by Clara Kensie
The waitress doesn’t bat an eye at our cuts and bruises as Ash orders two breakfast skillets and six Belgian waffles for the two of us to share. I’m not hungry, but we haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday and Ash insists I eat something. “We survived a murder attempt via plane crash,” he rumbles. “We deserve a waffle at least.”
Besides the waitress, the cook, and a couple of truck drivers, Ash and I are the only ones in the place. The TV hanging over the counter behind me is turned to the local channel, which is showing the morning news. Ash holds a glass of ice water to his lip and closes his eyes. He’s in more pain than he’s letting on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you to your dad.”
“I’ll call the hospital to check on him. We need to get back to Ryland.”
Ash gestures at the TV with his chin. “Ryland is on the news right now.”
The TV shows a young blonde reporter on the baseball field behind the high school, standing next to Brandon Lennox, who’s wearing his Yankees jersey and a maroon Warriors cap. “In just a couple hours Ryland’s annual Little Warriors Training Camp will begin,” the reporter says to the camera, “the highlight of the year for the town’s young baseball players who hope to follow Brandon Lennox’s path from Ryland, Indiana to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Brandon, what prompted your surprise appearance this year?”
“The Training Camp started as a simple after-school clinic when I was in high school and I always had fun showing the little kids how to play,” Brandon says, all smiles and charm. “Last week I was invited to attend by the girl who planned the camp this year. The daughter of my old coach, as a matter of fact. The Yankees had a game in Chicago yesterday, so I decided to stop by Ryland on my way back to New York.” He tosses a baseball over his head and catches it.
I’m not surprised to see a crossed-hatchet tattoo on his wrist. Brandon Lennox is the main reason the Warriors were state champions all those years ago.
The reporter asks, “Still planning to retire after this year?”
“I’ve been playing major league ball for seventeen years,” Brandon says, tossing the ball. “I’m an old man compared to most of my teammates.” He’s all lopsided smiles and flirty charm. “I thought about retiring, but I think I still have a season or two left in me.”
“I’m sure your fans will be happy to hear that,” the reporter says. “Any plans for after retirement?”
“Maybe coaching, maybe on-air commentary,” he says. “I also want to start a support group for players and their families who are going through tough times.”
“Are you talking about players like your teammate, Rob Krabowski?” the reporter asks. “How’s he doing? Was it a difficult decision to turn him in?”
He turns somber. “Robbie’s one of my best buddies. I gave him a chance to stop, a few chances actually, even offered to take him to rehab personally. But he wouldn’t stop using. He was a danger to himself and others, driving under the influence, becoming violent. So I said to him, ‘I don’t want to do this, but you left me no choice.’ And I turned him in….”
“You left me no choice.”
My vision narrows, zeroing in on Brandon Lennox tossing the baseball and catching it. His hatchet tattoo goes up and down, up and down, slashing through the air.
The baseball in his hand shifts, waves, changes, turns pink and sparkly and diamond-shaped, and I’m no longer in Mable’s Waffle Junction. I’m bloody, hurt, sprawled on the floor, begging for my life, and Brandon towers over me, gripping the paperweight in his fist and roars “You left me no choice.” He raises the diamond high over his head, and with a furious howl, he slams it down—
The pain, the pain, oh, God, the pain—
“Ever?” Ash says from far away. “Ever, you okay? What’s wrong?”
I come back to myself. I’m clutching my head with both hands, and Ash is now next to me in the booth, frantic.
“He did it,” I say, blinking the pain and the tears away. “He killed Lily.”
“Brandon Lennox? How do you know it’s—” He sucks in a breath. “You remember.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Ever ~ Present Day
I freeze, then my voice comes out all high and squeaky. “You heard me last night?”
He nods, his expression unreadable, and I want to hide behind my stack of uneaten waffles.
“I thought maybe I was dreaming it,” he says. “Then I thought you made it up because you thought I was about to die. But seeing your reaction just now—you were telling the truth.”
He heard my confession, and he’s still with me. Still on my side. Still supporting me. “Did you hear everything?” Even the I love you part?
