Don't Say a Word (Hometown Antihero)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  “I know that. I do—it’s just messing with me seeing his name up there. My rational mind understands that it could be anyone, but my gut is really struggling with some of these names.…”

  “Knowing evil can exist in anyone isn’t a black-and-white concept. It gets muddied by our feelings—our emotions—especially when that evil resides in someone close to us. What we want to believe and what’s actually true are rarely if ever the same thing, Danners.…”

  I took a deep breath and moved on, unwilling to admit how right he was.

  “How am I supposed to train with him knowing he’s a suspect in this case?” I asked.

  “You’re not,” he replied, as if that point should have been perfectly clear.

  “But it’s—” I cut myself short, not wanting to tell Dawson that I needed the gym to survive. That my mental health might hang in the balance.

  “It’s what?” he asked, stepping closer.

  “Nothing. It’s fine. I won’t go for now. Not until he’s cleared.”

  Dawson’s eyes narrowed, his dissatisfaction with my response clear in his taut features.

  “Good.”

  I turned back to the board to avoid his scrutiny.

  “The problem I’m having,” I said, pointing to the list, “is that all of this is circumstantial at best. I mean, yeah, we’ve made connections, but some suspects will have more than others by nature of their jobs. Some will be harder to dig up, possibly because someone doesn’t want them to be found—just look at Callahan and Coach, for example. Both had access to the girls and their files, which, let me tell you, are some colorful reading when you start thumbing through the nonacademic stuff, but that’s hardly a smoking gun. And if we can’t actively tie them to Jane, it doesn’t even matter.”

  “True, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that JHS girls seemed to go missing once those teachers transferred,” he countered. “That’s a pattern. This is how we start to establish a hierarchy to the suspect list.”

  “What about the other girls?” I looked up at the widest circle on the whiteboard and all the names it held.

  “We can’t assume all these missing girls were killed by this guy,” he said. “That said, a lot of them were from AHS, and they were all before the first JHS girl disappeared.”

  “Except for Sarah Woodley,” I argued, remembering the circus surrounding her disappearance and retrieval of her body. Even at the tender age of eight, that memory was burned into my consciousness.

  “I don’t believe she fits the profile or the MO of the killer,” he said. “I talked it over with Erin and she agrees, so I’ve excluded Sarah from the victim pool.”

  “Erin?”

  “The profiler at the bureau.”

  “Ah … got it.”

  I could feel my brow furrow as I focused on everything I’d heard my dad say the night they’d found Sarah’s body. All the things not released to the papers.

  “What’s up, Danners? What are you thinking?” Dawson stepped in front of me, quietly demanding my attention.

  “I’m not sure … I just—I remember that night so clearly. The night they found her. I can’t explain it, but I just feel like her death is related somehow.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, not dismissing me right off. A small victory in and of itself.

  “Well, let’s say she was one of his victims, then we need to go back and try to tie her to the suspect list, which will be more challenging given how long ago she was killed.”

  “Get me what you can on her case and I’ll go through it with a fine-tooth comb to see what I can find,” I said, straightening my spine. “I just can’t shake the feeling that she’s involved.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek, then nodded.

  “Deal. Now, break’s over.”

  He handed me employment records for Matthew’s Ice Cream Shop dating back as far as Sarah Woodley’s disappearance, and I sat back down on the floor, ready to riffle through them. If this was real police work, I was all for it. There was a certain excitement that built with every turn of the page—every potential newfound piece of information. It may not have been a sexy process, but it was necessary, and doing it only made me sharper and more skilled for solving my dad’s case.

  Even if he didn’t want me to.

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was late by the time I got home from Dawson’s; I was totally exhausted. Gramps had fallen asleep on the couch, so I tossed a blanket on him and headed for bed. The second I closed my eyes, I felt my mind begin to race, then slow. Then the bad thoughts started again.

  I couldn’t beat them back if I tried.

