Kill Me Once, Kill Me Twice

by Clara Kensie

Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ever ~ Present Day

  It’s been three days since Ash and I watched the footage of Miss Buckley’s death together, and a little over two weeks since I saw the crossed-hatchet tattoo on Principal Duston’s wrist. I originally wanted to show the footage with the missing five seconds to the cops, but Ash talked me out of it. “Duston and Paladino hate me,” he said, “and Duston and Paladino are buddies. Duston will say we edited the footage ourselves and Paladino will believe him. We need absolute proof that Duston killed Miss Buckley before we can tell anyone.”

  We have fewer than three weeks to find that proof, or Ash’s father is going to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit.

  Principal Duston is on to us. He’s always passing by my classrooms at school, always standing in the entrance, watching me come and go. Sometimes Chief Paladino is with him.

  Keith is suspicious too. Not of Principal Duston, but of Ash. Keith has been dominating any free time I have, demanding to come over every evening. He’s determined to keep me away from Ash.

  But now it’s spring break and I don’t have to worry about running into Principal Duston at school, and Keith’s parents are making him work at The Batter’s Box every day. First thing Monday morning, I call Ash. “Can you come over?”

  “Not today,” he says. “I’m busy.”

  “But we need to figure out what to do. We need to find proof.”

  “You’ll have to come with me then. I’ll be at the corner of Jefferson and Van Buren in sixty minutes. If you’re not there, I’m going without you.”

  “Where?”

  But he’s hung up.

  Fifty-nine minutes later, Joey is playing with Hayden next door, and I’m waiting for Ash at the intersection of Jefferson and Van Buren. A little buzz of anticipation sizzles up my spine.

  My phone buzzes—a text from Courtney. Batgirls meeting today at 10, my house.

  That’s right. I keep forgetting about that. We’re planning the training camp.

  Before I can text a reply, Ash roars up on his motorcycle. He removes his helmet and smirks. “Didn’t think you’d actually come.”

  I tuck my phone into my back pocket. “You wore a helmet.”

  “What can I say? You’re a good influence on me.” He pats the seat behind him. “Get on.”

  He can’t be serious. “No way.”

  “I told you, I have plans today. If you want to talk, you’ll have to come with.”

  “Can’t we go talk at your place by the creek?”

  He reaches into a leather bag on the back of the bike. “I brought you your own helmet. And here.” He shrugs out of his leather jacket, revealing strong, taut biceps and pecs under a black T-shirt. “You can wear this too.”

  The black helmet is shiny and looks new, but I shake my head. “I can’t wear your jacket. You’ll be cold, and besides, you’re probably not wearing sunscreen.” I can’t stop myself from adding, “Three thousand people die from skin cancer every year.”

  “Suit yourself,” he says, slipping back into his jacket. “See you around.” He pushes his heel to the pedal and the engine roars again.

  “Wait!” I shout. Lily Summerhays, I’ve learned, was fearless. She wouldn’t have been too scared to ride on the back of a motorcycle.

  I yank the helmet from him and push it down hard over my head and slip into his jacket. “You’ll go slow. The speed limit,” I say to Ash. “No. Ten miles under the speed limit.”

  He salutes. “Aye aye, cap’n.”

  Awkwardly, I swing my leg over the seat behind him. My legs straddle outside of his, and I press against him, gripping my hands around his waist. His stomach is hard, and I want to hold it tighter, to run my fingertips over his ab muscles. What I really want to do is slide my hands under his shirt to feel his skin.

  I try not to think of how much of my body is touching so much of his body. I’ve never touched Keith this way.

  Ash slowly rolls down the street, so slowly I barely feel the wind. The engine purrs. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I say.

  I feel more than hear him chuckle again. “Hold on tight.”

  And then we’re off, flyyyyyying down the road. I scream, and he laughs.

  “You said you’d go slow!”

  “This is slow!” he shouts, then goes even faster.

  We fly down Van Buren, but I don’t see any of it. My head pressed to Ash’s back, I squeeze my eyes shut. We turn left, and I open them just enough to see that we’re nearing the airfield. “We could have walked here again!” I shout into the wind. Then I’m struck by a horrible thought. “There’s no way I’m letting you fly me in a plane!”

