Chapter 7
VIOLET CLIMBED INSIDE JAY’S CAR, TURNING around just in time to see her mom still standing at the doorway, wearing the same I-don’t-want-to-let-you-out-of-my-sight expression she’d been wearing all weekend. Just the fact that she was up this early told Violet how worried she was.
Oblivious to her mother’s concerns, Jay leaned over Violet and waved, “Hey, Mrs. Ambrose!”
“Will you stop calling her that?” Violet complained, pushing him out of her way so she could close her door. “She’s probably told you a million times already to call her Maggie.”
Her mom made a pinched face and waved back, but it was more like she was waving him off before she turned to go back inside, closing the door behind her.
“See? Told you so,” Violet insisted.
Jay handed her one of the Starbucks cups that had been sitting in his console.
“Wow,” she said, delighting in the feel of the warm cup, and sniffing the small opening in the lid. “This whole stumbling-onto-a-crime-scene thing is really starting to pay off. Last night a present. Now this.” She grinned as she took a sip of the vanilla latte.
Jay rubbed his jaw nervously. “Yeah, I wasn’t really sure what the protocol for ‘freaked out by dead bodies’ was. You’re not sick, so bringing you soup was out the question. And you didn’t know the people, so giving you flowers seemed wrong.”
Violet pursed her lips, considering his dilemma. “I see what you mean. Jewelry maybe? Or cash?”
Jay laughed. “Sorry, just a turtle. And some coffee.” He raised his eyebrows. “But at least I went to Starbucks.”
Since there wasn’t a real Starbucks in Buckley, Violet knew that meant he’d driven all the way to the next town to get it.
She shrugged, biting back a grin. “I guess coffee’ll do. Until you find the right diamond, or maybe something designer.”
Jay started his car. “You’re starting to be sorta high maintenance, Violet Marie.” He backed out of the driveway. “I remember when you were happy if I gave you the better stick to play with.”
She giggled. “Um, yeah, I was nine then!”
“Yeah, well that Violet wouldn’t have complained if her boyfriend had driven all the way to Enumclaw to get her a coffee before school.”
“Yeah, well that Violet,” Violet added, taking another sip of her latte and raising her brows defiantly, “would have gagged on the coffee and then punched you in the nose for trying to poison her.”
Jay glanced at her over his shoulder as they hit the main road. “Touché, Vi! Touché!”
Violet leaned back and tipped her head to the side, watching Jay as he drove. Sunlight poured in through the car’s windows and glinted off his face, catching the strands of his hair and casting his skin in a soft golden glow. It was the way she always saw him, golden and sun-kissed and beautiful. She took a sip of her coffee, feeling warm from more than just the drink.
Without meaning to, the tinny plinks of her imprint drew her thoughts to a darker place, as she remembered what she’d read in her grandmother’s diaries. As always, her first instinct was to keep the information to herself, to hide it from Jay, and her parents, and from everyone else who mattered. Ferreting the knowledge away and doling it out only on a need-to-know basis.
It was a lonely way to live. And she was getting sick of it.
“Hey, you know those journals I told you about? The ones my mom gave me that belonged to my grandma Louise?”
His eyes stayed trained on the road as they pulled into the student lot. “Uh-huh.”
“I read something in them last night. Something interesting.”
Jay cast a quick glance her way. “Interesting how?” he asked.
Violet lips curved upward. It was a lazy smile, but a satisfied one. “She knew why a body wouldn’t have an echo.”
“You mean she’d seen that before? Like the boy you found at the lake house?” Jay pulled into a parking spot and turned to stare at her. She nodded. His expression was incredulous, and she thought it was exactly the way she’d felt when she’d first read the entry.
“I know,” she agreed, even though he hadn’t said a word.
When they got out of the car, Jay groped for his backpack in the backseat and punched the alarm button on his key fob several times more than he needed to before rushing to keep up with Violet.
By the time he caught her, Violet was halfway across the parking lot. “So,” he asked, reaching out to stop her before they reached the school. “What was it? Why was the boy missing his echo?” He cocked his head to the side, still looking too golden for his own good.
“His heart,” Violet offered quietly. “It had been cut out.”
But before he could respond, Violet tasted the familiar tang of dandelions and glanced up to see a car parked in front of the school—one she recognized all too well.
“Uh-oh,” Jay said from beside her, seeing the same thing she had. “Looks like someone’s in trouble.”
Her uncle was there, leaning against the side of one of his police department vehicles with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He spotted her immediately, and she recognized the look on his face. He was fuming.
“Wait here,” she told Jay, deciding she might as well do this on her own. No point dragging him into this too.
Her uncle’s stance didn’t ease, even as she came nearer, closing the gap between them. If anything, he looked sterner. Angrier. Violet’s insides felt like Jell-O the closer she got to him.
“When were you planning to tell me?” He stood up, his actions tense and jerky as he yanked open the back door of the cruiser, telling her without words to get inside.
