“It was worth it.” Getting hauled into the sheriff’s office hadn’t exactly been in her plans, but the end result had turned out better than she’d anticipated. Newman had been caught up along with them, and she was guessing he’d had drugs on him. At least, she assumed that was what he’d meant by offering Alyvia something to loosen her up. If so, the cops would have even more reason to investigate him.
And when they did, maybe there’d be a breakthrough in Kelsey’s case. She was allowed to feel good about that, right? The anxiety had hit pretty hard once she’d gotten to the sheriff’s office, but she’d gotten through it on her own. She was going to count the whole day as a success, even if it had led to her first—and hopefully last—arrest.
“You want to go inside for a coffee?”
Surprised, she looked at the building she was parked next to. It was a popular hangout for high schoolers. Janie had never been there. Judging by the number of cars in the parking lot, it was busy. “I don’t think so.”
“Mind if I do? I gotta get warmed up. Wait here.” Without another word, he had the door open and was dashing to the entrance of the structure.
She turned down the heat that was blasting through the vents and checked the dash clock. Forty-five minutes before she needed to be at work. She had nothing else to do to pass the time, but she hadn’t considered spending it all with Cole Bogart.
She didn’t know him. Janie kept reminding herself of that. And not too long ago, she hadn’t had a great impression of him.
But that was before, when all she’d had to go on was hearing about him hacking the school server. Before he’d told her about his brother. She stared at the door he’d disappeared through. His brother’s death wasn’t like Kelsey’s disappearance. Nothing was. But it was a tenuous bond that she didn’t share with anyone else, not even Alyvia. Like she and Cole belonged to the same group in the Shitty Circumstances Club. Membership for life, decided by fate.
It’s not like she didn’t know of other kids in school who’d lost a parent or something. But she’d never talked to them about it. Janie wouldn’t have spoken to Cole about his brother, either, if he hadn’t come to her house and spilled it all. The scene had been uncomfortable. But it was the first time she’d ever heard anyone else speak about what the loss of a sibling had done to him. The support groups her mom and dad had tried for a while were never an option for Janie. So listening to Cole had been weird. But sort of helpful in a way to hear from someone else going through something kind of similar.
He reappeared, using his shoulder to push out the door, his hands full with two coffees. He saw her watching and held one up, grinning. Reaching over, she unlatched the passenger door, pushed it open. “I got you a caramel whipped-cream espresso.” He handed her a cup. “Or we can switch if you want. I’ve got a vanilla cappuccino.”
Janie sipped at her drink cautiously. Then her brows rose. “I may as well be drinking hot ice cream.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good.” Making himself at home, Cole reached for the lever to move the seat back. “But if it’s ice cream you want, we can finish these and then head over to the Dairy Whip for dessert.”
“I’ll be there soon enough.” She drank again. It was good. The place had a drive-through window. She wouldn’t even have to go inside to order here again.
“Sorry you guys didn’t get out of the lake house in time.” It wasn’t the first time he’d apologized. “A plain car pulled up beside mine, and the cop inside started hassling me about why I was pulled over. It took me a minute to realize a cruiser had pulled in to the drive. Some lookout I was.”
“It actually turned out okay.”
“How much trouble did you get in with your parents?”
Janie hesitated. She’d fared better than Alyvia had, who was currently grounded into infinity. Her friend had even lost cell phone privileges. But she was confident her foster parents would relent. By the time she was done going over the story with them, they’d be convinced she and Janie were modern-day Nancy Drews. “They were all right,” she said finally. “I was mostly concerned about my mom. Newman admitted on tape that he’d taken pictures of my sister seven years ago. That was hard for her to hear. She hasn’t really been the same since Kelsey was kidnapped.” And neither, in truth, had her dad. The change had happened so gradually that Janie hadn’t even realized how much time he spent away. Maybe he had more responsibility at work. Or perhaps he’d rather be anywhere but home. She couldn’t help feeling that it had been more guilt than concern that had led to him showing up at home late Friday night. Janie had already had her mom calmed down by then. She’d insisted Claire take a hot bath. Get into bed. And had sat with her until her dad had shown up unexpectedly.
“Who would be the same?” A shadow crossed Cole’s expression. “My dad used to be a teetotaler, but now I see a bourbon bottle in his bottom desk drawer in the den. And sometimes he hits it pretty hard. It’s like he’s a different person. Then it occurred to me that he was using the bourbon for the same reason I bought weed. That had me backing off it. I don’t want to rely on it to get by, you know?”
“Yeah.” The same way Janie didn’t want to depend on medication because of her mother’s addiction to alcohol and pills. And it was an addiction, even if she could go days without them. Her father seemed blissfully unaware of the problem. Or was it just easier for him to overlook it? He’d lost a daughter, too. If there was one thing their family dynamics proved, it was that everyone managed trauma differently. They all had their own ways of getting by.
“My mom stays super busy with work and all these activities and baking . . . she’s always in the kitchen doing something. Like, if she just keeps moving she can outrun Garrett’s death. I think she’s afraid if she stops, it’s going to steamroll over the top of her.”
Janie listened in awkward silence, sipping at the coffee to avoid answering. It felt too personal to hear about the cycle of someone else’s grief. She’d been trapped in her own and in that of her parents since she was ten. But there was a weird sort of comfort in Cole’s revelations, too. No one got out of a personal tragedy unscathed. The wounds didn’t go away. It was just a matter of how well each person covered them.