  My eyes shot open, my only real defense against them, and I looked over to find the time on my phone taunting me. It was midnight and I was wide awake, a million and one ideas running through my mind, none of them coherently tied to another. It was as though my brain had taken to switching the channels in fast-forward—a pesky side effect of its inability to handle what had happened. Part of me was happy that at least it had adapted in some way, but the other part realized that I needed to get control of it before it was too late. The school psychologist had told me my symptoms would evolve as time went on, and that if I wanted the best outcome possible, I needed to do my best not to ignore the signs.

  Clearly, she didn’t know me. I had two coping mechanisms—three, if you counted sarcasm. Extreme denial or all-out fixation/obsession were the main ones, neither of which she would approve. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t followed up with her.

  In the spirit of trying, I closed my eyes and did the deep breathing exercise she’d suggested. In through the nose, deep into the belly, with a long exhale through the mouth. I did this several times, trying to will my mind to calm. Eventually it did, but with it came clarity, and that was far less welcome. When my brain quieted, it chose to focus on Donovan raising his bat above me to smash my head in. I did all I could to breathe through that memory—to break the instant fight-or-flight cycle it, and others like it, reflexively brought about, but I failed. Instead, I jumped out of bed and began pacing my room, scrubbing my face with my hands.

  Distraction—I needed one ASAP. Calling Tabby wasn’t an option for multiple reasons. Neither was Garrett. Gramps was asleep and waking him would have only raised red flags and stressed him out more than he already was, something he definitely didn’t need. That left only two options, and both came with serious drawbacks. Pissing Dawson off because I’d woken him up after he hadn’t slept for two days didn’t seem worth the fallout. But calling AJ would send the wrong message—especially at that hour. After a few minutes of rationalization, I decided it would be okay if I texted to apologize for blindsiding him with the whole Alex thing. He’d taken it well at the time, sporting a brave face, but I knew it had hurt him. He’d told me homecoming night that he still loved me.

  He deserved an explanation at minimum, even if it was all a lie.

  I grabbed my phone and sent a harmless text asking if he was still awake. My phone vibrated seconds later with his reply: Yeah. What’s up?

  I took a deep breath before answering: I owe you an apology.

  He quickly responded: For what?

  I literally laughed out loud at that. I mean really, I wasn’t certain I could ever apologize enough for everything I’d said and done to him, even though I’d tried.

  I stared at the screen, trying to figure out how best to apologize for the Alex situation, then I wondered if that was even possible. Maybe I should have left well enough alone.

  Just as I went to text him back, the phone started to vibrate with an incoming call.

  AJ.

  “Hey,” I said, putting him on speaker.

  “What’s this midnight apology about?” His voice sounded sleepy, and I felt like a total ass for waking him up.

  “You were sleeping!” I said. “Go back to bed. We can talk about it another time.”

  “I’m awake now, Ky. Might as well just tell me. It must be one hell of an ‘I’m sorry’ if you
couldn’t wait until Monday.”

  I took a deep breath and flopped back onto the bed.

  “I just—I wanted to apologize for not telling you about Alex before.” He stayed silent, and that quiet made me antsy and my mind started to race. Then my mouth let all those thoughts out in one run-on sentence that would have had Ms. McManus cringing. “I mean, I know we weren’t exactly on good terms until recently, but I should have found time to let you know, but the case and Donovan and Garrett in the hospital and this therapy I’m supposed to be doing that I’m avoiding because I’m not sure it’ll help because I can’t seem to turn my brain off long enough to get some sleep, because if I do all I can see is Garrett all beaten up and then—”

  “Ky!” AJ said, his voice forceful enough to cut me off but still filled with concern. “Slow down. Please.” I took a few deep breaths to calm my breathing. “First, tell me you’re okay right now.”

  “I’m good,” I said, still sounding winded. “But I had no idea that talking so fast was a cardiovascular activity.”