She frowned at him, but followed his lead. “Soon,” she said as she slid inside the cool interior of the police car. She would have shivered even if the plastic seat wasn’t cold from the AC. Her uncle’s glower was downright frosty.
He got in the front seat, and Violet did her best to ignore the strange looks she was getting from the other students as they walked past. She was sitting in the back of a police car, after all. No doubt they were thinking she was in some sort of trouble—at least those who didn’t realize right away it was her uncle behind the wheel.
She kept her gaze averted, not sure where she should look since she didn’t want to look at her uncle either.
“You saw Grady after I expressly told you not to get involved,” Uncle Stephen accused. There was a pause and she knew he was waiting for her to look up. Instead, she concentrated on her bare fingernails, which were short and ragged, in desperate need of a manicure, she thought idly.
Guilt flushed her cheeks. “Actually, you didn’t,” she said, feeling like she was on shaky ground now. She glanced up nervously to see him watching her from the rearview mirror.
“Didn’t what, Vi?” he snapped, his voice not sounding nearly as unsure as hers had.
“Didn’t say not to get involved,” she answered, trying to be bolder now. “You didn’t really say anything.” She watched as his face turned an unnatural shade of red.
She waited for him to say something. To argue that she was wrong, and insist that he had told her to mind her own business. But he couldn’t because he hadn’t. She saw the moment he realized the truth as his shoulders fell and he sighed, a long, deflated sound.
For a long time there were no other sounds, no words between them. And then he turned around in his seat, no longer staring at her from the mirror.
When he faced her, she could see the shadowed stubble along his jaw and the even darker shadows beneath his eyes. “I might not have said it, but I should have.” His voice was softer now, less accusatory and more thoughtful. “I didn’t want you to see Grady, but not because I think he’s a killer. I don’t. At least not anymore. The evidence is back, and we won’t be charging him. There’s nothing that shows he was there the day of the murder. Even his alibi checks out.
“The real truth is, it’s hard for me to stand by and watch you go through this again and again. It can’t be good for you, seeing the things you see. Being around bodies and killers.” He shook his head. “What I should have said that night is that I didn’t want you to get involved any more than you already are because I’m worried about you. I know I can’t protect you, Vi, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”
Violet choked on the lump that formed in her throat. She hated how much she’d already put her family through by being different from everyone else. And she hated even more that it wasn’t going to end anytime soon. “I’m okay, Uncle Stephen. I can handle it.” It was true. She’d realized that much, at least, over the past months . . . the past year. “I want to help. I only went to see him, to see if . . . you know, if he was the one you were looking for.”
“I know,” he said, nodding, and looking worn-down. “Sara called me this morning; she said you told her he didn’t do it. It was just one more reason to believe the evidence. Dammit, Vi. When did you get so grown up? When did you stop wearing princess dresses and begging me for piggyback rides? When did you stop needing me to look out for you?”
Violet grimaced. “Okay, one . . . I don’t think I ever wore princess dresses, even when I was Cassidy’s age, but I’ll cop to the piggyback rides. And two . . .” Her eyes stung as she blinked hard against the tears building behind her eyes. “You know I’ll always need you to look out for me.” She let out a watery laugh. “I mean, you have met me, right? I’m sort of a danger magnet.”
She heard a sniffle from the front seat, and then her uncle was getting out of the car and opening her door. “Come here, you,” he said, and he was reaching for her before she could even get out on her own. “I really just want you to be happy. I want everything to be rainbows and sparkles for you, Vi.”
Violet grinned against his chest, where he had her wrapped in one of his famous bear hugs. She hoped she never outgrew his silly sayings. “I know, Uncle Stephen. I’m just not that girl, I guess.”
He shrugged, not letting her go right away. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try, does it?”
She was about to tell him that she loved how hard he tried. That, or that she couldn’t breathe, when she heard Jay, his voice finding its way inside the wall of arms her uncle had her buried in. “Does this mean everyone’s all good? There’s been a truce?”
Her uncle released her and Violet fought the urge to gasp for breath.
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Uncle Stephen said, sniffing again. “I should get going anyway. There’s still a lot to do.”
“I have to go too,” Violet agreed, peering up at Jay. “You know, school and all?” And then she paused as she turned back to her uncle. “So, what about the evidence? Did it show who was there? You said it cleared Grady, but did it give you an idea who might have done it? Any leads on Veronica?”
Her uncle rubbed his eyes, and this time it had nothing to do with princesses or piggyback rides or family bonds. He shook his head, looking weary once more. “Not yet. But I promise I’ll tell you if we find something. Deal?”
Violet smiled at him. “Deal.” He turned, but before he could get in his car, Violet called after him, “I love you, Uncle Stephen!”
He didn’t turn back, but lifted his hand in a wave. “Rainbows and sparkles, Vi. Rainbows and sparkles.”
School was as bad as she’d expected it to be. Worse even.
As soon as she entered the hallways, Violet could hear everyone around her talking about the family who’d been killed over the weekend, each with their own dramatic interpretation about how it had happened . . . each with their own version of the gory—if incorrect—details of the murder scene itself.
