Thicker Than Water (8 page)

I asked what they thought would make me do such a thing.

They said I did it because I resented her for marrying Stan.

They asked over and over again where I hid her rings. They asked in different ways, hoping to trip me up, I guess.
Are we going to find her wedding ring in your room, Tom? What did you do with her rings, Tom? Her rings are somewhere safe, aren’t they, Tom?

For some reason, this bothers me more than the murder accusation. I asked Stan about it, why they’d think I’d rob my own mother of her jewelry, and he pointed to motive. He said it might be personal, removing the rings. It might be something someone would do if they weren’t happy with the wedding.

He gave me a pointed look when he said that part.

Here’s what doesn’t look good for me: I
wasn’t
happy with the wedding.

Not for any weird reasons. I don’t have mommy issues. I wanted her to be happy.

So even though I wasn’t thrilled with the wedding, I wasn’t unhappy, either. I thought it was too fast, but she’s an adult, and she can make her own decisions. Mom and Stan didn’t date long. Just a few months. Then he popped the question, and a month later they signed a marriage license at City Hall.

I had a problem with moving here.

I had just graduated from high school, and I had plans. Nothing big, but
plans.
I had friends. A job. A routine.

I didn’t have the means to stay there on my own. Mom dragged me out to the middle of nowhere to tell me we were moving here. She sold it hard.
Think of it, Tom. We’re surrounded by water. We’re less than an hour from Ocean City. This town is full of charm! You’ll love it. I know you’ll love it.

I didn’t love it. I pitched a fit.

Not for long. But enough to let her know I wasn’t happy.

One of the detectives who first interrogated me, a guy named Eckels, I think, tried to buddy up. He told me about how his mom used to make him do things he didn’t want to do all the time, and he always wanted to punch her.

I looked him dead in the eye and said that I’ve never hurt her. Not for this, not for anything.

He didn’t appreciate my suggestion that maybe he should see a therapist if he still feels like punching his mother.

My mind wanders back to my father. Those days of my mother moving through life in fear are long gone. She stopped visiting school and staying up all night when I turned twelve or thirteen.
Years
ago. She was on Facebook and posted regularly. She met Stan online, for god’s sake. Not exactly the movements of a woman hiding from a mysterious ex.

I’ve long since thought he moved on. Or, considering her early fear of him, I occasionally wondered if he was dead.

Even if he was alive and harboring some bizarre desire to have her back, how would he know to find her here? We’ve only lived in Garretts Mill for a few weeks. Half our boxes are still packed. She and Stan didn’t drag out their courtship, but it wasn’t
that
quick. If someone felt resentful about their relationship, why take action
now
?

And if it wasn’t my father—which is already ridiculously far-fetched—who the hell did it?

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
here’s a news van outside my house in the morning. I don’t notice it at first—I’m not of the mind to inspect the front yard when I crawl out of bed.

No, I find out when I’m coming down the stairs and my grandmother gasps.

It takes a lot to tear her attention away from
The View
.

“Pajamas?” she says. “With the local news on the front lawn? Charlotte. Get upstairs and put on something decent.”

Let the record show that I’m wearing a T-shirt and cutoff sweatpants that used to belong to Ben. Not exactly a lace nightie.

But I know how a fight will go, so I head upstairs to change. When I come back down, I find Mom making banana bread muffins, and she doesn’t seem too concerned that our house is under surveillance. Then again, she’s married to a police officer, and she’s watched her three sons follow in his footsteps, so maybe a little news van is nothing special.

Still, it’s a big deal to me.

“What does the news van want?” I ask.

“To talk to you,” she says equably. A muffin pan is on the stove and she’s gently pulling the muffins free to cool them on a metal rack. She’s not looking at me, and I can’t tell if she’s still mad about yesterday.

“Why?”

A muffin sticks to the side of the pan, and she all but stabs it to get it free. “To figure out if you’re involved with that boy, or if you’re collaborating with your brothers to harass him.”

So she’s still mad.

I pull a jug of orange juice out of the refrigerator. “Why would I be doing either of those things?”

The timer goes off and she yanks the second pan out of the oven, slamming it on the ceramic cooktop.

“I don’t know, Charlotte. Why would you go off in the woods with a boy we all warned you to stay away from?”

I don’t say anything to that. I take a drink of juice and reach for one of the muffins.

She smacks my hand away. “Did you check your levels this morning?”

“Of course.”

“Your insulin?”

“
Of course.
” Maybe next she’ll ask if I need a bottle and a diaper change. I reach for a muffin again, and she smacks my hand a second time. It’s hard enough to sting. Hard enough to make me realize that she’s still
really
mad.

“Do you have any idea,” she starts, “what it felt like to hear that no one knew where you were—but then to hear that that boy was carrying you out of the woods?
Unconscious
, Charlotte. With a murderer. What were you thinking? What? Tell me.”

