“I don’t know. No one’s going to leave you alone in the house while the search for Mr. Beasley is on in the neighborhood, but even after that, I’d like to station some agents outside for your family’s protection. In the meantime, I need to ask you to keep this information completely confidential. No one needs to know that Molly was a target. Letting anyone know that we’re aware of this could put Molly in jeopardy,” Jenna said.
Raine nodded hard, still fiddling with her necklace. “I understand.”
“If you think of anyone who might have a reason to want to hurt Molly, call me. No matter how small the information may seem,” Jenna said. So many times in these situations, the mother would be a suspect, but in this case Jenna had dismissed Raine as a potential suspect as much as Molly herself. First of all, Raine couldn’t have kidnapped Eldred and be in the room with CiCi and Yancy at the same time. Second, unlike classic cases of parents wanting to be rid of their kids, the child hadn’t disappeared one day at random, the parents issuing vague claims about the kidnapper’s looks that could fit half the general criminal population. Molly had been shot at by a serial killer.
And third, Raine’s color just didn’t add up. That robin’s egg blue had nothing to do with the crimes so far. And while this information wouldn’t ever hold up as official evidence or in court, for Jenna it was good enough.
“I will,” Raine said.
Jenna climbed back down the stairs only to see Yancy standing at the bottom just past the curve where the foyer moved to the staircase. He’d been out looking for Eldred Beasley. Jenna hadn’t seen him since they’d left this very house hours ago, when the old man was still safe and sound.
Yancy’s hair was dark with sweat, his shirt damp as well. He looked so tired, but something else lingered in his eyes. Something she’d seen before. Failure?
“Heard anything else?” he asked, hopeful and resigned at the same time.
“No, unfortunately. They’re going house to house asking if anyone’s seen anything, but so far, no luck. Where’s CiCi?” Jenna replied.
He gestured toward the door. “She’s riding with Victor. He let her go along with him to drive around the neighborhood and look for places Eldred might’ve gotten interested in if he wandered off. I honestly think Victor’s just trying to give her a way to feel like she’s doing something.”
His face fell at the mention, and the salmon color she’d seen when he’d called to tell her Eldred was missing flashed in again. This time, she recognized it: holding back.
“What aren’t you telling me, Yance?”
He looked down, was silent a long moment. “Let’s walk. We might need some air for this.”
51
Yancy put one foot in front of the other, with every step his dread growing. How do you tell someone you love that you’ve screwed up something so badly they might never forgive you?
“Jenna, I can’t keep this from you anymore, not just for my sake, but because of Eldred . . .”
Shit, this was hard. What would happen to Oboe if he went to prison? Jenna probably wouldn’t take him. Not after his owner had been such a douchebag, screwup failure.
“Yancy, what are you talking about?”
A police car passed, one of the many out looking for CiCi’s father. God, if something had happened to him . . .
“I didn’t tell you everything about why I didn’t want the local cops called in,” he said quickly, afraid of losing his nerve.
He couldn’t tell if the sudden chill in the air had to do with the sun setting or his own nerves.
“Okay,” she said.
He walked on, the familiar thud of his leg as it clicked the pavement the only sound between them while neither spoke. Jenna hadn’t even noticed the metal leg the other night in the shower when their shins hit, and he’d worried he might’ve ruined the moment.
The longer you don’t tell her, the more you’re putting Eldred at risk. Your little lies by omission and switching a few details could be the reason he’s gone, cool guy.
“The husband isn’t exactly what I said. She . . .”
Jenna stopped at the cross of the road that intersected with the end of the Tylers’ block. “Spit it.”
Yancy glanced around. Cops everywhere, all of them capable of swooping in after he said this if she called them. But for the moment they were out of earshot.
Tell her, you coward.
“I was meeting CiCi for coffee. I know I shouldn’t have gotten personally involved, but at the time, you didn’t need me on this case . . . and she . . . well, I felt needed.”
Pathetic.
“When I got to her house to pick her up, someone else was there. He was threatening her. I thought it was her husband. I tried to scare him off with my gun, because he—Jenna, he was strangling her . . .”
Jenna’s face darkened. “What did you do, Yance?”
His eyes stung in the breeze. “Jenna, he pulled a gun on me.”
Her hair blew in the wind, and she rubbed the chill bumps forming on her arms. He wanted to put his arm around her, but the straight line of her mouth, the attack posture, said he couldn’t go to her.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“I shot him, Jenna. Okay? I fucking shot a man,” Yancy blurted, throwing up his arms.
Tears glistened in her eyes, which were wide in disbelief and anger at the same time.
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand. What . . . you’re still not telling me . . . something . . . God, Yancy, what the hell . . .”
“He wasn’t her husband. Her husband doesn’t even live with her anymore. They’re separated. The guy was a pimp. That part was true. He wasn’t her husband, though. She was making money on the side to support her father’s medical needs, and this guy was threatening her, hassling her for the money she owed him.”
“You didn’t call the cops? What the hell did you do?” she practically screamed.
“Jenna, I couldn’t. The pimp and the people running the prostitution ring were dirty cops. That part was true. I did some digging.” He leaned in, whispered, “You know, Yancy kind of digging . . .”
Jenna nodded, still pissed. She folded her arms.
“Well, I looked into it, and she wasn’t lying about that. They’d have killed her and me if they found out I’d killed one of their own, and . . . oh, fuck . . . I was scared they’d come after you, too. And A . . .”
Jenna’s glare turned even colder. “Don’t you dare bring Ayana into this.”
Yancy closed his eyes, unable to look into hers anymore. He turned his back, hands clasping his head. He opened his eyes again. With Jenna’s disappointed expression no longer glaring at his face and instead just searing his back, he tried to steady his breathing. “I’m not just saying that, Jenna. I swear.”