In some it was a straight-up home invasion–style shooting. Others claimed it had been a stabbing. Still others claimed murder-suicide. A few gave detailed descriptions of the bodies having been “chopped to bits.”
And almost all mentioned Grady.
She hated hearing him accused of crimes she knew—without a doubt—he hadn’t committed. Yet she was unable to defend him, no matter how riled she got.
How could they be so ignorant? So insensitive? This was one of their own classmates they were talking about. In some cases, he was their friend.
“You hear about Grady?” Chelsea sidled up next to Violet and started talking before Violet even had a chance to open her mouth. “I hear they think he offed an entire family. It was some girl he was dating who went to Riverside High. And she’s missing now. Her picture is all over the television.” Violet searched for Jay, wishing she hadn’t decided to wait while he dropped his books at his locker. “Dude, Grady Spencer? I never would’ve pegged him as the cold-blooded-killer type.”
Violet’s stomach dropped as she wondered how much she should—or was even allowed to—reveal. But this was Grady they were talking about. “He isn’t,” she told Chelsea, mildly annoyed that this was the kind of talk she was hearing from her own friends.
“You know what they say about these guys? You never see it comin’. They’re the perfect neighbor, then one day . . .” Her eyes widened exaggeratedly. “Bam! They just . . . snap.”
“Okay, crazy.” Violet let out a shaky laugh. She felt bad for even joking when they were discussing something so serious, so disturbing, but Chelsea looked as if she were telling a ghost story in front of a campfire, her eyes all wild and her statements outlandish. “Take it easy. Even if I thought you were right, my uncle told me he didn’t do it.”
But Chelsea wasn’t finished just yet. “Know what else I heard?” Her face hovered just inches from Violet’s and her eyes narrowed mistrustfully. “I heard that it was someone from White River who found the bodies.” Her voice dropped. “And maybe, just maybe, that someone never showed up at the lake to meet her friends.”
Violet could hear the blood rushing past her ears, and she reached up to grip the strap on her backpack, her fingers going numb. She prayed Chelsea didn’t notice how pale she’d gone, and she let out a laugh—a nervous high-pitched sound. “That’s ridiculous, Chels,” she said, trying to sound as carefree as she could manage. She started weaving her way through the crowded hallway.
Chelsea kept up with her easily though, watching her out of the corner of her eye. “Really? Because we waited for hours and you never even called.” Her words were heavy with meaning. “You know something, don’t you, V?”
Violet smoothed her features as best she could and shrugged. “There’s nothing to know.”
But Chelsea refused to drop it. “Bull,” she countered. “I know you’ve been through some serious shit, but there’ve also been a lot of times when you’ve just . . .” She snapped her fingers. “Vanished.” Her gaze turned momentarily thoughtful and she pulled Violet to a stop. “And I’m not talking about when you really . . . you know, vanished. I’m talking about all the times no one can reach you, all the times I’ve stopped by your house and your mom says you’re at the ‘library’ or at ‘Jay’s house’”—she emphasized the words with air quotes, making it clear what she thought of the excuses she’d been given—“but here’s the deal, you were never at any of those places. I know because I checked.” Before Violet could say anything, Chelsea went on, “Yeah, that’s right.” Her eyes tapered to slits. “I’m watching you.”
Violet didn’t have to pretend to laugh this time as she pushed Chelsea away from her. “Oh my god, Chels, you’ve been watching way too much CSI or Law & Order or whatever. Get a grip.” She brushed past her friend, trying to drop the subject. “And stop calling me V. I mean it this time.”
“You ready?” Jay asked when he found them, and Violet lifted her eyebrows at Chelsea, silently asking her if she was through.
Glaring, Chelsea made a disgusted sound and studied Violet with pinched lips, but she didn’t say anything else.
Then, just as she was about to leave them, to go the opposite direction toward her class, Chelsea lifted her first two fingers up to her eyes and then pointed back at Violet, the universal sign for I’m watching you.
Jay looked confused. “What was that all about?” he asked.
Sighing, Violet leaned into him as they walked, feeling the burden of too many secrets weighing on her. “Chelsea thinks I’m hiding something from her.”
He snorted and pointed out the obvious. “If she only knew.” But before Violet could punch him in the arm, they reached her classroom and he stopped short. He scowled, but not at Violet; it was meant for Rafe, who was waiting for Violet, leaning against the wall, wearing a smug grin on his face.
Jay had accepted the fact that Rafe would be at their school every day, but she knew it bothered him. How could it not? It bothered her, and he was her friend.
“You okay?” Violet asked, shifting on her feet to block his view of Rafe, forcing him to look at her instead.
Jay exhaled noisily. “Everything’s . . . fine.” He smiled at her, and Violet’s heart shuddered. She didn’t try to stop him when he closed the gap between them, his lips finding hers in a deep—and territorial—kiss.
When he was finished, she couldn’t find her voice for a long, breathless moment. “That was for him, wasn’t it?”
