Judging from Lily’s scrunched expression, she agrees.
“I love you,” I say, hugging my sister hard just before they leave. With the fresh clothes and cleaned cut, she looks so much less . . . horrifying. I never want to see Lily like that ever again.
“I love you too,” she says, wrapping both arms around my neck.
“C’mon, I’ll drive you.”
Lily shakes her head. “Better if we walk.” She slips a glance at Mina. “Gives me more time to talk to her.”
“Talk in the car. You can’t go anywhere by yourself now, Lil. It’s not safe.”
“So how’s that work? You’re just going to shadow me for the rest of my life?”
She’s too young to sound so bitter, and another pang of guilt chokes me. I grab my keys. “We’ll figure it out later. Just get in the car.”
I call Mrs. Ellery to explain where I’m going as both girls pile into the Mini. Thankfully, the old bat doesn’t give me any crap and I drive them back to Mina’s, not leaving the driveway until Lily walks into the house and closes the door tight behind her. Milo’s wrong. The past isn’t dead. The future is. Everything we’ve done creates everything we will do.
Maybe this was always going to happen.
I’ll have to be fast though. Business hours are only for another few minutes. I pick up my cell phone and I don’t even have to search for the number because it’s still in my Recent Calls list. The line rings so many times, I think they’ve left for the day, but then the receptionist picks up. “Fayette County Jail, where can I direct your call?”
I angle the phone against my ear. “I need to make an appointment to see inmate Michael Tate.”
44
I get the same guard as before, and as we walk into the Rainbow Visiting Room together, I try to gauge if he thinks it’s weird that I’m here again.
Or, worse, if he thinks it’s weird that I’m here for a totally different person, like weird enough to remember it for a jury.
Because if Michael does end up doing this—and if I’m going to tell him what happened, I should, at minimum, be able to say what this is and I can’t—I want to make sure I’m covered. It can’t get traced back to me. But the guard leaves without a second glance and I’m alone.
A few minutes later, Michael appears, and when he stands on the other side of the Plexiglas, he smiles and smiles.
All I can think about is how Carson said our smiles are the same.
“Hello, Wicket.”
I swallow hard. “Michael.”
My dad’s eyebrows rise like he finds the greeting amusing. I don’t care. The last time I saw him he nearly dislocated my shoulder and he’s in jail because Griff helped catch him. He doesn’t scare me anymore.
Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll believe it.
Michael settles in his chair, palming what’s left of his blond hair. The jail buzz cut makes the lines of his skull stand up in blunted ridges.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Did you get my present?” Specifically, did he get a dented Samsung Galaxy loaded with the enhanced security video footage file from my computer? Stringer said he should have. Stringer will say a lot of things for two hundred bucks.
“I did. Where’d you find that?”
“Friend gave it to me.”
Michael’s eyes wander to the guard watching us. “Some friend.”
You have no idea. “I wanted you to see it because”—I hesitate, trying to choose my words carefully—“because what happened wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a choice. Mom did it because she had to, because Joe Bender made her.”
Michael goes still. “You sure about this?”
“I reduced the blur in the video, and enlarged the image. You can clearly see them. It happened. It’s him.”
My father is silent for so long I think he doesn’t care and I’m useless again. His eyes stay low, tracing some invisible word scarred on the tabletop in front of him.
“Who was with him?”
My mouth goes dry. I said them. I slipped.
“Some junkie he found to help him,” I lie. Inside though I’m freaking. It’s not like me to make that sort of mistake. I want him locked up, not dead.
Right?
Of course not. That isn’t me. I don’t want anyone to die.
Only that’s a lie now, isn’t it?
“Why’re you telling me?” My dad’s eyes lift, meeting mine, and I have to struggle not to shudder.
“Because you need to know.” I flex my hands under the table, rubbing sweaty palms against my jeans. Something wordless and urgent sits in my chest. I curl around it. “And because I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
Michael smiles again and this time I do shudder. Maybe from fear . . . maybe from anticipation. I want Joe to pay and I know the look Michael has now. It’s promising me mayhem.
“I’m going to take care of it, Wicket,” he says. “Trust me.”
When it comes to this, I do. I walk to my car not really feeling light or giddy.