Calm down? Delilah hadn’t said a word since her father got home with his surprisingly expansive collection of curse words, since the firemen had stomped back out through the house—“See? Glad I have those plastic mats down!” her mother had chirped as they padded in boots and heavy gear across the virginal cream of the living room floor—since the police had been through and officially deemed it an accident, and since the plastic tarp separated the mess of Delilah’s room from the rest of the house.
“I don’t want it,” she said, taking only the water from her mother’s hand.
“You’ll take the pill or you’ll be grounded.” Her mother smiled, but it did nothing to cover the bite in her voice. “You’ve been through a trauma. I’ve been through a trauma. I want to go lie down up in my room and not worry about what you’re doing down here.”
Delilah’s brows went up in understanding. “I’m fine.” But she took the long white pill anyway, curling it in her palm. “I’ll call Dhaval. I’ll do my homework.” And wait for Gavin to call, she thought.
The sound of the television filtered in from the other room, and it occurred to Delilah that she had no idea whether her father actually got the job today. If his evening routine wasn’t changed by a fire in his house, of course it wouldn’t be altered by good news, either. Belinda blinked away, out the front window, and her brows pulled together in concern. Without having to look, Delilah knew what she saw out there: neighbors still standing in front of the house, pretending to worry but more than anything relishing the chance to gossip. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened around here. At least not that they knew of. Imagine the slobbering frenzy that would break out if anyone really knew about Gavin’s house. If they knew it wasn’t just an odd feat of architecture but something wicked, possessed, malignant.
“It wasn’t an accident, Mom.”
Delilah wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but she needed some sign, some nudge that Belinda could be a mother. That maybe she would hear the desperate, hysterical edge that made Delilah’s voice faintly metallic and it would trip some wire in her mother, turning her nurturing and communicative. Instead Belinda drew her eyes back to Delilah slowly, disappointment pulling her features into a sagging frown. On anyone else, the pink cardigan she wore might have looked feminine or soft, but on Belinda Blue it was too pink and too harsh against her pressed-powder skin. She looked like a disapproving piece of salmon. “Don’t start.”
“It wasn’t, Mom. What they’re saying doesn’t even make sense. A spark flew into my closed window and started a fire? Seriously? It rained earlier today.”
“You’re going to tell the firemen how to do their jobs now?”
“Maybe, if it’s obvious they’re wrong.”
Her mother pointed to the fist holding the pill. “Take it or you’re grounded. No phone. No sketchbooks. No time with that weird boy.”
She watched as Delilah placed it on her tongue and took what must have looked like a long gulp of water.
What her mother didn’t see was that Delilah spit it out moments later.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Him
Gavin had never broken into an actual house before, but really, how hard could it be?
From the shadows he watched as the last window of the Blues’ house went dark, and he waited.
The air grew colder near the curb, and from where he sat he could see the final, lingering onlookers shuffle away from the sidewalk and back to their cars or houses. Neighbors took one more glance around their curtains before they gave up for the night, and the windows of their houses went dark too.
There wasn’t much of a moon tonight, just a round slice of silver against the black sky. The air was damp, and Gavin wished he’d thought ahead to bring a heavier jacket, or something warm to sit on while he waited. He wondered how House felt about him not coming home for dinner and whether it had sent its feelers out to look for him.
He’d been in the Blues’ shed since the last fire truck had pulled away from the curb, soot and smoke-stained firemen congratulating one another and already arguing over whose turn it was to make dinner.