The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)

“I understand your frustration, but answering some questions could help solve your parents’ murder,” he points out and I hear him shuffling through papers.

“No it won’t,” I say, flopping down on the bed on my back, holding the phone to my ear. My muscles are starting to tighten just from the suggestion of going down to the police station and chatting about something I’d laid to rest a long time ago. Case closed. They said so themselves and even though I didn’t like it, I accepted it. Moved on. Lived what life I had. “They couldn’t solve it thirteen years ago and you’re not going to solve it now.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d come down,” he tells me, sending me a silent message through his firm tone. You’re going to meet me—it’s not a choice.

“Fine, but I live in Laramie now, not Cheyenne,” I say in a tight voice. “And I’m in the middle of moving, so it’ll have to wait a few days.” I’m making up excuses on purpose.

“How about next Monday at seven? Downtown at the Laramie police station?” he asks without missing a beat. “Does that work for you?”

I frown. “I guess.”

He says good-bye and then I hang up, lying on the bed. I chew on my fingernails, not liking the emotions tormenting me in the quiet. I’d shut that door a long time ago and now I was just supposed to open it up so I could tell him the same things I already told the police thirteen years ago. I’m sure he has all that in his file, so why is he bothering me?

I check my voicemail seeing if creepy, deep-voice guy left a message. He didn’t and an unsettling fear stirs in my stomach. For the first few months after my parents died, I had this overwhelming fear that the people were going to come back to finish me off. It was like I constantly felt I needed to look over my shoulder; if I saw a shadow at night in my room, I thought it was them breaking in. But I managed to get myself out of that place and land where I am now. I worked hard not to be afraid of anything and I refuse to go back to that place.

I barely budge from the bed, drowning in my emotions, and I start to debate my options for a much-needed hit of adrenaline. I have these pills that I’ve taken a couple of times and at the right dose they can put me into darkness and I can still get out. They’re hidden in the computer desk drawer, beside the prescription bottle that holds the stash of weed Preston gave me to make quick sales, right within arm’s reach. Such an easy escape from everything going on around me. It’s not my favorite route to go, because it’s easier for someone to walk in and find me. I don’t want to be found. I want to remain lost because it’s the only thing that’s become serenely and painfully familiar.

But then Callie and Kayden walk in the room with boxes in their hands, ready to pack up the last of her stuff, and I force myself to shove my bed-binding emotions down and move again.

After packing for a while, Callie and Kayden start making out with each other. They actually think they’re in love and the concept is ridiculously absurd to me. I sort of feel sorry for them, because one day down the road they’re going to break up and it’s going to hurt. They’ll cry. They’ll become depressed. They’ll eat lots of ice cream or whatever people do when they mourn the loss of a relationship.

I remember one foster home I lived at when I was about fourteen. The Peircesons, a husband and wife that lived in a townhouse in this decent subdivision where each house was a duplicate of the other. I remember, when I pulled up to it, thinking it was pretty and that worried me because I was anything but pretty. I wore dark clothes, chains for a belt, and I had more studs in my ear than I could count on my fingers. I was going through a misunderstood phase and wanted everyone to know it. The Peircesons were decent, but the husband seemed a little uninterested in having a teenager around. At first, it seemed like my stay there was going to be boring, until I was out back one day on the porch and the next-door neighbor came out, talking on her phone. There was a tall fence, so she couldn’t see me at first, but I could hear her talking dirty to someone on the phone, telling them she would spank them. The conversation got me interested the longer it went on and by the time it was over I was laughing, something I hadn’t done in a while.

The lady must have heard me, too, because when she hung up she peeked her head over the fence. She seemed a little annoyed at first that I was eavesdropping, but her annoyance turned to intrigue when I showed no remorse for listening.

After that, I started hanging out with her during the three hours I had between when school ended and the Peircesons came home from work. She taught me how to light her cigarettes for her and told me the ins and outs of men, even though I told her I’d never fall in love. Her name was Starla, although I never really believed it was her real name, but it seemed fitting. She ran a phone chat operation from her house, which meant she told guys she was doing dirty things to herself, playing into their fetishes while they jerked off. She actually had a part-time job as a saleswoman at a car dealership, living a double life. She reminded me of a starlet from the 1940s when she was at home, her blond hair always curled, she wore a lot of silk, and sometimes even a feather boa. She told me she dressed like that because it made her feel like the sexy seductress she played on the phone. When I asked her why she enjoyed talking to men like she did, she told me it was because it made her feel like she had control over them. That she’d had too many heartbreaks and spent too many nights crying over ice cream and this helped her stay away from that. What was amusing about the whole thing is usually she was cooking dinner or reading a magazine, even watching television when she was talking dirty to the guys. She never actually did any of the stuff she said.

“You like that, Biggie,” she’d said once into the phone as she walked around the living room cleaning up the garbage laying around, while wearing her silk robe and slippers. I was hanging out on her couch, waiting until it was time to return home to the boring Peircesons, watching reruns of My So-Called Life, this nineties television show that got canceled after one season, but I found highly entertaining.

I giggled when she called him Biggie and she’d glanced over at me, smiling as she rolled her eyes. “Creeper,” she mouthed.

I laughed again. “Aren’t they all.” Then I grabbed a handful of chips out of the bag on my lap. A lot of the guys liked her to call them their special nicknames and I was guessing this one asked for her to call him Biggie, probably because he wasn’t.

“Oh yeah, I like that,” she said, picking up a few empty glasses off the coffee table. Then she whisked out of the room and I’d returned to my show.

A few minutes later, after the guy had probably finished himself off, she’d come back into the living room, smoking a cigarette. “Men are exhausting,” she said, plopping down on the sofa beside me. The whole house was crammed with gold-trimmed antique furniture, none of which matched, and the teal walls were hung with pictures of bands and actresses she’d met. I loved her place because it was different. Every place I’d lived looked pretty much the same as the others and most of those turned out to be crappy.

“Then why do you work for them?” I’d wondered curiously, kicking my feet up on the coffee table.

She glanced at me as she reached for an ashtray on the coffee table. “Oh my dear, sweet, innocent Violet. They work for me, honey.”

She always used endearing terms and it annoyed me, yet I let it slide with her.

I stuffed a few more chips in my mouth. “You know, I seriously wish you would be my foster mother.”