“Throw on a sweatshirt or something,” Jared ordered. “Just to be sure. I’ll take care of this stuff.”
He used the pharmacy bag in which she’d kept her supplies to bunch up the bloody towel, using the end to grab the bloody razor off the bed when she moved.
“Don’t—” she started to protest.
“Do not even tell me to leave it. That’s not happening. This is coming with me. And later, we’re going to talk.”
He folded the bloody razor into the towel and added the used cotton ball to the bag, jammed everything down until it fit and then tied the bag off and left the room with it.
Emily was left staring after him. She had to hope he didn’t encounter Dad in the hall and that, if so, he was a better liar than she was. She didn’t hear anything, so she figured she was okay. But she’d better get out there.
Dad was waiting for them in the kitchen.
“Where’s Gran?” Dad asked as Jared entered, hot on her heels.
She moved aside so she wouldn’t get incinerated by the glare he was aiming her brother’s way.
“Still sleeping,” Jared answered. “I didn’t think you meant me to wake her.”
“Then what took you so long?”
“I did,” Emily said, afraid to volunteer anything else and get caught in a lie.
His gaze as it fell on her was slightly less blistering. He took a breath, his chest flaring out and then flattening, his emotions—or at least the outward expression of them—doing the same. It was eerie to watch.
“I’m sorry, kids. This must be hard on you. What I have to tell you isn’t going to be any easier. Why don’t we sit down?”
Neither one of them protested. Dad sat on one side of the table. They both sat on the other. It felt symbolic.
Dad didn’t start immediately, and Jared said. “The police already told us about the blood.”
Dad blew out another breath, this one slow and controlled. “They did, huh? I’m sorry about that. I hope they didn’t scare you. From what they said, it wasn’t much. A papercut or a nosebleed or anything could have caused it. It wasn’t enough to … to mean anything.”
“Then why did they ask you to come in?” Emily asked before Jared could. For some reason, Dad found Jared’s every question a challenge. It was better coming from her. “Why did they search the house?”
“Protocol,” her father answered without hesitation. “They’ve got to do their jobs. Your mother’s been missing for a week now by their count. They’ve got to do due diligence.”
She already knew the answer to her next question, but she had to ask it. To see if Dad would be honest with them. If they could believe him on this, maybe they could put faith in other things. It felt flimsy. Everything felt flimsy right now, like her life’s story was written on tissue paper and anything would tear it to shreds.
“Are you a suspect?” she asked.
He met her gaze. Firmly. No wavering. “Yes. The police seem to think so.”
“Do they have any … evidence?” It wasn’t what she wanted to ask, which was, “Did you do it? Did you hurt Mom?” But she couldn’t bring herself to voice it. She didn’t think he’d say yes, whatever the truth, and she wasn’t confident she could tell if he lied to her. The question would only set Dad off and probably not illuminate anything.
Or she was being a coward and couldn’t face the answer.
The evidence question was already skirting the line.
“No,” he said, his voice hard now. “No evidence.”
He rose from the table, a little roughly, and Emily tried not to jump back. “I’ll let Gran sleep. This has been stressful for her, I’m sure. Come get me when she wakes up. I want to talk to her too.”
He walked to the cabinet in the kitchen where they kept all their meds and shook out two pills from the big bottle of migraine tablets Mom always kept on hand. Then he took them dry and left without a word, headed for his own room, maybe to lie down.
Emily looked to Jared, who was staring after Dad.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
He didn’t ask what she was talking about.
“If you go back to your room, I want you to keep the door open,” he said.
Emily gasped. “No way. You’re not my …” father wouldn’t come out. “You’re not the boss of me. I’m not giving up my privacy.”
He stared at her. “Emily, I caught you cutting. And based on the scars, not for the first time. If I see your door closed, I’m going to come in. If it’s locked, I’m going to open it. Or call Dad.” He reached out to grab her hand, and she yanked it out of reach. “Em, you have to understand. I can’t let anything happen to you. If I keep quiet and something happens … I can’t take that.”
His voice broke.
Her big, bad brother’s voice broke.
She felt like crap. But she couldn’t give in.
“You going to follow me to the bathroom too? What about school? Jared, you can’t watch me all the time.”
He dropped his head to the hand that had tried to grab hers, banging it on that rather than the table. His whole posture was defeated, as though he’d deflated onto the table. She couldn’t think of what to say to puff him back up.
She put a hand to his shoulder, and he raised his head slowly. His eyes were red and moist but no tears had fallen.
“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t. So, you have to promise me, Em. You made me promise that I wouldn’t leave you or do anything stupid. You have to promise me the same.”
She stared into her brother’s face, her mouth dry, panic rising up like lava from a volcano, burning away all moisture. “I don’t know if I can,” she whispered, and it hurt. “With everything going on … I need an outlet.”
“Not this one, Em. Promise me. Next time you feel something like this coming on, reach out to me. We’ll get through it together. You can’t keep hurting yourself.”
She knew it was true. And yet it wasn’t. She could very well keep on. She would have if he hadn’t caught her. What did she do now that he had?
“I’ll try,” she said. It was all she had. She couldn’t lie to him, but she couldn’t make a promise she didn’t know if she could keep.
