My mother had left that part out. I gritted my teeth.
“So we drove around till we found your car, and then he got your name off your mail. So I Googled you and that’s how I figured out you were a private investigator. I just wanted to know who you were working for.”
As far as amateur detective work went, it honestly wasn’t bad. But I was furious—at them, and at myself. After all, it was my lie that had led to this point. “Well, are you happy now?”
“What do you know about my cousin?”
“Nothing, Cass,” I said. “I haven’t really learned anything. I apologize for lying to you—it’s just that you were about to shut the door and I wanted to speak to you. If you wanted to know more, why didn’t you just ask me? You obviously have my number, right? You’re the one who has been calling?”
Cass squinted in disgusted confusion.
“You haven’t been calling me?” I said. “And just breathing, not saying anything?”
“No,” Cass said, somewhat indignant now.
I ran a hand over my face again. I didn’t believe her, not for a second.
Damon chimed in, “You owe us five hundred bucks. I need medical treatment. I didn’t even touch any of your stuff, I was just looking. For, like, evidence.”
I was sick of them. I put my hands on my hips. “I think,” I said, “that you broke my fucking window, so we’re going to call it even. Or, we can get the police here to sort it out.”
Apparently those were the magic words, because Damon managed to get himself onto his feet. “No, we’re good now.”
“Do not come back here, understood?” I said, as firmly as I could manage.
It was one thirty when they finally left. I went back inside and locked the dead bolts on the door, a pointless act given the gaping hole in the glass. The adrenaline rush was over, leaving me shaky and exhausted and, although mildly relieved that the mystery of Camo Jacket was no more sinister than a couple of clueless idiots wound up over my own bad judgment, I didn’t quite know how to deal with the aftermath. It was the middle of the night, so there was no chance of getting anyone to come out and fix the window right now. But there was also no way I could sleep with it like this. I went into the kitchen and hit the lights, wincing at the sudden brightness. I turned them off and grabbed the pizza box off the stove, where I had abandoned it when Tom was over the night before last. I dumped the old pizza into the trash and cut a square of cardboard from the bottom of the box, also selecting a broom, a dust pan, and a roll of duct tape, making do. What it lacked in security it made up for in class, I told myself.
When I had completed my expert repairs, I sat at my desk for a minute with my phone, wondering if Catherine had Ubered straight home and if she’d let me join her there if I asked. But my chest tightened when I saw another two calls from the unknown number. One that came in while I was with Catherine, and one from one twenty.
Which would have been right in the middle of my confrontation with Cass and Damon.
I closed my eyes. The vague sense of relief I’d had only minutes before was gone. I hadn’t believed Cass at the time when she said she wasn’t the one calling, but even I had to admit that it would be awfully hard for her to pull off such a call when she was standing right in front of me.
Maybe I was wrong about what time it was when I got back inside.
I wanted to be wrong.
I’d assumed that the calls were part of the same narrative. If they weren’t, that meant I knew even less than I thought.
FIFTEEN
I met Andrew at Fox in the Snow for breakfast on Sunday morning. Ten o’clock, which was on the early side both for my hangover and for him. But I could hardly turn down the offer of a free blueberry hand pie, and I needed to get moving if I wanted to attempt to beat the crowd at the prison in Chillicothe anyway.
“You look like you had fun last night,” my brother said, stirring sugar into his coffee. Andrew, somehow, never got hungover, like the way some people don’t get poison ivy or ice-cream headaches. It wasn’t fair. “Spill.”
I waved him off. Catherine Walsh was on the no-fly list in terms of conversation topics, and my late-night visit from Cass and Damon would only make him worry about me. Besides, that hardly counted as fun. I was fine, I told myself. Everything was fine. “Just working,” I said. “You know I never have fun anymore.”
“How’s that going, your case for Matt’s lady friend?” he said. Then his eyes widened as he remembered something. “I meant to tell you: Did you know he’s in a band?”
I raised an eyebrow. “No,” I said.
“They’re called the Test Pavements,” Andrew said.
I had to laugh. “What does that even mean?” I said.
He shook his head. “A construction workers’ joke, I assume,” he said, “it sounds like a bunch of ODOT guys playing REM covers. He told us about it on Wednesday night after you left. He has a gig at some shitty coffee shop in Hilliard this Friday and Mom said we’re all going.”
I squeezed the liquid out of my tea bag. “That sounds awful,” I said. “A coffee shop? Will there be alcohol, at least?”
“No. Believe me, I asked. He said they have a wholesome juice bar, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think I should be exempt. I wasn’t there when the plan was discussed, and he clearly waited till after I left to bring it up for a reason.”
“Nice try. You’re going.”
“A Friday night out with our mother? All this togetherness. I don’t know if I can take it.”
“I know,” Andrew said. “It kind of makes you miss the benign neglect of our childhood, doesn’t it?”
We looked at each other for a beat. Finally, I said, “You owe me seven hundred bucks. Or half that, anyway. The sink?”
“What?” Andrew said. “When did this happen? And how does replacing a sink cost that much?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but that’s what it cost. I was over there when the plumber finished and someone had to pay him.”
“Shit, Rox,” Andrew said. “Sorry. Wait—half? What about Matt?”
“I talked to him,” I said. “He was unmoved. Also, I hung up on him. Hey, did you know that Mom hasn’t been inside the office since it happened?”
“How did that come up?” my brother said, ignoring my abrupt change of subject.
“I asked her about what she did with his old notebooks,” I said. “And she said they were probably still in the office but she didn’t know what was in there because it was locked. But, it’s not locked anymore.”
Andrew sighed. “So what’s in there?”
“Mostly dust,” I said, “but also the good liquor.”
That got his attention. “How good is good?”
“Midleton,” I said. “Wild Geese.”
“Nice.”
“And the computer in there, I swear it’s the same one they had when I was in high school,” I said. Then I thought of something else. “If Mom doesn’t have the key to the office, how does she e-mail us so often?”
“I think she goes to the library.”
“Seriously?”
“Honestly,” he said, “I think that’s what she’s always done.”