“Oh yeah, I’m totally the ass –“
Killian smacks me hard in the chest. “Shut up before I knock both of you idiots out,” he says. “Our mother kept a diary.”
My blood is pumping so loudly in my ears that it takes a second to register. “A diary?”
“We found it,” says Silas. “Tempest and I did. Everything is in there.”
Everything’s in there.
“What?” I ask. “Show me.”
I’m struck by a sudden overwhelming sense of guilt. I’d stuck around in West Bend after my mother’s suicide because I’d thought something was off about it. I’d even gone and poked around the old house, at least until I couldn’t stand being there anymore, until the darkness of the place threatened to envelop me even in the middle of the daytime. It reeked of memories of the past, shit I didn’t want to think about anymore.
Since then, I’ve been distracted by Autumn…
Killian claps me hard on the back, jolting me out of my thoughts. “Elias has the diary.”
Family, I remind myself. That’s why I’m here. I'm not here to be distracted by a woman.
“You were right.” Elias hands me the notebook. “It wasn’t a suicide. Jed killed her.”
“We assume Jed killed her,” Silas adds. “The journal implies it.”
“Whatever,” Killian says. “We know it was Jed. We could easily take care of it.”
Elias snorts. “Yeah, man. That’d be real fucking smart, seeing as he’s the sheriff and all. Why don’t you go take his ass out right in front of the mayor’s office, while you're at it? I’m sure that’ll work out well.”
“Shit, start seeing a movie star and all of a sudden you’re all ‘think logically’ and ‘don’t commit murder, Killian’.”
“Shut up for a damn second," I say, opening the journal. “I can’t even hear myself think.”
“You think?” Silas rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t even sure you could read.”
I glare at him. “I’m going to kick your fucking ass in two seconds if you don’t shut your mouth.”
Silas hoots. “I'd love to see you try, big brother.”
“Cut it out, both of you!” Killian sighs. “You guys are giving me a headache. Why are we standing outside anyway? You got beer in the fridge?”
“Dude, it’s like nine in the morning,” Elias says.
Killian raises his eyebrows. “Do you have a fucking point?” he asks. “Beer? Fridge?”
I toss the keys at Killian. "The fridge is full of beer. Wait, I thought you were going back to the rig?”
“I have to. Leave tomorrow.”
“You’re going to really leave right in the middle of this shit?”
Killian shrugs, the way he does. Things just roll off his back; that's the way Killian has always been, mellow like that. But it pisses me off that he can just walk away like none of this matters to him. It should matter to him. He points at Elias and Silas. "You two idiots, leave Luke alone to read through the journal while I get us some beers. I'm not doing jack shit out here until I get a cold one."
"It's all near the end in the journal," Elias starts.
"Leave him be, Elias," he says, disappearing into the house.
Elias glares at him. "I folded down the page," he adds anyway.
I pull up a lawn chair and open the journal to the page, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Fuck this day. It was already a shitty day to begin with, and now this.
I lose myself in the pages, squinting at the pieces of handwriting that are hard to decipher, words here and there that I can't quite make out. It's definitely hers, though – it's like hearing my mother's voice from beyond the grave. At one point, I look up from it and catch Silas' eye.
"It's weird reading that shit, isn't it?" he asks.
"Spooky," I agree. It's like stepping into her head, and that's not a place I've ever wanted to be. I've always thought of her as weak, too afraid to leave my asshole stepfather. He'd beaten her down so many times that she was too helpless to get out. Except, that's not what I see in the journal. Her voice changes over the course of it. And then I get to the thing that hits me like a blow to the gut, that makes the world tilt on its fucking axis.
I look up at Elias. "Are you kidding me?" I ask.
"Keep reading," he says. "It gets worse."
21
Autumn
Olivia points at the freezer, and then at her mouth, before letting out a loud scream.
"Ice cream?" I ask. I'm about to say no, when Connie – Connie C. to differentiate her from Connie S. over at the salon – bustles past me, wiping her hands on her gingham apron.
"Oh, give that baby some ice cream," she says, slipping behind the ice cream freezer and reaching into one of the containers to scoop out a bit into a cup. "It won't hurt her any."
"Says the woman who doesn't have to deal with a kid who doesn't want to nap after she gets all hopped up on sugar," I protest, but halfheartedly. This is part of our regular routine here.