“Everything.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, lets his hand linger, brushes my cheek with his thumb. His lips are so close to mine. His eyelashes are so long. His eyes so dark, so deep. I suck in a breath, and suddenly his lips are on mine, and then—
“Ow!” He pulls back with a hiss and puts his hand to his lip. “Forgot it’s cut.” It’s bleeding again.
“Are you okay?”
He grins as he presses a napkin to his lip. “I’m good, yeah. But we should probably hold off on that for a while. But not forever,” he adds, grinning. “While we wait for my lip to heal, we should probably discuss the tiny little fact that you remember your past lives.”
“My past deaths,” I clarify. “It’s okay if you don’t believe me—”
He holds up a palm. “Just tell me.”
I give him a brief history. It feels good, freeing, to tell him. No more lies. No need for it. He believes me.
“And you remember Brandon Lennox killing you.”
“I remember being killed,” I say. “But I didn’t know it was Brandon Lennox who killed me. Lily couldn’t see his face, so neither could I. I assumed all along that it was your dad who did it because that’s what everyone believed, until I saw the tattoo on Principal Duston. Then I found out that it could have been anyone with that tattoo. Now I know it was Brandon Lennox. I remember lying on the floor, bloody and hurt, and I remember the hatchet tattoo on his wrist, and the pink diamond paperweight in his fist, and him saying “You left me no choice.” And then he…” I mimic him slamming the paperweight into Lily’s head. I cringe again as the memory shoots the pain through my own skull. “He did it,” I confirm.
“Wait,” Ash says. “A pink diamond paperweight. That’s the murder weapon? I thought it was a rock or something. They never found it.”
“Paladino lied on the police report,” I say. “He set up your father to protect Brandon. He lied about the murder weapon too, probably to keep anyone from finding it. He’s been protecting him all along.”
“Why would he protect him? And why would Brandon Lennox kill Lily?” He leans back and checks his napkin. His lip has stopped bleeding. “He wasn’t in Ryland when Miss Buckley died. That had to be Duston. He has to be involved too.”
“We finally know who the killer is, but we have even more questions than before,” I say. “And we still can’t prove anything. No one will believe the memories of a dead girl.”
“True, but we also know what the murder weapon is. I wonder what happened to it.”
“Actually,” I say, “I have it. I found it in Miss Buckley’s bedroom and took it. I hid it in my closet.”
“Wait.” Ash breaks out into a broad grin. “You stole it?”
I smile back proudly. “What can I say? You’re a bad influence on me.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ever ~ Present Day
My mind calculates, makes lists, makes plans. Ash goes over to the truck drivers at the counter to find us a ride, and I go to the payphone between the gumball machine and the rotating pie display case to call my father.
I call the directory for the number of the hospital in Quincy. A nurse tells me his surgery went well, thank God, thank God. He’s sleeping, the nurse says, and I ask her to tell him when he wakes up that I had a little trouble on the way to the hospital, but I’m
fine and I’ll be there as soon as I can.
Ash has to give a truck driver all the money that’s left in his wallet to get us a ride. But we’re not going to Quincy—we’re going back to Ryland to get that paperweight.
It’s a forty-five-minute drive that feels like forty-five days. The truck driver lets us out at the corner of Jefferson and Van Buren. Every nerve is on edge as we rush to my house, taking the long way so we can avoid the high school. Brandon Lennox, the man who killed Lily Summerhays, is at the Little Warriors Training Camp at the high school. Principal Duston, the man who must have killed Miss Buckley, is probably there too. Javier Soto, the man who tried to kill Ash and me, could be there as well. Chief Paladino could be anywhere.
We arrive on my street. The house next door to mine is empty. I shudder when I think that I almost declined Mrs. Yost’s offer to take Joey camping—he would have been in the plane crash with Ash and me.
Across the street, Keith’s curtains are open. He’s at the Training Camp along with the rest of the baseball team—and the killers.