“You have to do more than try.”
The bossiness of it, telling her what she had to do, set her into full rebellion. “If I told you to stop seeing Aaliyah, could you do it?”
“That’s different,” he said.
“How?”
“It’s not hurting me.”
“Isn’t it? Maybe there’s no blood, but don’t try to tell me it doesn’t hurt.”
“It’s not the same,” he said mulishly.
Maybe it wasn’t, but the focus was no longer on her, and while her mouth was still as dry as a lava tunnel, at least she could breathe.
Jared waited until everyone was asleep that night. At least, until he could be pretty certain everyone was asleep. Gran had gone home. Emily had gone to bed hours ago. He knew for sure, because he’d already gone in once to check on her. Just to make sure …
Dad had gone to his room too, but Jared couldn’t be absolutely sure he was asleep. He didn’t snore every night. Or at least not all night every night. Not that Jared made it a habit to listen outside of his door, but those nights when the high of a track meet that went well or something else kept him up, sometimes he heard it, and sometimes he didn’t. When Dad was sick, he snored like a cartoon bear. Sleep was easy to determine then.
Tonight he had to take it on faith. Dad was usually asleep by eleven, but things had been anything but usual lately, so he gave it until midnight. It wasn’t hard to stay up—not with worry about Emily and Mom and what he’d told the police about the night she disappeared swirling around in his brain. Probably he could have taken one of those pills Mom sometimes took to sleep and still not have been hit by the Sandman.
Still, he wasn’t going so far on faith as to sneak out the front door. It tended
to seal too well, so that opening it sounded like opening an airlock. If Dad wasn’t deeply enough asleep, he’d be caught. Emily’s fear was like a disease, spreading to him. He didn’t know what Dad would do if he discovered that Emily was cutting or that Jared was sneaking out. He didn’t want to find out.
His window had worked well enough when he’d ducked out to see Aaliyah. It ought to work again. Jared set the bag of Emily’s bloody supplies near the window and struggled to raise it slowly and silently. It mostly worked, maybe because it had been so recently used. No one would hear a thing, unless they were specifically listening for it … and maybe not even then.
He put one leg out, grabbed the bag, balanced the rest of himself, and slid out over the windowsill, lowering himself to the ground. The window was harder to close from this side, but he slid it mostly back down, leaving enough space to wedge his fingers under when he wanted to come back. Then he considered, which he really ought to have done before leaving the house. He didn’t dare put it into their garbage can in the blind by the side of the house. Tomorrow was garbage day, and Dad might have something to contribute to the can before it went to the curb. Sometimes he even took it out himself rather than delegate to Jared. He might not be curious about a pharmacy bag sitting there, but if he spotted the blood … And he wasn’t the only one who might. What if the police came back around? What if they searched the garbage? What would they make of the bloody bandages? The razor? There would be questions, and he’d promised Emily.
He’d keep silent for now, but he felt queasy about it. He wished he knew he was doing the right thing. Emily needed help. Keeping quiet wasn’t going to get it for her.
He’d take care of that after all this was over, he promised himself. No matter what Emily said, no matter whether he felt he was betraying her. Once Mom was found and everything was okay again, he’d speak up. Though maybe he’d start with a school counselor or someone. Not Dad, who’d probably berate Emily and make everything worse. He wouldn’t understand. Hell, Jared didn’t understand. How could she hurt herself like that? But at the same time, maybe he did understand. He sometimes wanted to punch something, and not something soft. While pain wouldn’t be the purpose, it would surely be a side effect.
So, he couldn’t hide Emily’s evidence in their own garbage can. He could bury it somewhere, like the park, but there were two arguments against that. For one, he hadn’t planned ahead and brought anything to help with the digging. For another, dogs like Stanley might scent the bag and get curious enough to unbury it. The safer bet would be a neighbor’s can, preferably one already filled so he could bury the bag deep.
He started with the Palchikovs next door, feeling like he had a big target on his back. Just his luck the moon was three-quarters full tonight and shining on the neighborhood as though to searchlight him. But as he got close, a light came on over their side door. Probably on a motion sensor. He shied away, looking for an easier target.
The Meyers were the next house down. Approaching their can didn’t set off any lights or alarms. And, best yet, it was so full the hinged lid of the plastic can hadn’t closed all the way. There was even a hole torn in the side of the top bag where it looked like a crow or something had gotten at it. He could smell the bag as he got closer. Rotting chicken. Damn, anything would have to be desperate to want a piece of that. Maybe not the crows then. Turkey vultures?
Didn’t matter.
Jared took a deep breath and held it as he approached the can. He lifted the lid and carefully eased it back so it wouldn’t drop against the can and make a noise. Then he lifted the top bag, set his in its place and put the original back on top of it. He reset the lid, glanced around guiltily to make sure he hadn’t been seen, and started to back away. He had a thought as he did, worried that the vultures or whatever would be drawn to the blood. He was about to reapproach, bury it deeper, when he heard a sound at the Meyers’ side door, the one closest to the can. It was—oh hell, it was opening!
