Breaking Glass (31 page)

As Dad wheels me out to the hospital lobby, I imagine the rhythm of something I never once gave a thought about—putting one leg in front of each other. Human locomotion, unassisted by crutches or wheelchairs. Or mop handles. I close my eyes and vow when I get that leg I’ll make everything up to everyone. I’ll quit drinking for good.

I’m so deep in my own thoughts, I miss the initial blur of Patrick Morgan pushing through the revolving hospital doors. He storms straight up to us.

Dad pauses, his hands frozen on the grips of the wheelchair. Patrick glares at my dad with the weirdest expression I’ve ever seen. It’s anger, but underneath is something harder to pin down. Triumph. I think of Dad’s metaphor about the flag of victory stabbed straight through his heart.

It occurs to me that Patrick Morgan isn’t sorry about what happened to his son.

He’s happy. Because whatever secrets Ryan was going to divulge, now he can’t.

“You,” Patrick Morgan says, glaring at my dad, his voice cold and low. “Do you think I don’t know? Here’s a pun for you, Glass. Get ready for your world to shatter. I’m going to ruin you for what you’ve done to my family.”

Dad is frozen. Speechless, his mouth trembling. Patrick Morgan pushes past us and strides to the bank of elevators.

There’s a shout from the revolving doors that lead into the lobby.

Trudy Durban stands at the entrance. “You bastard!” she screams crazily. “You fucking bastard! You deserve your filthy spawn to die! I know you killed her! You killed my daughter! I know what you did to her!”

Patrick turns calmly around to face Trudy. She’s waving a gun, her eyes wild, the jangle of crosses thick at her neck.

“You don’t mean that, Trudy,” says Patrick in his soothing baritone, walking toward her. “You know I would never hurt Susannah. She was like family to us.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” she shrieks. “We kept your secret. You have no soul. No conscience!”

Patrick’s voice is choked. “You’re just upset. This isn’t the proper time for this. My son is in the ICU, barely hanging on. Susannah was a troubled girl. You’ve known that for a long time.”

Dad pulls my wheelchair toward the wall. Trudy Durban’s face contorts into a mask of grief. Darkness claws at me, trying to drag me under.

Trudy’s face becomes serene. “The devil wants your soul returned,” she says, calmly, taking aim.

A whooshing sound zips past my ear. Blood spurts from the back of Patrick’s neck in a red arc. He folds to the ground like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Trudy Durban stands in the lobby entrance, her expression blank, the barrel of her pistol now pointed right at Dad and me.

“What about you, Paul?” she screams. “Did you know? Did your wife tell you what she saw?”

Dad shouts and lunges for me, knocking me out of the chair. I hear a blast and I’m on the floor, Dad on top of me.

C H A P T E R
t h i r t y

Now

I manage to push my dad’s weight off me. Darkness speckles my vision, turning my sight to negative Swiss cheese. Between the bright spots, I see Susannah gliding toward me in a flowing black dress that billows around her like smoke.

“Dad?” I say, though I can’t see him. I can’t see anything but her.

“Jeremy? Are you all right?”

The dark devours me. Susannah stands before me, her rippling image like reflections on water.
I thought you loved me
.

I hear Dad’s voice, tinny and distant. “Jeremy, are you hurt?”

I slither backward, pushing out with my sneaker. Susannah drifts closer, an invisible breeze rustling her hair. Her eyes burn bright green through the dark mist, glowing like a firefly.
You know I love you, Jeremy, don’t you?

“Dad?” I call out, weakly. I know I’m not hurt. But I’m in a waking dream I can’t pull out of. “Please, help me.”

“It’s okay, Jeremy,” I hear him say. “You’re just in shock. We’re okay. We’re both okay.”

“Where are you, Dad?” I’m trembling as Susannah’s shadow expands around me.
You’re just like the rest of them, Jeremy Glass, aren’t you? Using me for your own selfish desires
.

I feel Dad’s hand gripping mine, pressing it hard. Shaking it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get to him. I can’t snap out of this nightmare.

Susannah’s shadow reaches down into the ground and pulls up a root. But instead of tree roots, they are bloody veins. The floor cracks and breaks apart beneath me as the roots pull free. The ground gives way, and I’m falling, falling.

Choking for air, I land with a silent splash in the dark waters of the Gorge.

The breath returns to my lungs. A blurred face peers into mine. Chaz.

“You blacked out, buddy. Your dad had to talk with the police, so he asked me to wait with you.”

Someone’s moved me to a waiting room where I’m sprawled on a couch.

“But you’re okay,” Chaz adds. “Your dad’s going to be awhile. He asked me to take you home and stay with you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I huff.

Chaz smirks. “Apparently, your dad thinks you do.”

Marisa bounds into the waiting room, breathless. She sits beside me smelling of snow and whatever she’d been cooking. “Oh, God! Jeremy! It’s all over the news!”

“Is Patrick dead?”

Marisa shakes her head grimly. “As good as. He was shot in the throat. The bullet lodged right at the base of the skull. He’s on a ventilator.”

I let out a breath. I’m still shaking, but less so. “Does anyone know why Trudy did it?”

“She thinks Mr. Morgan killed her daughter,” Chaz offers. “But, I don’t know. Why the hell would a guy like Patrick Morgan kill a seventeen-year-old girl?”

I stiffen. Somehow, all the roots spring from Patrick Morgan. I can’t help but wonder. If he’s unable to speak, how will we ever know? A fresh wave of shaking rips through me.
If I can’t solve the mystery behind Susannah’s death, how will I ever be rid of her ghost?