“The kiss? Nah, that was for you, Vi. Only for you.”
She giggled. “I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of some kind of tug-of-war. Only I’m the rope and you two are trying to pull me apart.”
“Don’t kid yourself, you’re not the rope, you’re the prize.” Jay’s lazy grin reached all the way to his eyes. “And, for the record, I’ve already won.”
Violet shook her head. “It’s not a contest, Jay,” she replied as she started to walk away.
But Jay put his hand over hers, pulling her back for one final kiss. “I know, Vi.”
When she passed him on her way into the classroom, Rafe scowled. “Nice show,” he bit out acerbically. Violet tried to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about as she headed down the row of desks to her seat.
“Whatever,” Violet answered, not wanting to have this discussion.
Guys are ridiculous, she decided as she kept walking, glad Rafe was behind her and couldn’t see the scowl on her face.
If only it were that simple, because then it was Rafe stopping her. Rafe with his electric touch, and when his fingers reached for hers, she couldn’t help jolting. “Sara told me,” he said, his voice so quiet Violet could barely hear it above her music-box imprint. “About what you read in your grandmother’s diary.” His eyes were deep and mesmerizing, and Violet told herself it didn’t matter because Jay already had her. “She also said you told her your friend didn’t do it,” he whispered.
Violet glanced around, wishing that everyone had heard the truth in those last words, but knowing they couldn’t. Yet all she could say was, “He’s not my friend.”
Through the cafeteria window, Violet could see Chelsea and Rafe sitting on the grass in the quad, rather than at their usual table. While the weather cooperated, the grassy area out in the courtyard, and benches surrounding it, was crowded during the lunch hours. After that, when the rain returned, or when it was too cold to be comfortable, only the loners—either by choice or by circumstance—would continue eating out there, sitting alone and thumbing their noses at the rest of the school for forsaking them.
But for now, as the sun beat down, and students crowded every open space, eating outside didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Violet had expected to interrupt another lopsided conversation, in which Chelsea talked and talked, and talked some more, while Rafe only half listened, nodding occasionally so she wouldn’t think he was a total D-bag. As far as Violet could tell, that was about as far as his social charms extended . . . to attempt to tolerate those around him.
Except that wasn’t what she walked into at all. It wasn’t until that very moment, when Violet approached the two of them, Chelsea sitting with her legs crossed in front of her, and Rafe sitting up, leaning one elbow on his knee, that she realized just how chummy the two of them had gotten. So much so, that she heard Rafe, his voice as low as ever, actually responding when Chelsea asked what he was reading.
When he told her it was Catcher in the Rye, Chelsea cast him a knowing grin and said boldly, “‘In my mind, I’m probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.’”
Rafe laughed then, and Violet froze in place, trying to figure out what had just happened. Trying to unsort the jumble of emotions that knotted tightly in her chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
Rafe’s laugh was such a foreign sound. Of course Violet had heard him laugh before, but never that kind of laugh. An encouraging one. A flirtatious one. And that’s what that laugh had been, Violet was sure of it. They were sitting there, in the quad at school . . . flirting. With each other.
Violet took an uncertain step backward, thinking that sitting outside might not have been such a great idea after all. Suddenly all this fresh air was making her woozy. Or possibly it was the company. Either way, her head was spinning and she felt like she might be coming down with something.
Rafe glanced up then, at that very moment, and saw her standing there gaping at them. And she saw something cross his face, something dark and unexpected, filling her with guilt. It was a look so close to longing it made Violet wince. “Violet?” he said, his voice no longer flirtatious and teasing, and she thought she might have actually heard a note of regret, buried in the deep timbre of her name.
Violet wanted him to stop looking at her like that, and she certainly didn’t want Chelsea to see him doing it, so she dropped her gaze to her friend, ignoring Rafe altogether. “Did . . . did you just quote Catcher in the Rye?” She couldn’t help asking the question any more than she could stop the incredulity that saturated her voice. Since when did Chelsea quote anything from the required reading list at school? Or more importantly, since when had Chelsea ever read anything from the required reading list?
Chelsea’s smile was mischievous as she glanced up at Violet, admitting, “It’s the only line I know. And that’s probably the only chance I’ll ever have to use it.” She turned back to Rafe, her grin widening lasciviously. “Or maybe not.”
But Rafe was no longer flirting with her, and Violet’s legs felt unsteady, and all she wanted to do was turn and run away. Because standing there, with Rafe’s blue eyes boring into her, she felt far too vulnerable . . . far too exposed.
And far too confused.
When she felt a hand at her elbow, she jumped and spun nervously to face whoever had just grabbed her.
Jay was there, staring back at her with his warm, faithful eyes and a crooked smile on his lips. Gemma stood beside him, looking like they’d just arrived together.
“You aren’t serious, are you? We aren’t really going to eat our lunch in the dirt, are we?” Gemma folded her arms across her chest and eyed the grass as if Chelsea and Rafe were rolling around in an oozing pile of sloppy mud.