“He hasn’t been convicted yet, so maybe we can stop calling him a murderer.”

“That’s all you have to say to me? There are lots of people who haven’t been convicted yet, and I don’t want you associating with them either.”

“I’m almost eighteen,” I say. “I’m not going to apologize for having a conversation with someone who missed his mother’s funeral because my brother has a stick up his—”

“
Charlotte
.”

“No, Ma, let her finish.” Danny enters the kitchen. He must be on duty soon because he’s in full uniform.

I want to throw my glass of orange juice at him.

“Go ahead,” he says, his eyes full of malicious taunting, and for a second I think he’s egging me on to soak him in Tropicana.

But no, he’s asking me to finish my sentence. I smile sweetly. “I’m sure you can fill in the blank.”

He gets a glass and pours his own glass of orange juice. “What’s with the news van?” he says. “Can’t wait to get a look at our Hester Prynne here?”

“What are you even talking about?” I snap. “I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

“Never said you did.”

“That’s what
The Scarlet Letter
is about!”

He shrugs and leans over to give our mother a kiss on the cheek, then grabs a muffin. She holds out a second one. “Take two if that’s all you’re eating.”

Danny grins at me. “I didn’t really read it.”

This is how he gets away with so much. He acts like a complete jerk, but then he flashes a charming smile, throws around some wicked humor, and people give him a pass.

I glare at him. “The A is for Adultery, you jackass.”

“Charlotte!” my mother gasps.

Danny makes a tsking noise, grabs a third muffin, and heads out of the kitchen. “I’ll get the news van to leave,” he calls as he goes.

Like he’s the chief of police or something. He’s lucky he doesn’t get a fourth muffin to the temporal lobe.

I’m starving and I want one for myself, but my knuckles still sting from the first time I tried to take one. I wish Ben still lived at home. He’d be sneaking some up to my room, taking some of the edge out of my temper before I had to deal with my mother or my other brothers.

I suppose I should be glad that my father isn’t home. He was fit to be tied last night.

My mother is at the sink, washing dishes with a vengeance.

I don’t want to apologize. I didn’t do anything wrong. They’re all overreacting. Especially the news van sitting outside.

But she really
was
worried.

I reach out for the sponge and the glass bowl. “Here. I can do that.”

For an instant, I don’t think she’s going to relinquish anything. Mom is a total rage-cleaner. But she hands me the sponge.

“Thanks,” she says grudgingly.

The water is just this side of too hot, but I scrub away. “Why would they think I’m collaborating to harass Thomas?”

She slams a cabinet door. “I don’t want to talk about this, Charlotte.”

Well. Fine, then.

I scrub in silence for a bit, while she lays out ceramic ramekins and various other cooking instruments. The tension begins to leach out of the room, so I try again.

“What are you making?”

“Chicken pot pies. Your father is working a double shift. I’ll take him one at lunchtime.”

“I can take it.”

“No, I’d like you to stay right here where your grandmother and I can keep an eye on you.”

I scowl and scrub harder. I can rage-clean, too.

But half an hour later, she runs out of flour, and she tosses me her car keys.

“No comment!” she yells at me as I’m pulling my thong sandals onto my feet.

“I know,” I yell back. But maybe Danny worked some sorcery, because the news van
is
gone.

The grocery store is packed. Mom likes to do her regular shopping at the Super Giant closer to the main part of town, but I don’t feel like driving twenty-five minutes for flour. Lauder’s pretends to be a full-sized store, but it’s really a mom-and-pop type deal. Their bakery is to die for. Sunday morning, after-church shoppers crowd the aisles. More than one baby is fussing in a cart, ready to go home for a nap.

Even though I only have one item and can go through the express lane, three other people are still ahead of me. I put the flour under my arm and pull out my phone to check for texts, but Nicole is working at the library this morning, and Mrs. Kemper gets on her case if she’s texting while she’s supposed to be shelving books.

Because of the crowd and the noise, I don’t recognize the commotion to my left until the guy in front of me makes a comment about it. “You think they caught this kid shoplifting?”

I glance over. The store manager is standing behind the service desk, her arms folded over her chest. One of the bag boys is blocking my view of whoever she’s talking to. Another employee is blocking whoever-it-is from the other side.

The manager points at the store entrance. I can’t hear her over the general cacophony, but it’s pretty clear that she says, “Go.”

A hand slaps a piece of paper down on the counter in front of her. A male voice, tight with irritation, carries over the din. “This is the third place I’ve gone that won’t take an application. Haven’t any of you heard of due process?”

Then he leans forward, and I see his profile. Thomas.

I stop breathing. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but it’s definitely him.

The manager doesn’t lower her hand. “Go,” she says again, her tone loud enough for me to hear her now. “If you’re refusing to leave the store, I’ll be forced to call the authorities.”

