Chapter Forty Six:
—
LAUREN SAT IN the Ransom Canyon High School auditorium while the volunteer fire department chief gave Reid Collins the Hero-of-the-Month award. It looked like an Olympic medal. Everyone yelled while the cheerleaders bounced around shouting, “Reid, Reid, he’s our man. Reid, Reid, ain’t he grand.”
The fact that no one had ever won a Hero-of-the-Month award didn’t seem to matter. Neither did the truth about what happened that night at the Gypsy House. When Tim finally got off the painkillers, he told a different story about how he’d been hurt, but no one paid any attention. After all, he’d been on drugs, and Tim tended to tell stories anyway.
Lauren and Lucas, as they’d agreed, said nothing. They let the story Reid told run. And, as Lucas had predicted, his part that