“You don’t have to sit here at all,” Chelsea told her, lifting her chin defiantly. One thing about Chelsea, she either liked you or she didn’t, and you didn’t have to guess which side of the line you fell on. And Gemma, for whatever reason, had landed on the wrong side. “We were doing just fine before you got here.”
Violet was still dazed, and then Jay’s hand slid down to hers, his palm settling lightly, gingerly over her own. For several seconds their hands stayed like that, their fingers lined up in perfect rows, from thumb to pinkie, his dwarfing hers. She savored the feel of his rough skin sliding over hers. It was electric, his touch, but not in the way it was when Rafe touched her. This kind of electricity started inside of her, filling her up and spreading to every fissure, making her feel connected. Whole.
Rafe glanced away, and she could feel him withdrawing once more, disappearing inside himself. A different kind of guilt stabbed her; she didn’t want to be responsible for hurting him.
But Jay’s fingers were still there, and when he finally slid them in and through and between hers, Violet felt the knot in her chest loosen. She could breathe again. And more than that, she could feel the rush of her own pulse pumping blood past her ears. Without saying a single word, Jay drew her down onto the grass, and Violet followed, letting her knees fold beneath her as she stayed right by his side . . . where she belonged.
Gemma, still standing above them, rolled her eyes and exhaled dramatically. “Fine,” she snapped, just as Claire and Jules came out into the quad, joining them. “I guess I’d rather sit in the dirt than sit alone.”
She scowled at each and every one of them in turn, but most especially at Chelsea, who smirked as the blonde girl tried to find some position that would keep both her and her clothing from touching the ground at all. Ultimately, Gemma ended up using her fancy new book bag as a cushion of sorts, keeping her knees bent so that her jeans didn’t so much as graze the tops of the grass. She brushed obsessively at nonexistent pieces of dirt or pollen or whatever else it was she thought might be landing on her, and she barely touched her lunch.
But it was Jay who had captured Violet’s attention, when he leaned across her shoulder, his breath finding her ear and sending shivers along the length of her spine. “What do you say we spend some time together tonight? Maybe do some homework?”
By the time she reached Anatomy & Physiology, the class where Violet had spent the entire first week of school pretending Grady didn’t exist—trying not to look his way or draw attention to herself—she’d nearly allowed herself to forget what happened. But now that she was standing inside the classroom they shared, Grady was all she could think about. Even though it had only been a week since school had started, the seat he’d occupied during that brief time had indisputably become his. And now it sat empty. Untouched. A shrine of notoriety.
Violet slumped solemnly in the chair next to Gemma, who’d fled from lunch early so she could wash her hands—and probably everything else she could reach—after being subjected to the “filthy outdoors.” Violet didn’t bother trying to contain the conflicting emotions she felt toward her classmates: anger, unease, disgust, worry—all coiled together in one enormous mass that had turned her into a time bomb of sorts. Even if Gemma hadn’t been an empath, she probably would have sensed something was wrong.
Turning an exasperated glance at Violet, Gemma scooted her chair a little farther away.
Violet just shrugged, not bothering to apologize or explain as she pulled out her notebook. She didn’t care whether she was making Gemma uncomfortable or not.
“Oh, for god’s sakes,” Gemma huffed. “It’s so hard to make you miserable if you don’t give a shit. Fine, I give up.” Her voice shifted, becoming . . . almost nice. “I’m sorry you had such a craptastic weekend. And . . . sorry about that guy, even thought you sorta hated him.” She nodded toward the empty chair. “If it makes you feel any better, I think everyone else hates him now too.”
Violet’s jaw tensed. “It doesn’t. And I don’t hate him. I just . . . we just . . .” She didn’t owe Gemma any explanations. “We weren’t friends anymore, but that doesn’t mean he deserves this.”
“So it’s true then? What Sara said about him not being guilty?”
Sometimes Violet forgot that Gemma lived with Sara and Rafe, that they were the only family she had, and that she knew what they knew.
She nodded. They might not be friends—she and Gemma—but it was nice to have another person she could confide in. Or rather, not have to lie to all the time. Not to have to hide her ability from.
She wished it could be this easy with her real friends.
“Hmm,” Gemma exhaled. “I sorta pegged him as an ass.” When Violet turned in her chair to gape at her, she lifted her shoulder. “What? I did.”
“Well, just because someone’s an ass doesn’t make them a murderer.”
Gemma’s lips twisted into a meaningful smile. “You got that right, sister,” she said. “If that were the case, Rafe would definitely be a serial killer.”
Violet couldn’t help the smile that slid over her lips. Gemma was right. She thought of the way Rafe generally kept others at a distance, ensuring that no one got too close or became too attached, by offending everyone. In that sense, it almost seemed logical that he’d be drawn to Chelsea. She was sort of offensive herself.
But Violet knew there was another side of him too, he’d shown it to her. He’d told her how he felt.
Unfortunately, Violet couldn’t share Rafe’s feelings.
