When they were all settled in the records room and the library was quiet once again, Juniper unwittingly proved her point by looking up India’s blog on one of the library’s desktop computers.
Jericho Unscripted was sleeker and far more professional-looking than Juniper had expected it to be. She’d had visions of a pastel color palette and amateurish clip art, but India had obviously had help. The site was all silver and black, with a gorgeous photo of five women linking arms on the home page. Their backs were turned to the camera and the image was a little smoky, as if India had wanted to give the impression of inclusivity. These women could be anyone, but certainly not everyone, because they were all slim and perfectly coiffed and lovely.
“Good grief, they take themselves seriously,” Juniper muttered. She wished she could share her derision with someone, perhaps Cora or Jonathan, but it helped to say the words out loud. She knew she was being petty, maybe even jealous, but she was too unnerved to care.
Juniper planned to scroll through old blog posts to get a bit of a feeling for the types of things that India liked to write about, but she didn’t make it past the most recent entry. The title alone made her heart somersault.
LOCAL MURDER SUSPECT IN CRITICAL CONDITION
Good God, who did India think she was?
Juniper scanned the article quickly, her gaze alighting on phrases that made her simmer.
Jonathan Baker, a suspect in a nearly fifteen-year-old double murder…
No one was ever charged…
Murderer remains at large…
Jonathan’s “accident” dredges up a lot of unanswered questions…
India had actually put quotation marks around “accident,” but it was unclear what she was trying to imply. Was there any way she could know about how history was repeating itself? About the little “mishaps” and thinly veiled threats that Mandy had whispered about only days ago? Even if she did, India’s insinuations read like a bad tabloid. She was clueless. Ignorant. She didn’t know anything. India’s faux friendliness—the way she had sidled up to Juniper at Mom & Tot Hour like an old friend—was galling.
Still. Juniper scrolled quickly through the site, looking for anything and everything even remotely related to Jonathan or the murders. Could India be behind the podcast? And if so, was she capable of persecuting Jonathan—and Mandy and the boys—in such a sinister, traumatizing way? It didn’t seem likely. India had come across as a little vacuous but friendly enough, and certainly not malevolent. Whoever was working on a podcast about the Murphy murders had a vicious vendetta against her brother. That bastard. It felt personal. And yet, India Abbot was definitely someone Juniper needed to watch.
She closed the browser and then tried to erase the search history before remembering that the function had been disabled—not that it mattered. If Barry was right, India’s little online rag got lots of attention. Surely it had popped up on the library’s computers many times before and no one who noticed it would think twice. Still, if Juniper had anything to do about it, India’s days as an amateur investigative journalist were numbered.
Before she had time to change her mind, Juniper plucked the business card from where she had tucked it in her phone case and punched in the number. “Officer Stokes?” she said when he picked up. “I think we need to talk.”
CHAPTER 8
SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Sullivan’s kiss lingers like an illness. It clings to my skin and makes me feel dirty, even after I’ve showered and crawled into bed feigning an unspecified sickness. Jonathan leaves me alone at the insinuation of “girl problems,” but I won’t be able to avoid him forever. He’ll insist on a play-by-play of my conversation with Sullivan, and I’ve never been able to lie to my brother. Not that I don’t try—he can just read me like an open book.
Curled on my side in bed, I squint at the stars outside my window and try to get my story straight. Sullivan talked about water. About sinkholes and pollution and not much else. It scares me a bit to remember how cavalier he was about Baxter, as if taking a life—even the life of an animal—was really nothing at all. And I have much more to learn about the ongoing feud between the Murphys and the Tates. I wonder what Jonathan knows.
Layered in with all that worry is the knowledge that Ashley will never forgive me if she finds out what I let happen. It wasn’t that big of a deal, of course. I know that. The logical side of me accepts that Sullivan kissed me and I backed away. But Ashley will never see it that way because she’s so head over heels for him. I’m pretty sure she’d forfeit our friendship over a misunderstanding. And isn’t the growing distance between us all my fault? I’ve made no secret about the fact that I hate it here. My automatic dislike of anything and everything related to this town rubs Ashley the wrong way, and now that I’m half-gone, I can see our relationship is hanging by a thread. I wanted more for us than this.
* * *
Law and Jonathan are long gone by the time I drag myself out of bed and stumble down the stairs in the morning, but there’s no way I can avoid Mom. No doubt, she’ll be waiting in the kitchen for me, and I get ready as slowly as I can without making myself late. I pull my hair into a high knot and throw on clothes that are already paint-splattered and worn. By the end of the day I’ll be a disaster, covered in smears of oil pastels and glitter glue if I’m not careful. I have the best summer job in all of Jericho—assistant to the Arts and Crafts Director at the community center—but it’s definitely not clean.
I skip down the steps two at a time, planning to eat on the run. But Mom is leaning against the kitchen sink, waiting for me, it seems. She’s not going to let me slip away so easily this time.
“Hey,” she says, peering at me over a mug of tea.
“Hey.” I can’t exactly back out of the room now, even though I’m still not ready to face her. “About the other day…”
Mom sighs. “Juniper Grace, you’re an adult. I’m not going to yell at you about grad night.”
“You’re not?”
“I don’t want you to make bad decisions, but you’re a good girl, June. Everyone is allowed a mistake from time to time.”
I’m all set to argue with her—to remind her that I’m responsible and a straight-A student and not the kind of girl who makes a habit of getting drunk—but then she smiles at me over the rim of her mug and I realize she’s already forgiven me.
“I thought you were mad. I’ve been avoiding you.” I pull out a stool at the island and Mom comes over to lift a loaf of bread out of the basket on the counter. When Jonathan and I were little, she used to make something different and wonderful for breakfast every morning. Pancakes and waffles, omelets with fresh eggs we gathered from the small coop out back, lots of thick, crispy bacon. I didn’t really appreciate it when I was a kid, the way Mom served us. I thought it was our right as her children, but I can see it now as something much different. An offering, maybe. A kind of tangible provision. Love.
“You don’t have to make me breakfast,” I say, but she’s already slathering salted butter on a thick hunk of bread and reaching for the raspberry jam. In a few more seconds she slides the plate to me, open-faced sandwich cut in two triangles just the way I like it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. There’s a bag in the fridge with your lunch.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say around a mouthful, but she waves me off.
“It’s just leftovers. Don’t get too excited.”
I eat in silence for a few moments, and Mom just watches me. I can feel her gaze, but it’s a soft touch, a caress. It hits me that I’ll miss these moments with her when I’m gone.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” I ask when I’m down to my last few bites. Mom needs to be prompted sometimes, to be encouraged to articulate the thoughts that whir so quickly, so quietly behind her dark eyes. And a hasty glance at the clock on the wall behind her tells me I don’t have much time.