  “Well, now you won’t have to work out tomorrow.”

  “Bonus.”

  “Seriously though, are you okay?”

  “As well as can be expected under the circumstances, yes.”

  His silence told me he wasn’t sold on my response. “You know if you ever need me, I’ll be there, right?”

  I smiled. “I know.”

  “Great. Now, about that apology you owe me…”

  “I really am sorry that I didn’t warn you about Alex. It was shitty to just dump him on you like that. I didn’t want it to go down that way—it just sorta happened.”

  “Ky,” he said, his voice full of sympathy. “I’m a big boy. I can handle the fact that you dated what’s his name, who thinks you’re getting back together.”

  I think his lack of frustration and anger with the situation somehow made it worse.

  “Okay, well … that’s all I wanted to say. Sorry for waking you up.”

  “Wait!” he said. “We’re up. Why not fill me in on the last two and a half years of your life?”

  I choked on a laugh. “Well, one of those years was in the news constantly, so I think you already know that part of the story. The rest of it was pretty boring. Just school.”

  “And Alex?”

  Crap.

  “Yep, him too.” Another awkward silence fell between us before I broke it. “What about you? Fill me in on all the JHS shenanigans I missed.”

  Surprisingly, he did. He filled me in on his family drama, the fallout from my photo scandal, and school life in general. By the time he was done, it was one in the morning.

  “That’s about it,” he said with a yawn.

  “Go to sleep. You’re going to be exhausted tomorrow.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m getting used to my zombie insomniac state. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you say so,” he replied with a laugh. “Try to remember to brush your hair when you get up. Not sure what happened yesterday, but it was interesting to say the least.”

  “Dick!” I said, trying not to shout the name at him. “You’d better not show up at lunch on Monday because you’ll be wearing mine if you do.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Good night, AJ.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Early Sunday afternoon, I went to visit Garrett. He’d been transferred to a specialized therapy facility to get him back on his feet. Once I found the room, I knocked lightly on his door before poking my head in. I was met with a wave of his hand, urging me to come in.

  “Are you alone?” he asked, sounding all suspicious. I literally looked behind me for a second, suddenly wondering if maybe I wasn’t.

  “Um, yeah? I think so.”

  “Good.”

  No further explanation given.

  “What’s with the paranoia, big guy? They giving you too many painkillers and now you’re getting all twitchy?”

  He scowled at me. “Hardly. I just wondered if, you know, AJ or Tabby was with you.”

  “Nope. Sorry to disappoint. It’s just me.” He eased back in his bed, carefully rearranging himself to make a little room for me. Then he patted the barely vacant spot next to him. “Garrett, you’re freaking me out right now. Is something wrong? I feel like we’re in a Lifetime movie and you’re about to tell me that the good news is that you’re healing, but the bad news is they found a brain tumor on your latest CT scan.”

  “Just sit, would you?” I shut my mouth and did as he asked. Garrett was rarely that serious. “I need to ask you something.”

  “No, I will not make out with you!”

  “Ky—”

  “I’m sorry! You know I joke when I’m nervous! I’ll get it together, I promise. Now, what do you want to know?”

  “You said my dad knows your dad is innocent.…”

  “Yeah. And?”

  He hesitated for a second, biting his lip as his dark eyes drifted off to the door and back to me.

  “I overheard him on the phone the other day. He thought I was asleep, but even still he was talking low and carefully choosing his words.” Another pause. “He sounded scared, Ky. You know my dad—nothing scares him.”

  “He was scared about losing you—”

  “No. Not like that. He was like that with my mom, too. But this was different. He was doing a lot of explaining—about Donovan, and other things. And he said your name twice.…”

  Not good. So not good.

  “Who do you think he was talking to, Garrett?” His sharp gaze was answer enough. “The blackmailer?” He nodded once. “What else did he say?” I asked, sweat running down my spine.

  “Nothing much. It was vague and evasive.”

