“Roxy was never the same.”
And you never went back to the only true home you’d ever known, Juniper thought, but she held her tongue and watched as Everett took a long pull of his beer. He never broke eye contact with her.
“You’re right, figuring out who killed the Murphys won’t rewrite history, but I believe in justice,” he said, his voice stiff with emotion. “I believe that when someone has hurt another person, they should be held accountable.”
All at once, Juniper knew. “It’s you,” she whispered. That bastard Jonathan Baker, and his office with all the suspects on the wall like a murder book come to life. The hatred that rolled off him in waves. Everett was behind the podcast. He was digging into the past with the singular ambition of destroying her brother.
“What?” He studied her with narrowed eyes.
Juniper’s tongue felt thick in her mouth. “You want to know the truth about that night,” she improvised. She didn’t feel safe in his home anymore and regretted the fact that she had come at all. What would he do if he suspected that she knew the truth about what he was doing?
But Everett didn’t seem to notice just how anxious she had become. “So do you. Answer my questions. Help me.”
What did he need her for? Everett had already admitted that he had the evidence boxes, access to all the transcripts and case notes, probably even a direct line to the detective who worked the case all those years ago. He held all the cards. Almost.
“You need to talk to Jonathan,” Juniper said, stalling. “When he’s well enough.”
“There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” Everett scoffed. “He won’t talk to me.”
“I think you’re wrong.” Juniper leaned over to put her glass on the coffee table, perching on the edge of the couch. Something had changed in the air, and everything inside her told her to run. But Everett was only a few feet away. One lunge and he could stop her in her tracks. Do God knows what. Cora didn’t know where she was. Neither did India. She hadn’t told anyone she was going to Everett’s house. And who would suspect a cop? Juniper cursed herself for leaving her phone in the pocket of her coat. It was now crumpled on the floor beside the door.
“I tried,” Everett said, and there was a ferocity in his voice that hadn’t been there before. He lifted himself up a bit, tilting toward Juniper like he was sure he could convince her if only he said the right words vehemently enough. “He laughed at me.”
It struck her all at once that he was painfully lonely. The ripple effect of that night had forever changed his life, too, and she felt a wave of sympathy for the boy who had been so unceremoniously ripped from a home that was safe—maybe even loving—and thrust into a dangerous and scary situation. Juniper’s life hadn’t been perfect, but she also hadn’t been bounced around from foster home to foster home because her stepdad beat her. It had fractured something in him; she could see that clearly now. It broke her heart, but it scared her, too.
Compassion must have shown on her face, because Everett smiled a little. “You get it, don’t you? We could finally crack this case.”
We? Juniper itched to remind him that there was no “we,” but Everett’s tongue darted between his lips and she knew he was a fanatic. A zealot, a die-hard. This—bringing the Murphys’ killer to justice—was everything to him. It was beyond right and wrong, it was a matter of retribution to Everett Stokes. Of vengeance. Dread coiled in her gut.
Juniper longed to jump from the couch and fling herself out the door, but she forced herself to stay calm. “How would we do that?” she asked.
“We dredge up the past. Bring it all back. Trigger memories until people have no choice but to confront what happened and whatever role they played in it.”
He realized his mistake the moment that Juniper’s eyes turned to stone.
“What did you say?” she muttered between clenched teeth. The story was shaping up like the first few frames of an old-fashioned movie reel. Juddering and blurry until, suddenly, a picture so clear and obvious it made her gasp. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a suicide attempt. “Oh my God. You poisoned Diesel.”
Everett’s hand whipped out, snake quick, and caught her wrist. “It wasn’t like that. I mean, I didn’t know that it would happen that way.”
Any fear Juniper felt was replaced by a fury so poker hot she could have branded him with it. She ripped her hand from his grip and leapt to her feet so that the coffee table was between them. “You’re crazy!”
“It was an accident.”
“What on earth were you doing?” Juniper screamed. “How could you possibly think that poisoning Diesel would help anything? And how could you possibly know about Baxter?”
Everett was standing now, too, his beer abandoned and hands out in front of him as if he were offering them up as evidence of his blamelessness. Wrists out: cuff me. He chose the last question—the easiest one—to answer. “It’s all in the file. All the misdemeanors against the Murphys are included as background information. Jonathan went along with Calvin to lodge the official complaint when Baxter died, so his name came up in the case notes. I just thought if he started thinking about that time…”
“Maybe it would jar something loose and he’d confess to you?” Juniper’s voice dripped with all the loathing she felt, and for a moment Everett withered beneath it. But just as quickly as he seemed to give up, he squared his shoulders.
“I’m an officer doing my job. I didn’t know that Jonathan would take Diesel for an early morning walk. And there’s no way I could have predicted that stupid animal would run out onto the ice. It’s unfortunate that Jonathan was seriously injured, but he’s going to be okay. Accidents happen.”
Juniper glared at him, speechless, before she spun on her heel and hurried to the door. If she stayed for another second, she knew that she would launch herself at him, that she’d claw his eyes out with her fingernails, or worse. She paused with her closed fist on the handle and whirled so that her back would not be turned to Everett. She didn’t trust him for even a second.
“It was you. It was all you. The phone calls and drive-bys, the harassment that nearly drove my sister-in-law crazy. You’re crazy. Did you slash my tires, too?”
He took a step toward her and Juniper could see the truth in his feral scowl. She wrenched open the front door. “You’ll lose your job over this. Or worse.”
“Maybe,” Everett said. “But I won’t give up.”
She whipped around and jogged down the steps. He lunged after her and shouted from the landing: “This isn’t over!”
Juniper didn’t even break her stride. Within seconds she was behind the steering wheel, car on, no seat belt. She squealed out of Everett’s driveway, hoping the neighbors heard, and that they looked out of their blinds and saw him standing there, framed in the glow of his open doorway, shoulders slumped and brow furrowed. Looking guilty as hell.
CHAPTER 24
THAT NIGHT
Light cuts through the night and fractures into a thousand pieces as it slashes through every crack and crevice in the barn. For just a moment I shimmer gold, a dusty glitter illuminating my skin, my tangled hair, the dank dirt floor. Just as quickly as it sparkles, it’s gone, but that second of dazzle is enough—it sends a jolt of electricity right through me.
When a door slams, a whimper escapes my lips. There are terrors crouching in the shadows, waiting for me. I thought I had given it enough time, that he was gone and wouldn’t come back, but the vehicle in the yard tells a very different story.
My panic is raw and jagged, and though there is much I don’t know, I am sure of two things: Cal and Beth are dead, and I’m next.