“I’m betting there’s more to it than that,” Marisa adds. “Mrs. Durban may be crazy, but she’s a schemer. Nothing she does would surprise me.”

As we file out to Chaz’s car, what I don’t expect are the TV trucks and the reporters that surround us like flies trying to land on shit.

I duck my head as Chaz barrels through, using the wheelchair like a battering ram. Marisa strides ahead, palms to their cameras lenses. Once we’re in his van, Chaz puts the pedal to the metal and we peel off, leaving the crowd of reporters jockeying for a shot of our retreat.

The shooting of Patrick Morgan is apparently big news.

Once we get to my house, Chaz busies himself in the kitchen, rummaging around. Marisa and I are alone in Dad’s study.

“I’ll stay awhile, if it’s cool with you,” she says shyly. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes dark as the river at night. “I figured you could use the company. Chaz is not the most brilliant conversationalist.”

“Isn’t tomorrow New Year’s Eve? Weren’t you supposed to go to a party?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Weren’t you supposed to go to a movie?”

My cheeks heat. I look down. I’m not going to do it this time. I’m not going to lose my heart to someone who will keep it and never give it back.

“Yeah,” I mutter. I can’t look at her. And I’m sorry I let her come back here. It won’t be long before Susannah returns. Then Marisa will know how deeply disturbed I really am.

She glances around, her nose wrinkled. “This place is a mess. And it smells. I think I’ll straighten up a bit. Why don’t you rest?”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“I want to, okay?”

I have no strength to argue. I sigh wearily and ease myself from the chair to the bed. She’s right. I’m exhausted. But I’m afraid to sleep. Afraid what unwelcome guests might drop by.

Marisa leaves, then returns a few minutes later with her hands full of yellowed newspaper clippings. “You were going to explain what all these articles were and why they were worth nearly cracking your cranium open.”

“They were my mother’s,” I say, shaking again. I pull the blankets up around me, but still I can’t seem to draw in enough warmth. “They’re about the death of a guy named Douglas Lewis thirty or so years ago.”

“Why would your mother be so obsessed with it?” Marisa whispers, skimming through the old articles. I take them from her as she finishes, wondering what I’m missing.

“He was a friend of hers. Maybe she felt responsible, somehow.”

“The drowning was ruled an accident.”

Ruled an accident means nothing in Riverton, I realize. If Patrick Morgan wanted the truth altered, police reports could always disappear. Maybe witnesses do, too, or are at least persuaded not to speak up.

The temperature in the room drops measurably, and I shiver. “What if,” I say, “Trudy’s convinced that Patrick Morgan killed Susannah because he’s killed before?”

“Who?” Marisa bites a nail, deep in thought. “Who would he have killed?”

Dark mist pools in the corners of the room. My stomach clenches. In moments I’ll be blind to my surroundings. Marisa will know how sick I really am.

I try to focus on the light. On ignoring the figure of Susannah that’s emerged from within the shadows, her dress now ragged, hair whipping like storm-lashed branches. I press my hands to my ears to mute the sounds of the howling wind.

“What if Douglas Lewis’s death was not an accident?” I shout above the noise only I can hear. “What if Patrick killed him?”

“Why are you yelling, Jeremy?”

The wind screams, a piercing, nerve-abrading shriek.

No, it’s Susannah.

The light sucks out of the room. I’m deaf to all other sound. Papers lift in a swirling vortex. Susannah is at its center.
You brought me back and now you don’t want me
.

I grit my teeth until my eyes bulge. I will her to leave. “Please,” I whisper, my hands pressed to my temples. “Let me think.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Marisa answers.

“Headache. Just a headache.” I breathe in deeply; under my breath. I hiss, “
Go
.”

The shrieking dies away. The light returns and I let out my breath.

“What if,” I say, “my mother knew for a fact that Patrick murdered that boy? That she saw it happen and was forced to stay quiet. Maybe it’s why she drank in the first place.”

Marisa’s dark eyes widen. Blood rushes to my face. I want to pull her in closer to me so her heat can warm my chill. I want to hold her against me and never let go again.

“That’s just conjecture. There’s no proof. And even if that’s true, it still doesn’t mean Patrick Morgan killed Susannah.”

“What if Susannah found out?”

And then I’m looking at Marisa, forgetting the murders, the deaths, my own almost certain insanity.

It’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time. She’s shimmery and glowing and so, so achingly beautiful, I wonder how I never noticed. Suddenly, all I want is for all of this mystery and craziness to go away, so I can lean over, touch Marisa’s jet hair and kiss her shining lips.

I shudder, guilt scraping at my insides. I should have left well enough alone.

I’d wanted to be with Susannah so badly I’d believed I could bring her back from the dead. I pray it’s just my sick mind playing tricks on me. That Susannah is in a better place, not lurking desperately in the shadows.

And, here I am, falling for someone else. As if I stand a chance with Marisa.

Chaz bursts into the room and we both jump—we’d forgotten he was in the house. The phone to his ear, Chaz nods repeatedly. A rare smile lights up his face. “Great. Thanks. That’s excellent.”

“Well, buddy,” he says, pocketing his phone. “Good news. That was Lyle Hoffman. Your leg is in.”

“So soon? Are you serious?” I ask, genuinely bowled over with the news.

Chaz winks. “Would I kid about a PT matter? Lyle says you can take it for a test run right away. Well, not exactly a run. More like a halting stroll. But you need to use it so he can make adjustments for fit and programming. Why not start tomorrow?”

Marisa beams, her eyes shining. “Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.”

Chaz lifts an eyebrow and shrugs. “What better way to ring in the New Year than on two legs? Lyle’s ready if you are.”