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4424-3288-8 (eBook)