  “Sorry, I can’t today, but I promise we’ll do that next time!” he shouts, and instead of turning left onto the runway, he turns right, onto the highway.

  I have no idea where he’s taking me. I scream as we sail down the highway, leaving Ryland behind. My arms grip him so tightly, I’m sure I’m breaking his ribs. My legs squeeze his legs. His leather jacket, zipped up to my chin, intoxicates me with its leathery, Ash-y scent.

  I should be terrified. I try to feel terrified.

  But I’m not. I feel… free. Joyful. Exhilarated.

  I throw my head back, loving the wind in my face, loving each cold, fresh breath. I want to throw off the helmet and let my hair fly free. To keep myself from throwing my hands in the air, I grip Ash even tighter.

  “What was that?” Ash shouts. “Did you just say to go faster? Whatever you say, boss!” And we go even faster.

  He thinks I’m sitting behind him freaking out, so he’s just messing with me. He doesn’t know how much I’m loving this. I scream, but out of joy rather than fear.

  Much too quickly, although we’ve probably been on the road for at least an hour, Ash slows down. I open my eyes as he pulls into a parking lot of what looks like a castle, with stories-high walls of brown stone, surrounded by tall electric fences topped with coils of barbed wire along the perimeter. On the top floor of the brick towers at each corner of the property are guards with rifles. Ash has brought me to Indiana State Prison.

  He shuts off the engine, and the sudden silence is filled with dread. “You said you didn’t want to talk to your dad,” I say.

  “Changed my mind,” he mumbles as he helps me off the bike. He holds my arm longer than necessary.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” I ask.

  “Five years ago.”

  I stare up at him as he looks up at the towers. A shadow of vulnerability crosses his face. Something makes me reach out and take his hand. He glances down in surprise but doesn’t remove his hand from mine. He meets my eyes, his grief obvious.

  “Does he know about you?” I ask. “How smart you are? That you’ve been accepted to college? That you fly planes? Does he know you want to be an astronaut?”

  He shakes his head. He looks again at the building but doesn’t move.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” I ask.

  He nods curtly and, tightening his grip on my hand, takes a step forward.

  The death row building, a small, thick, dark structure, is separated from the rest of the prison. It takes over an hour to get through security. In the clean, tiled lobby, we place our belongings—my phone and ID, Ash’s wallet and keys—in a plastic crate, where they’re run through an X-ray machine and then examined inside and out by guards with dull eyes in drab, brown uniforms. One at a time, Ash and I walk slowly through a metal detector, then we’re frisked head to toe by a warden with cold, calloused hands.

  The warden grunts as he flips Ash’s driver’s license between his fingers. “You’re Morrison’s kid, huh? Guy’s got less than three weeks left. Come to say good-bye?”

  Ash swallows visibly and nods.

  The guard instructs us to stand before an electric door made of steel and wire-laced glass. After standing in silence for a long minute with Ash’s hand in both of mine, I jump at a sudden buzzer, then the door rolls opened with a
motorized whir. Another officer escorts us deeper into the prison to another door, only to repeat the process twice more. It smells faintly of mold and vomit in here. The deeper we go, the darker and grimier the building becomes, and the tighter Ash grips my hand. To comfort me, or to comfort himself?

  After the last set of doors, an armed guard leads us past a thick, intimidating metal door. The prison cells must be behind that door.

  The inmates in those cells have all committed crimes so heinous that society has decided that death is the only punishment harsh enough for them. Every instinct I have screams at me to run, to flee from this horrid place, these detestable criminals, but there’s no way I’ll abandon Ash now.

  A short guard with brown, slimy hair escorts us down the corridor and around a corner to a cell, three walls of concrete and one wall of thick wire-laced glass with ventilation holes. I focus on the ventilation holes because I don’t know how I’ll react when I see the man inside. In my peripheral vision, I see a figure: male, wearing slippers and a denim jumpsuit, hunched on a yellow plastic chair. This is the man whom, for my entire life up until a couple weeks ago, I believed had murdered Lily—had murdered me. My breath is caught in my throat. I can’t look directly at him.