  “There’s no way anyone else could know what I did,” I thought aloud, wishing I hadn’t immediately after the words left me.

  “Did?” he asked. I remained silent. “What did you do, Ky?”

  I sighed heavily and got up to close the door to his room, locking it behind me. Then I sat down beside him, leaning in close enough to whisper in his ear.

  “Promise me you won’t freak out.”

  “Ky—”

  “Keep your voice down,” I said, hoping his paranoia would kick back in. We couldn’t be sure no one was listening in—not until we knew more about who we were dealing with. “Promise me or I’m not saying anything. I don’t need you having a damn heart attack.”

  “Fine. Just tell me.”

  I took a deep breath and grabbed his hand.

  “You were in surgery at the time. I’d been checked into the hospital to be treated for minor injuries. I had to go to the bathroom, so I made my way there, when someone ushered me into a room and locked us in.”

  His face went pale beneath his fading bruises. “What happened…?”

  “Luke Clark, the attorney I worked with at Meg’s office, tried to kill me. He was the one behind Donovan and the prescription drugs. He was trying to tie up loose ends.”

  “Jesus…”

  “I was hurt and weak, and he was too strong for me. He had a syringe full of something to stop my heart. Your dad found us. Luke threatened to expose your father. They fought and then Luke tried to take me out. Your father knocked him off me … and then I grabbed the needle and stabbed Luke with it.” Garrett said nothing, just stared at me in utter disbelief. “I knew if your dad was found with me that he’d be in a shit spot because the person blackmailing him is the same one backing Luke. He goes by ‘the Advocatus Diaboli,’ and he seems to be leveraging all kinds of people into doing shady things around here.”

  “Like kill my best friend,” Garrett said, squeezing my hand.

  “But he didn’t,” I replied with a smile, squeezing him right back.

  “So you killed Luke?” His question was gentle, as was the look in his brown eyes.

  “I did—but that’s not exactly a secret. I wasn’t named in the papers because I’m a minor, but people here—at the hospital�
�they knew. Word’s going to spread soon enough if it hasn’t already.”

  “So what’s the secret?”

  I took a deep breath. “That I ordered your dad to leave after I did it and told him not to come until the hospital staff came to my aid when I started screaming.”

  “You took a bullet for him.…”

  I nodded. “He told me he later collected all the CCTV tapes just in case and edited them, just to cover his tracks. All they showed was me being dragged into the room and then coming out screaming. Garrett, I’d be dead if it weren’t for your dad. And he’d be dead if it weren’t for me. Like it or not, he and I are allies now. He doesn’t want to be mixed up with this guy any more than I do.”

  “Well this changes things a bit.”

  “Yes, but I need you to act normally or he’ll know that you know.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good, now, let’s talk about something else. I’m getting all wigged out just thinking about that night.”

  “Then tell me all about what I’m missing at school,” he said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

  “I’m really starting to think you do want to make out with me.”

  “Sorry, Ky. My stance on blondes remains, even after my acute brain trauma.”

  “I swear my life would be way less complicated if we did date. We’d be the most hilarious couple ever.”

  He smiled at me, then kissed my forehead.

  “True, but it would be hard for you to date me since I’d be the better looking one in the relationship.”

  My mouth shot open, jaw hanging in disbelief.

  “Garrett Higgins!” I slapped his hand and he flinched, laughing and wincing at the same time.

  “I’m just screwing with you, Ky. Now tell me all the gossip.”

  I sat there, enjoying the feeling of being near him. All joking aside, I felt closer to Garrett than anyone my age. I trusted him with everything—including my life. It hurt to know that over the next few weeks, or however long it took for Dawson and me to solve the case, I’d have to lie to him. I hoped he wouldn’t be mad when he found out I was covering for Dawson. I hoped he would forgive me. More than anything, I prayed it wouldn’t change things between us. I needed Garrett’s grounding presence in my life.