We slip inside my house. Joining my head and ribs in misery are my feet and back, from walking miles and miles in my black ballet flats. Ash won’t admit that he’s in pain, but I can see it on his face. He clutches his bad shoulder with his good arm.
“Sit,” I order him, pointing to my couch. I get the first-aid kit from the kitchen and wrap his arm in a sling, one I bought last year just-in-case because it was on sale at Kammer’s Pharmacy and I had a coupon. I give him a glass of water and some extra-strength Advil, then take some myself.
“I’ll get the paperweight,” I say. “But we still need to figure out what to do with it.”
“We’ll take it to a defense lawyer,” he says, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. He’s as tired as I am. More than anything, I want to curl up and fall asleep in his arms, right here on the couch, but there’s too much to do. “Tell them to get it tested for DNA. Brandon’s fingerprints. Lily’s blood.”
“If there’s any evidence left on it, it’s eighteen years old. Will it still be viable?”
Ash shrugs, wincing when he moves his shoulder too much. “Doubtful, but testing a new piece of evidence might be enough to postpone my dad’s execution. Buy us more time to prove it was Brandon Lennox.”
The floor creaks behind us.
Chief Paladino steps out from the hallway. Behind him is Brandon Lennox, his eyes wide, still wearing his Yankees jersey and Warriors hat from the newscast this morning.
The chief rests his hand on the gun at his waist. “I’ll take that paperweight.”
Chapter Sixty
Ever ~ Present Day
Brandon Lennox is in my house with his hatchet tattoo, and Chief Paladino is in my house with his hatchet tattoo and his gun. I’m frozen. Can’t move, can’t breathe. Ash scrambles to push me behind him on the couch.
“You two are supposed to be dead,” Paladino continues. “Javier Soto’s been out looking for your plane since last night, and to finish the job in case you somehow survived.”
“Leave her out of this, Paladino,” Ash growls. “She didn’t do anything. I convinced her to help me.”
“We both know that’s not true.” He strides over and grabs my arm, pulling me off the couch. “My man Lennox and I came here to get rid of any evidence you may have collected, but you can do that for us now. Let’s go, Nancy Drew. Get me that paperweight.” He tosses his handcuffs to Brandon. “Lock him to the table leg.”
Brandon obeys, slowly, like he’s stunned. Ash protests and struggles, but with one arm in a sling, he doesn’t get much traction. Paladino pulls me away.
“Don’t you dare hurt her, you son of a bitch!” Ash shouts after him. “I’ll kill you if you hurt her!”
Paladino scoffs. My mind racing, I consider telling him I don’t know anything about a paperweight. But he heard Ash and me talking about it, so I have no choice but to get it for him. I lead him to my bedroom. Shaking, I pull open my closet doors. The paperweight is hidden in the back corner at the bottom of a basket of my winter sweaters, wrapped in a pink infinity scarf.
Paladino snatches it from my hand. “How the hell did you know about this?” he demands.
“M-Miss Buckley told me,” I say. More believable than the truth. From the family room, Ash shouts. Something breaks.
“Damn that woman,” Paladino says, unconcerned by the sounds of struggle. He grabs my arm and hauls me back to the family room. The coffee table is broken, tipped onto a corner. One leg is broken off. Brandon has Ash pinned on his stomach with one foot on his bad shoulder, the arm in its sling pinned underneath him. His other wrist has a handcuff locked to it, the other end swinging free.
Paladino holds up the paperweight in one fist, triumphant. “Got it.”
Brandon falters. “What are you gonna do?”
“History is going to repeat itself,” Paladino says. “Morrison will bash the girl’s head in with the paperweight, just like his dad did to poor Lily Summerhays eighteen years ago. Like father, like son.”
“Go to hell, Paladino,” Ash says. “There’s no way I’ll do that and you know it. Kill me if you have to—”
“Ash, no!” I cry.
“—but let her go.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do it yourself or not,” Paladino says. “It’s what the police report is going to say. It’ll also say that I arrived on the scene while you were still here, but I was too late. She was already dead. But then you tried to attack me, and I had to shoot you in self-defense.”