Couldn’t, she thought, turning the word over in her mind. It was a strange way to phrase it. Hadn’t she meant didn’t? That she didn’t share Rafe’s feelings?
It didn’t matter though, she had someone. She had Jay.
She and Rafe could only ever be friends.
“People are talking, you know?” Gemma said, interrupting Violet’s thoughts and dragging her back into the classroom.
“About Grady? I know.”
“No. About you.” She shrugged. “I mean, not about you, really. But about the person who found the bodies. They know it was someone who goes to school here. There’s a lot of guessing going on about who it could be.”
Goose bumps broke out over Violet’s skin. “Have they . . . ? Did they . . . ? Has anyone said my name?”
Gemma made a face, dismissing the notion as absurd. “Of course not. They point at each other mostly, trying to get someone to admit it was them. Really, they have no idea who it was.”
Violet looked around her, at the other students in her class, most of whom she’d known her whole life. Somehow, Gemma’s assurance, even with her empathic abilities, didn’t make Violet feel any more secure.
By the end of the day, Violet was exhausted. What she wanted was to go home and flop on her bed. To read through more of her grandmother’s journals. To sleep.
But it was Monday and she had an appointment, one she wasn’t allowed to miss. After Jay had dropped her off at her house so she could get her car, she made the long drive into the city, trying to give herself every reason to cancel her weekly meeting with Dr. Lee, but knowing, no matter how good the excuses she came up with, it was against the rules he’d laid out for her. And the last thing she wanted to do was to put her family in harm’s way.
Instead she concentrated on the fact that he might actually be able to help her this time. As much as she hated to admit it, he had a way of making her feel better when an echo—or in this case, echoes—weighed on her.
She was doing okay. Better than okay, really. By comparison to how it used to be after she’d found a body, the dull headache and the sluggishness she felt now were a cakewalk. She could manage through this like a champ.
Still, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be better, which was where Dr. Lee came in. He had ways . . .
Ways of stilling her mind. Ways of easing the tension. Ways of chasing away her demons.
And for that, she almost hated him more. For making her lean on him, even when he was twisting her arm and forcing her to do things.
She barely said two words during the entire first half of the session. It wasn’t until Dr. Lee asked her about the events of the weekend that she—reluctantly—allowed him to walk her through a breathing exercise.
Of course, it worked. And of course, inwardly she cursed herself for letting him be so useful. But she did feel better, despite herself.
As she slipped out into the waiting room, a familiar voice startled her. “Violet! Hey! How are you?”
She glanced back, checking to see if Dr. Lee was watching, but the door to his office was closed, giving them a few minutes of privacy. Sam didn’t seem to notice her guardedness as he stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug that was too tight.
Violet laughed, momentarily forgetting her silent vow to be sullen and brooding whenever she was in Dr. Lee’s presence. “Sam . . .” She could feel his ribs poking out beneath her hands as she shoved out of his grip. “What are you doing here?”
Sam’s skinny arms fell away, but his smile stayed firm and affixed on his face. She still had a hard time with the notion that Sam was some sort of super genius—or at least self-professed super genius. She knew it must be true, though. He wasn’t even sixteen and already he was a sophomore at the university. Hard to imagine since he barely had his learner’s permit and still had to take the bus and get rides from his parents everywhere he went.
He tapped the side of his head. “You know, psych checkup. Makin’ sure all the cogs are still in working order.”
Violet scrutinized Sam, trying to decide if he was being forced here the same way she was. But he stared back at her with his usual unreserved, too-eager expression, the one that looked like he had nothing in the world to hide.
Sometimes Violet forgot there’d actually been a time when she wanted to be here, when her visits to Dr. Lee were less than obligatory. “Yeah. Me too,” she said, knowing she couldn’t tell anyone else about the doctor’s coercive tactics.
“Man, I heard about the righteous crime scene you stumbled on. I’m so jealous. I heard it was disgusting.”
“Um, yeah,” Violet agreed. “It was pretty gross. And you’re pretty twisted if you’re jealous.”
He lifted his scrawny shoulders. “Duh,” he said, like that much was obvious. “Never said I wasn’t. So? Any suspects yet?”
Violet shook her head, thinking about Grady being cleared, and her uncle’s promise to let her know if he learned anything new. “Not yet.”
Sam glanced over his shoulder, making sure they were still alone before he leaned closer. “Man, I wish I could’a been there. That’s my favorite part . . . being at the scene itself. Touching things that belonged to the . . .” He shifted nervously on his feet, as if what he was saying was disrespectful, and then he shrugged. “Victims and whatnot. I love that flash . . .” His eyes lit up then, filled with wonder. “When I know I’ve got something. When I know I can help. Hopefully Sara can snag us some of their things. I hear the girl’s still missing. Hopefully it’s not too late for her.”
Violet felt a sudden jolt at Sam’s words, and wondered how she’d nearly forgotten that Rafe wasn’t the only one who could glean information by touching objects. Sam had the gift of psychometry too.
