Winter (Four Seasons #1)
Page 61
I’VE NEVER been good at driving in snow. Ben, Brandon’s employee at the auto mechanics, mentioned that he would put chains on the tires of our borrowed car if we brought it back in today, but we didn’t get around to it. The wheels spin each time I slide through a corner at break neck speeds, and through my tears I’m only vaguely aware of how close I come to rolling the vehicle.
My eyes are red raw by the time I reach Brandon’s house. I park the truck and jump out, determined to lock myself in the one place I’m likely to feel safe in this godforsaken town: my old bedroom. But when I reach the front door, a police officer, a fresh faced guy with the beginnings of a fuzzy mustache, blocks the way.
“Whoa, missy! You can’t go in there.”
“What?”
“Police investigation. We’re carrying out a search warrant right now. You can’t go in.” He tucks his thumbs into his belt and rocks back on his heels, looking me up and down. “Hey, aren’t you Maxwell Breslin’s girl?”
I breathe through the urge to punch him square in the mouth and peer through the door past him, where more officers are tearing Brandon’s house apart. “How long will you be?”
The young officer shrugs. “We just started, ma’am. Could take hours. Even then, you ain’t gonna be allowed inside. Not until them federal agents have given the final say so.”
Chloe Mathers emerges from Brandon’s kitchen into the hallway and stops dead when she sees me. She holds spools of unraveled film in her latex gloved hands, and it twists and curls down to the floor in eight-millimeter tentacles. She thrusts her hands out at another young officer fumbling to pull equipment out of what looks like a fancy fishing tackle box. “Bag this. Label it kitchen.” The young officer takes it and Chloe makes her way down the hallways towards me, her expression stoic. “Can’t be here, Iris,” she says stiffly. All of her warmth from earlier has vanished. However, the stern pull of her eyebrows softens a little when she looks at me properly. “Everything okay?”
I watch the police officer winding the film around and around, trying to tidy it up enough to get it into an evidence bag, fighting back even more tears. “What is that?”
Chloe looks over her shoulder, tucking her cropped mousey brown hair behind her ear. “There’s a lot of film here, darlin’. I’m sure there’s nothing untoward on it, but we’re finding it in the strangest of places. Gotta check it out. Where’s Luke?”
A body-wide shiver slams through my body at the mention of his name. If I lose concentration, if I let it slip just for a second, I’m going to be a sobbing mess all over again. I can’t do that in front of strangers. “He’s at home.”
“Don’t you think you should get back there, sweetie? The roads are going to be impassable soon. Snow’s coming down hard and fast.” And it really is. The clouds overhead are loaded, pregnant looking things, dirty grey and filled to bursting.
“I’m not staying there tonight,” I tell Chloe. “I’m staying…” And I realize I only have one place left to go. One place I know my mother won’t bother me, where I’ll be able to lock myself away and not have to deal with Luke, the secrets, the uniforms pulling Brandon’s life apart. “I’m staying up at the old place,” I say, every single muscle in my body tightening at the prospect.