“Fuck you!” Ash shouts.
In response, the chief kicks the coffee table into the bookshelf. Everything goes flying—the glasses of water, the TV remotes, a Griffin University brochure, Joey’s Matchbox cars. My mother’s romance novels tumble from the shelves.
“I’m sorry you got caught up in this, sweetheart,” Paladino tells me, almost sympathetically, as he pushes on my shoulder. “It’ll be easier for you if you cooperate. We’ll make it quick. Go on. Get on the floor.”
“Ever, no!” Ash shouts, struggling to get free. I do not cooperate, so Paladino forces me to my knees, then onto my back, holding me down with one foot on my chest. I squirm, kick, hit, reach for something to help me push away, but the only thing my fingers can grab is one of my mom’s paperbacks, the new Regency with the woman in the fancy yellow gown on the cover, the one who looks like my mom. Paladino presses his foot on my chest, awakening the pain in my sore ribs. I cry out, and Ash shouts again.
Paladino tosses the paperweight to Brandon, who catches it reflexively in one hand like it’s a baseball. “You know what you have to do, Lennox. Get over here.”
“Me? But—”
“I’ve been covering for you for eighteen years,” Paladino says. “I did it for you so you could become the success you are today. You owe me your entire career, your entire life. If you fuck this up, we’ll both go to prison. You will get the needle instead of Vinnie Morrison.”
Brandon nods miserably. He straddles me, clutching the paperweight. Ash shouts, but Paladino cocks his gun and aims it at me, and Ash goes rigid.
“Do it, Lennox,” Paladino says. “Now.”
Brandon’s panting, sobs catching in his chest, his eyes red. With shaking hands, he raises the paperweight.
The last words Lily heard, “You left me no choice,” echo in my ears.
“Brandon, please, you don’t have to do this,” I plead from underneath him. “You thought Lily left you no choice back then, but you have a choice now. You don’t have to kill me. You do have a choice.”
He freezes. The pink glass diamond catches a sunbeam and he sits down hard on my stomach. “I didn’t want to kill them,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to.”
I gasp for air. “Them?”
“Neal. Lily. I didn’t mean to…”
Lily was alone when she was killed. The only victim. “Who’s Neal?”
“Shut up, Brandon,” Paladino says. “Do your job.”
; In my periphery, Ash is moving, slowly, trying to stand. I need to keep Brandon talking, keep him distracted. “Who’s Neal?” I ask again.
“Neal Mallick,” Brandon says. “I hit him. With the car. The…” He sighs and hiccups, searching for the word. “The Viper. I didn’t mean to. The Yankees gave me the Viper as a bonus, you know, so I’d sign with them and not with the Astros, and so we went driving it, you know, to test it. It was late, and there was no one on the street, so I pushed it as fast as it would go, gunned the engine… and Neal Mallick, he just, he just appeared out of nowhere, and—” He groans with agony. “And I hit him. Killed him.”
A sob tears from his chest. “My whole career. My whole life. We thought it was over. I was about to play in the majors, and it was over, in an instant, just like that. But we called Paladino and he came and helped us throw Neal’s body in the creek, made it look like an accident, like he was walking home after work and slipped off the bridge and drowned.”
“Lennox! Shut the fuck up!” the chief shouts. I can’t inhale. My ribs hurt; surely they’re broken now. My arms are splayed, and I clutch my mom’s book as if I’m clutching her hand.
“Everyone believed it,” Brandon says, openly weeping. “Even I started believing it. We hid the Viper and dismantled it and scattered the parts. We thought it was done. Over. But Lily…” He inhales a jagged breath. “She didn’t believe it. She was the only one. She kept digging and digging, and she figured it out, she knew it was me…” He heaves an agonized sob. “I didn’t want to do it, but she left me no choice!”
He howls, and with eyes unseeing and furious, he raises the paperweight in both hands. I scream, and with all the strength I have left, fueled by adrenaline and fear and the desire to live, I drive the romance novel right into his neck, edge first, crushing his windpipe.