“Sam, Sam, Sam . . .” She flashed him a knowing grin as she reached for her backpack. She fumbled around inside it for a second, her fingers closing around the leather-bound journal that had once belonged to her grandmother.
She felt giddy, as she opened the front flap of the journal and reached for the photograph she’d hidden there, the one of the missing girl—the school picture Violet had lifted from the crime scene. Violet wasn’t sure it would work, but they could try at least. Maybe someone had handled it enough, maybe it had meant enough to one of them, that something could be read from it.
“Here,” Violet said, handing it over to him. “Keep it safe. And, please, don’t tell anyone I gave it to you. I don’t want anyone to know I took it.”
Sam watched her, his eyes wide as if she were presenting him with a work of art, rather than something she’d stolen off someone’s refrigerator.
“You can count on me,” he breathed, pressing it against his chest and closing his eyes.
Dr. Lee opened the door to his office then, pausing as he looked at each of them slowly, his face masked of all expressions. “Sam? Are you ready?”
Sam nodded, as he slid the picture discreetly into his back pocket. “Coming.”
Dr. Lee stood there a second longer, and then vanished inside to wait for Sam.
Sam winked at Violet, keeping his voice quiet. “I’ll let you know if I sense anything,” he said. Then he, too, disappeared into the doctor’s office.
Violet suddenly felt better. She may have a lead at last.
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
“I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T COMING BACK THIS time.” There was a mocking quality to his father’s words that he’d grown accustomed to over the years. He’d expected it from the old man.
“I’m not. I just need to grab a few things, then I’m outta here.” He’d hoped to get in and out without running into his dad, especially since the old man’s piece of shit car wasn’t parked out front. But even he’d known that had been hoping for too much. His dad rarely left except to make a run for more cigarettes or booze. Which is probably where his car was now, stranded somewhere on the side of the road . . . out of gas.
His dad barely looked up from the TV. “Don’t be like that. Stop being such a pansy and get your ass home. I got shit needs to be done around here.” The SOB had been drinking, and his words were sloppy. To an unaccustomed ear, it sounded like he’d said, “I go’ shi’ nee’s be done ’roun ’ere.”
Evan’s stomach clenched, but he managed to keep his mouth shut.
“Oh, I know. Yer too good for us, isn’t that right, boy? Yer gonna run off and be a rock star.”
“I just need to get some things,” he repeated as calmly as he could manage, leaving the room while the miserable bastard still ranted behind him. He needed to pack his shit and get out of there before the old man’s words morphed into full-on rage.
He passed a darkened bedroom, the door slightly ajar, just like it always was, and he hesitated. Something inside of him stirred, something small and childlike. Something he didn’t want to acknowledge. “Ma,” he breathed almost soundlessly into the still room.
There was no response but he knew she was in there; he could smell the fetid stench of her waste and her unwashed body. Smells that no child should ever have to smell. And along with her scent, he could hear the slight rustling of her sheets.
“It’s just me,” he said, louder this time. “I . . . I just stopped by. . . .” He didn’t know how to tell her he wasn’t staying. That he was leaving her alone—once and for all—with her husband.
But then there was another smell, the caustic stench that made the hairs on his arms stand on end, disclosing his father’s presence even before he spoke. He knew it had been a mistake, coming here. He knew he should’ve waited, till he was sure his old man wasn’t home.
“You think she needs you, boy? You think she gives a flyin’ f*ck”—he could feel spittle shower the back of his neck—“that you’re here? She doesn’t even know where she is. She doesn’t even know who you are,” his father spat. “She’s a junkie. No better’n that girl you got yerself hooked up with.”
Evan turned as fury uncoiled, making his hands ball at his sides even though he told himself not to do it. Even though he begged himself to stop.
His father saw too. “What’re’ya gonna do, boy? You think you can take yer ol’ man?” His mouth split into a hideous grin, baring teeth that were decayed and gums that festered, swollen and red. “Try it.”
He thought of Kisha and Bailey and Boxer and Colton—Butterfly, too—all waiting for him. All counting on him. He couldn’t do this. He knew he was outmatched. His father outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, and drunk or not, he’d once gone toe to toe with some of the best amateur fighters in the circuit. He could throw a punch as naturally as he could polish off a fifth of bourbon.
He loosened his fists and tried to duck around the bastard. “It’s not worth it,” he muttered.
But it was too late. His father was already raring for a fight, he’d already pushed the old bastard too far.
He felt his dad tackle him from behind and instinctively his arms shot up, covering the back of his head as his face slammed against the ground. That was the first line of attack—always was—his head. His dad landed a couple of solid blows, making his arms ache where they tried to shield him, but he already knew the rhythm of the punches—right, left, right. He dragged himself to the left, just as a hard right was coming at him, and he heard his father’s fist slam the hardwood just beside his ear.