Jared spun on a dime and took off running down the street, racing past his house just in case he hadn’t been fast enough and he was spotted. All anyone would see was his back. They’d never see where he circled around the block and came at his house by cutting through backyards from the other side.
All he could think was shit, shit, shit. Had he been seen? Was that why someone had opened the back door? Or was it a horrible coincidence, someone coming out to add something to the garbage at just the wrong moment?
His pounding heart said it didn’t matter. As long as they hadn’t seen him. As long as no one got curious enough to look and see what he’d tossed out.
He didn’t like leaving it to chance. Wishing and hoping.
He didn’t see what else he could do.
Twenty
Emily
OMG, Em, I heard about the police being at your house. U OK? Call me.
That was how it started. A message from Shara she didn’t have the energy to answer. Not after everything—the police, the blood, Jared catching her …
She’d turned the notifications off, put the phone on the charger, and forgotten about it. Or tried to. She’d checked once more before going to bed, just in case Mom had called. Or texted. Or anything. Because the blood in her car couldn’t mean what everyone seemed to think. It couldn’t.
No message from Mom, but increasingly worried messages from Shara. And even a couple from Josh. And Marissa from art class. And then it seemed like anyone she’d ever texted with had gotten in on the act, letting her know word had spread about the police and her mother’s car. But that fast? And how? Had it made the news? Had one of the looky-loo neighbors spread the word? Maybe Andrew Meyers. Or Samantha, or one of the kids from their bus stop. She hadn’t been paying attention to who was around, not after spotting creepy-Jake in the crowd.
She didn’t know what to say. She started and deleted about a million texts to Shara and then settled on. Not okay. Not ready to talk. But thank you for caring.
Josh was even harder. Okay as I can be, she lied. Thx for checking in. It was more and less than she wanted to say.
She debated on Marissa, on asking her to spread the word that they were fine and just wanted privacy, but no one was going to honor that. Kids would talk. She supposed it was better to know what they were saying.
In the end, she just turned off the notifications again and went to bed.
But it was morning now, and habit awoke before common sense. The first thing she did was reach for her phone. It had gone crazy. She scrolled through her messages, looking for anything from her mother. Knowing it wouldn’t be there, but unable to stop hoping.
Nothing. But she paused at a message from Aunt Aggie. I know your Dad won’t let you talk to me, and I don’t want to get you into any trouble, but I’m really worried about you and Jared. I hear you kids today use Snapchat for messages you don’t want anyone to see. I’ve just set up an account as AofGG (Anne of Green Gables, in case you’re wondering). You can reach out to me any time.
If you need to get out of that house, just say the word. I’ll be there in an instant, despite your father.
Please delete after reading.
Emily deleted right away, feeling paranoid about it. Had she been quick enough? Did Dad have some way to read her texts? Had she left it there too long?
One way to find out. If he’d seen the texts, he’d find some way of blocking her access to Aunt Aggie, maybe blacklisting her number or changing the password to their router so Emily couldn’t get on the Internet, although she could always use mobile data … unless he shut that down too. She had no idea what he was capable of. But she felt ridiculously paranoid when she tried logging onto Snapchat on her phone, and it worked just fine. She logged into the account she barely used, since she and her friends mostly texted, found AofGG and sent her a friend request. It was accepted nearly instantaneously, and a chat window opened up.
Are you okay? Aunt Aggie asked. She must have been waiting by the phone.
Emily’s ey
es got misty, just like that.
No, she said honestly. You know they found Mom’s car? They found blood?
I know about the car. Didn’t know about the blood. A lot of blood or …? I hate to ask.
Not a lot, I don’t think. But enough to worry them. They searched our house. They’ve questioned Dad.
She felt a little funny writing it. Disloyal, but … this was her aunt, and she needed to talk to someone.
Do you feel safe with him? Aunt Aggie asked.
Emily stared at the words. She almost shut the chat down right then. It was a crazy question. No wonder their father didn’t want her talking to her aunt, if she was going to stir things up like that. Emily’s stomach felt like a pit of acid. And not quiescent acid, either, waiting for something to fall in and be devoured, but the kind that sloshed its banks and ate through everything around it.
What do you mean by that? Why wouldn’t I feel safe? she asked.
Emily, I know about the fights. The abuse. Your mother kept pictures.
Emily stared for a second before closing out of Snapchat. The conversation would disappear within seconds. Like it had never happened.
If her aunt had copies of those pictures … if she’d shown them to the police, then it was no wonder they were focused on her father. Emily was angry. And the worst was, she was mad at herself for being angry, because if Aunt Aggie was right, if there were pictures, that meant what she and Jared had seen was only the tip of the iceberg. Dad’s abuse hadn’t been limited to one or two fights—not that even that much was okay. Mom had been in pain and she hadn’t seen the extent because it was too painful to know. Or because Mom had been protecting them.
Something exploded behind her eye, and she thought at first it was one of those migraines that sometimes came on like an icepick to the eye or a blinding blow to the temple. And it was, but brought on by the grenade blast of the truth she’d been keeping from herself. About when and why the cutting had started. To punish herself. Because she deserved it. Because deep down she knew. She knew and hadn’t saved her mother. No wonder she’d left.
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