“Fine,” he snaps. “
Fine
.” He picks up the piece of paper and rips it in half. The aggression in his motion doesn’t match the almost preppy outfit he’s wearing, a red polo shirt with khaki pants.

The man in line in front of me shuffles forward, but he’s still watching the interaction, too. “That guy looks familiar,” he says. “Does he look familiar to you?”

“Yeah,” I say absently.

Other people are staring, too. I wonder how many people saw him on the news last night. The murder was big news, but no one knew Marie. Her son’s involvement wasn’t well known outside law enforcement circles.

Now it is.

Thomas storms past the line of registers and barely waits for the automatic doors to give way. People give him a wide berth.

The entire interaction is somehow infuriating and pathetic and disappointing, all at once.

I look at the gentleman in front of me. He’s a typical local: plaid shirt, sagging skin, gray hair. I thrust a five dollar bill at him. “Would you mind paying for my flour? I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait—you can’t—”

“Thanks!” I call, already jogging through the electronic doors myself.

I look around, blinking eyes that are blinded in the sudden sunlight.

He’s gone. I don’t know what kind of car he drives, and everything around looks like a mom-mobile or a late model pickup truck. My lungs are sucking in oxygen like I’ve run a race.

I don’t know what I’d do if I found him. I don’t even know what I’m doing out here.

There is absolutely no chance that he wants to see me.

How did he get out of here so fast?

My car has only been sitting in the sun for ten minutes, but it’s already baking inside. I fling the flour on the passenger seat and crank up the air conditioning. Sweat blooms on my forehead, and I’m glad I went with the cotton sundress this morning.

I have this crazy urge to apologize. Danny made things bad, my other brothers made it worse, and now the local news has their teeth in it. I’m surprised there’s no news van in the store parking lot.

If he can’t do the first, he definitely can’t do the second.

I pull out onto the main road, and I almost miss the flash of red in the woods to my right. There he is, walking along just inside the tree line.

What is he
doing
?

Before I think about it too hard, I pull over onto the shoulder. Road grit crunches underfoot, then dried grass. He hasn’t noticed me. His steps are full of rage.

I don’t want to leave the car. All I need is for someone to report that my car was abandoned on the side of the road.

“Hey!” I call.

He spins, startled, and looks up at me.

Surprise lights his face for a brief moment, but then it shuts down. He turns around and starts walking again. “Go away,” he calls back.

“Stop! Wait.”

“Your brothers looking for another chance?”

I’m not entirely sure what that means. A car flies by, sending gravel spraying. Some hits my ankles. “My brothers aren’t here.”

“Good.” He pulls a little farther into the woods.

“I’m trying to talk to you!”

“I’m glad you weren’t hurt, but you’ve done enough, Charlotte.”

The words aren’t a smack in the face. They’re a needle of guilt, sliding into my skin, injecting me with pain.

I tried to help, and now his situation is worse.

He’s deeper in the woods now. He must know a shortcut to Stan’s. All I can see are tiny glimpses of red as he walks.

I glance at the car, then back at the woods. After a moment’s hesitation, I lock up the vehicle and jog down the grassy berm, nearly falling on my face.

A sundress and flip flops aren’t the best clothes for traversing the woods in summertime, especially woods that don’t often have humans plowing through them. My feet keep sinking into ground made soggy from last night’s rain. The sun dried out the ground by the road, but here, under the shade of the trees, some mud still remains, mostly covered by underbrush. I’ve accumulated half a dozen scratches from brambles by the time I catch up to him.

He still doesn’t stop. “I’m not looking at you,” he says.

“You don’t have to look at me.” He’s walking fast enough that I’m out of breath trying to keep up with him. I’m glad he’s not treating me like a fragile flower, but I could do with a little less rage-walking. “I just need to talk to you.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Would you please stop and let me apologize?”

Still nothing.

“My brothers aren’t trying to harass you. Whatever happened—that was my fault, okay? I didn’t eat lunch, and then it was so hot . . . They’re just protective.”

Nothing.

“I’m
sorry
,” I say again. I don’t know why this is so important to me. I can’t believe I’m chasing someone down for an apology. “I didn’t mean to—”

The ground gives way. I stumble. Then fall. It’s so sudden that I don’t register the pain in my ankle as quickly as I feel the mud soak into my dress.

So yeah. This is not good.

Thomas has stopped, and he’s looking at me, but he hasn’t spoken, and he’s breathing fast.

There’s also a bruise across the right side of his jaw. That wasn’t there yesterday.

I shift and try to right myself. My dress is high on my thighs, and he’s getting a good look at my legs. In a second I’ll be full-on flashing him. There must have been a hole under the leaves.

Now the pain hits me. It’s my ankle, it’s my hip—and it’s strong enough that I’m more than a little worried I’ve really injured myself. I try to move again and a whimper escapes my throat. Nausea hits me even harder, and for a terrifying moment, I’m sure I’m going to throw up.