There was a pause, and then his father’s shrieks—outrage mixed with pain—rumbled off the wall of the house. “Son of a—You mother fu—”
But Evan was already rolling away, taking advantage of the fact that he’d thrown the old man off kilter by fighting back. He kicked behind him, just once, and managed to catch his father in the gut. He heard the bastard land on the ground with a satisfying whomp!
He wouldn’t have long, he knew, and he scrambled to get to his feet, knowing his only chance was to get the hell out of there. He could get his shit later, when his dad ran out of booze again and had to make another liquor run.
He was almost to the door when he felt his feet jerked out from beneath him and he landed on his knees. His head reeled as he struggled to figure out what had just happened. He rolled onto his back, still trying to figure out why he’d fallen, only to see the old man waving something at him. His dad looked like a demented matador in a bullfight. Except that instead of a red cape, he was brandishing a floor mat. One Evan had walked on thousands of times before.
His father had literally pulled the rug out from underneath him.
“Nice try, f*ckwad.” He threw the rug down and closed the distance in two strides.
The first fist his dad landed was a hard left, and it hit him so hard his teeth clattered together. He might have bitten his tongue, or maybe it was his cheek, but he definitely tasted blood. The second was a right hook, coming up just beneath his jaw. He saw stars or fireworks or whatever you called it when white hot flashes exploded behind your eyelids making it impossible to see.
Glancing around, Evan searched for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. Something that might stop, or even just delay, his father long enough so he could escape.
There was nothing. Just an array of bottles and an overflowing ashtray and enough Playboys to make the old man look like some kind of perv.
He reached for the nearest bottle, barely noticing that the lid wasn’t screwed on, and he felt the cheap whiskey dribble down his arm as he waved it in front of the old man. “Get away from me, you prick. Stay back.”
His dad’s vision cleared slightly as he fumbled for the bottle. “Hey, knock it off, you idiot. That’s perfectly good scotch. Put it down or I’ll beat your ass.”
Evan laughed as he staggered to his feet, still letting the contents of the bottle spill all over the floor. “Really, you stupid bastard? You’ll beat my ass?” He wondered what the miserable drunk thought he’d already done to him . . . this time, and a thousand times before. He threw the bottle down, feeling a sense of satisfaction as it shattered on the floor, sending shards of glass spraying everywhere.
And then he reached behind him, while the old man was busy trying to figure out if there was any way to salvage the booze spreading outward around the broken fragments of glass—to mop it or sponge it up probably, possibly even to get on his hands and knees and lick it up if necessary.
Evan’s fingers closed around the baseball bat that was propped there by the door, the one meant for protection from anyone who might dare to break in, might try to rob the old man of his precious stash.
Now, however, it would simply be used against him.
The first blow, when he delivered it, was a right. It hit his father square in the left temple, causing his knees to buckle as he reached for the wound, which was already oozing blood. The second was a line drive to the right side of his skull, and this time he heard—or maybe felt—the bone give beneath the wooden bat.
This time, the old man shrieked, his mouth wide, until no sound was coming out. He stared at his son, blinking in disbelief, right before he tumbled forward, falling on his face.
The next three blows were rights—his strongest hand—and came from above as he stood over his father’s slack form. Gratification surged through him each time he heard the sound of the bat crushing bone.
It wasn’t until his arms ached and he was breathless that he stopped. He wiped his hands on his pants before throwing the bloodied bat on the ground.
Panting, he waited until he caught his breath again before making his way back to the bedroom.
This time he didn’t call out to her, he just slipped inside without a sound.
He stood at her bedside, waiting for his eyes to adjust, until he could see the gray outline of the woman who’d once been his mother. The woman who’d lost herself, first to the pipe, and then to the needle. The woman who’d left him in the care of that bastard.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last, as he tried to make himself feel something.
And then he lifted the pillow and covered her face.
She didn’t struggle or fight to try to live, not the way a normal person would have. Instead she just lay there, letting her only son steal the air from her lungs.
Letting herself die.
When he felt her body shudder, a tremor he’d felt before, he knew she was gone. He lifted the pillow and set it aside.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, before smoothing a hand over her cheek.
He went to the cupboard then, to where the old man kept the lighter fluid, the kind that normal families used to start charcoals when they barbequed in their backyards, but that his own dad had used to refill his stupid D-Day lighter that he claimed had belonged to his dad—the miserable drunk who’d come before him. He pulled off the stopper and squeezed, dousing his father until the stream of butane made the blood watery, spreading the pool.
He pulled a pack of matches from his front pocket, then changed his mind and went back to the littered coffee table, where the ashtray spilled over with cigarette butts and ash. Beside it, he picked up the lighter his dad used to scold him for touching.
He stood at the door, surveying his handiwork; glad the prick could never hurt him again. Glad his mother wouldn’t have to spend another day suffering because she needed her fix.
Then he lit the flame, mesmerized by the dancing blue and yellow blaze that flickered and flashed.
He threw the lighter down, into the pool of bloody lighter fluid and watched as the old man went up in flames.
And he closed the door behind him.
Dead Silence A Body Finder Novel
Kimberly Derting's books
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