  The guard knocks once with his knuckle on the bulletproof glass. “Your visitors are here,” he announces to the prisoner, and with his foot, slides two upside-down milk crates to Ash and me to sit on. We remain standing. Stiff, unmoving. Ash grips my hand so tightly, I think he’ll break it. I clutch his just as hard.

  Finally, I force myself to look directly at Vinnie Morrison. At the same time, he lifts his head. Black eyes. Hard. Cold. Defensive. Identical to Ash’s, before I got to know him. Panic flutters in my throat.

  “They shoulda told you at the gate,” Vinnie Morrison says, his voice a low growl. “I don’t talk to reporters or lawyers.”

  “Vinnie. It’s me. Ash.”

  Vinnie looks him up and down. “Well, fuck. It is you. Damn, you’re big.”

  Vinnie is big himself. Large chest and arms, broad shoulders, enormous hands. Cropped, dark hair, chiseled jaw. He nods to me. “You his girl?”

  I shake my head, then pull my hand from Ash’s and fiddle with my daisy charm instead.

  “This is Ever,” Ash says. “She’s the one who convinced me to come see you.”

  “Why, so you can tell me what a shitty father I was before I die?” His eyes burrow into mine. “Shoulda saved yourself the trip. I already know.”

  “We’re trying to find who really killed Lily Summerhays,” Ash says.

  Vinnie Morrison laughs hollowly. “I thought I killed Lily Summerhays.” He leans back in his chair and hooks his fingers behind his head. Still clearly inked on his wrist are the letters ASH.

  The fear that had rendered me mute melts away. “No,” I say. I’m absolutely sure of it. “You didn’t.”

  Vinnie doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe. “Now why would you think that?”

  “Do you remember Diana Buckley and Will Duston?” Ash asks, almost whispering their names. “They were Lily’s friends. Well, Miss Buckley was.”

  “Diana Buckley,” Vinnie says thoughtfully. “Yeah.”

  “You knew her?” Ash asks.

  “Never talked to her personally. But she sends me stuff every once in a while. Books. Cash for the commissary. Keeps me up to date on what you’re doing.”

  Ash and I glance at each other. Proof Miss Buckley knew he was innocent. She wouldn’t have sent books, letters, and money to her best friend’s killer.

  “She said I should be real proud of you,” Vinnie continues. “Says you’re going to college. On a scholarship. That true?”

  “Depends,” Ash says. Ash’s hair is long and Vinnie’s head is shaved, but I’m struck by how similar these men are. Both are large, both have dark eyes and golden beige skin, and both have gruff, guttural voices and speak in clipped sentences. Vinnie has been in prison since Ash was an infant, but it’s obvious they’re father and son.

  “Did Miss Buckley ever tell you if she knew what really happened to Lily?” I ask. “Did she say anything about Will Duston in her letters?”

  “Will Duston.” He scrunches his lips and narrows his eyes, thinking. “That pale farmer kid, right? The one with the toothpicks.”

  “He’s the high school principal now,” Ash says. “Total asshole.”

  “We need to prove that he framed you for Lily’s murder,” I say. “Is there anything you remember from that night, anything at all? Was he a, you know, a customer of yours? A client?”

  Vinnie runs his tongue over his teeth. “You need to prove that he framed me for Lily’s murder,” he repeats in an amused murmur.

  I nod, and Vinnie snorts. “Listen. Ash. My one and only piece of fatherly advice: Take that scholarship, get the hell out of Ryland, and make something of yourself. Don’t fuck up your life just to get some petty revenge against an asshole principal you don’t like.”

  “I won’t get that scholarship if I can’t prove he killed Lily,” Ash says. “But even if the scholarship goes to someone else,” he adds, sliding a glance at me, “we can’t let you be executed for his crime. He should be in here, not you.”

  Vinnie shakes his head, a low growl in his throat. “You already saved my life once. You don’t need to do it again.”

  “How’d I do that?”

  “By being born. They accused me of killing some kid named Neal Mallick. Said I sold him drugs or something, got him wasted, and he slipped off the bridge and drowned in the creek. But I had an alibi.”

  “What was that?”

  “I was with your mother in the hospital while you were being born. I didn’t kill that kid, but I did kill Lily Summerhays. I don’t have an alibi because I did it. I accepted it a long time ago. Now you should too.”

  I look again at Vinnie’s wrist. Three letters. ASH. He did not kill Lily.

  “Hey. Princess. What’s so fascinating about my hands?” Vinnie snaps at me, holding them out. “You keep looking at them.”

  Startled, I mumble, “Oh. Um, the tattoo on your wrist caught my attention. Ash’s name.”

  “Got it the day after he was born.” He traces the letters with his finger. “Why, you expected a hatchet tattoo?”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. “H—How—”

  “Like all those guys have. Duston, the mayor’s kid, all of ’em.”

  I swallow hard. “What?”

  “The hatchet tattoo,” Vinnie says. “Warrior baseball team tradition. Everyone on the baseball team gets one when they win a state championship. What, they don’t do that no more?”

  Ash says, “I don’t think they’ve gotten past the playoffs lately.”

  “Good. Back when I was around, they won eight years out of ten, something like that. It was all Ryland cared about. Fucking asswipes, strutting around with their tattoos. Thinking they owned the town.”

  “And they all got that tattoo?” I squeak. I make a cross on my wrist. “Two hatchets crossed at the handles, one red handle and one yellow?”

  “That’s it,” Vinnie says. “Every player on every winning team. Hell, there’s probably over a hundred of those jerkoffs with that tattoo.” He chuckles. “Cute of you to think that I’d have one. Trust me, princess, my extracurricular activities had nothing to do with baseball.”

  It’s hard to hear him over the ringing in my ears. My vision narrows and the floor sways. Only one thing he says resonates over and over, like an echo. “Over a hundred?” I can barely hear myself either. All I can hear is over a hundred. Over a hundred.

  I press the heel of my hand to my eyebrow, stopping the flow of invisible blood.

  “Ah, shit. She’s sick again,” Ash says. “This happens a lot. Vinnie, I gotta get her out of here.” His arm is around me, holding me up. Warm, strong, protective. He pauses, and from far away, I hear him say, “I’m…I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry, I guess.”

  Over a hundred. Over a hundred. />
  “Don’t be. I’m glad you came,” Vinnie says, then his tone grows cold, like he’s trying not to choke on his emotions. “Thanks for visiting, nice to see you, have a good life, don’t fuck it up like I did. Now get out of here and forget about me.” He turns his back to us.

  I allow Ash to lead me away, accompanied by the guard. I try to breathe the pain away.

  One…

  Two…

  Three.

  The pain is still there. Throbbing, bleeding invisible blood.

  Four…

  Five…

  Six.

  Still there. Pain, blood, fear.

  Seven…

  Eight…

  Nine.

  The pain isn’t going away. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away.

  My pool of suspects just went from one to one hundred.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lily ~ Eighteen Years Ago

  My pool of suspects just went from one to zero.

  “Now that I know it’s not you, Neal’s killer could be anybody,” I said to Will under his oak tree the next day. The Day After. The day after I realized Will did not kill Neal. The day after we kissed.

  I wanted to kiss him again as he leaned against the tree trunk, all tall and lean and blond. I wanted to make up for the time we lost to unjustified hatred. I wanted to feel his lips on mine, to taste him.

  But I didn’t kiss him again. Yesterday’s kiss had surprised me as much as it had him. It had been an impulse, and I was trying not to be impulsive. I wanted to kiss him, absolutely. But more than that, I wanted him to want to kiss me too.

  “Neal’s killer is someone who has a blue car with a broken headlight,” Will said. “That narrows it down. The police will figure it out.”

  “We can’t tell the police,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I already told Rick Paladino a couple of times, but he didn’t take me seriously.”

  “He thought you were making up drama because this town is so boring?” Will grinned. “Can’t say I blame him for thinking that.”

  He was teasing me this time, not taunting me. I gave him a playful punch. “He told me to stop being a detective. He won’t believe me until I have proof.”