“So what are you saying? He’s dead, and you called no one? What did you do?”
The way she said it, he realized she already knew the answer. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“It could be them. Who took Eldred,” he said instead. “The way they came in and got out without us hearing. Cops could manage that, right?”
She said nothing.
He spun around, needing desperately to read her body language. Her gaze was fixed on her feet, and she was just shaking her head back and forth.
“I didn’t tell you before, because I don’t think it’s likely. They wouldn’t know . . . there’s no way they could know what happened. But what if they do?”
Her head snapped back up. “Why wouldn’t they know? Tell me, Yancy. Say it!”
He stared into those eyes, the ones he’d looked into in the hot, sensual shower just the night before. So loving, satisfied with him. So his.
“I got rid of him,” he said, unable to believe he was hearing himself saying the words out loud. “They couldn’t know, because I made sure no on
e could, damn it.”
Jenna looked back at her feet. She was quiet a long moment.
Then she stepped toward him, swift. Purposeful. Past him. Back toward Molly Keegan’s house.
He moved to catch up to her, and she spun around.
“Just stay away from me right now, Yancy. Just get the fuck away.”
He watched her go, not sure what she’d do next or when he’d talk to her again. But he had no right to defy her wishes. Not anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but he knew he was saying it only for him to hear.
52
Jenna slammed the door and furiously bolted one lock after the other, muttering. “What was he thinking? How could he have . . . ugh! This changes everything. How could he . . .”
“Whoa, now, El Tigre.” Her dad’s voice met her ears. “You okay?”
She hung her head, breathed slowly and evenly for a moment. No way could she tell him about this. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I’m fine,” she said, turning around and putting on her most composed face.
“Clearly,” Vern replied, smirking. “You and Steampunk have a fight?”
Jenna passed him and opened the fridge, not really hungry but unwilling to lie to her dad’s face, even by omission. “Not exactly.”
“You know, if our lives are any indication, change isn’t always a bad thing,” Vern said.
So he’d been listening to her angry rant as she was coming in the door, when she’d thought she was alone. Great. Mental note: When Ayana is an adult and she has a boyfriend—or girlfriend—don’t think you know exactly what’s going on, even if you’ve come to like Prince or Princess Charming.
“Dad, I know you and Yancy get along, but it’d be great if you didn’t jump to take his side. I’m still your daughter, you know. He’s still an outsider coming in,” she spat, fighting to control the violent reaction.
“Ouch,” he said. “That’s kinda harsh, isn’t it?”
The deep, rich red of the Japanese maple leaves in the fall outside her and Hank’s apartment so many years ago flashed in, the one she’d so long associated with a kindness, an inherent good-hearted nature.
She shook it away. “I’m just saying he’s not your flesh and blood. Don’t be so quick to think he’s got it all figured out.”
Vern let out a loud laugh. “You of all people are suddenly using the old ‘blood’s thicker than water’ cliché? I hate to remind you of this since you rarely forget it for a millisecond of any day when I wish you would, but if blood was any indication of a person’s character, I should probably be the one locking you out of this house. Then again, by that definition, I’d need to lock myself into a house away from you, Ayana, and Charley . . .”
Jenna’s face burned. “You don’t understand.”
“So make me,” Vern replied. “And close the refrigerator door. You could’ve eaten every piece of old cheese pizza and drank the entire pitcher of Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid in there by now if you were actually looking for a snack.”
Jenna’s jaw clenched, and she slammed the door of the fridge. She turned to face her father. “I can’t. You wouldn’t get it.”
“Try me.”
She stared into her dad’s face, the face that had smiled back at her from the bottom of the slide as he’d waited to catch her, that had been slack and pale as Yancy had carried him out of the safe house just the year before, after Claudia’s latest attempt to take him from her. He’d probably understand far better than anyone else what she was feeling at the moment. The problem was, she didn’t want to rip that rug of trusting Yancy out from under him like it had been ripped from her. Losing what had been so hard to gain hurt too bad.
But despite the thought, she couldn’t help what came out of her mouth. “I’m just not sure I . . . What if we don’t know him as well as we think we do?”
Vern frowned. Something in his face changed, a cloud crossing it, like what she’d just said had thrown him. What could be so damned confusing? She’d come in fuming, after all.
“What’s that look for?” she demanded, this time unable to keep the frustration out of her voice.
He stayed quiet a long moment, then said, “No one ever knows someone quite as well as they think they do, Jenna. But I’d say your gut has served you well. Wouldn’t you?”
Tears bit Jenna’s eyes as she thought about the color she’d always seen Yancy as, the salmon of him holding back the truth, and then the moss green lima bean conversation with Ayana that morning. Doubt.
“The colors aren’t clear-cut anymore, Dad,” she whispered. “My gut doesn’t know what to think.”
A small whine came from the direction of Ayana’s room. She must’ve woken from her nap.
“That’s my cue,” Vern said, smiling. “Duty calls. I’ll get her up, we’ll have a little dinner. Maybe some time with your shortest fan will clear your head some.”
He started toward the hall, but stopped at the kitchen doorway, turned, and looked back at her. “For the record, though, I think you’re confusing your gut feeling with your special little superpower. I know they’re tied together, but just make sure you don’t get so wrapped up in reading colors that you forget to read people, Jenna. The distinction might be subtle, but of everyone I know on earth, you’re the one I trust most to separate the nuances.”
And he left to go bring in her daughter.
• • •
Jenna handed one of her own plastic, sectioned plates to Ayana, who enthusiastically dried it with the towel Jenna had given her. One day she’d be old enough to realize that this was not a privilege, washing dishes. But for now drying seemed great to her. A pleasure, so simple.
Must be nice.
She looked out the window above the sink and jumped, then relaxed. Victor.
She wasn’t sure Ayana was ready to meet her uncle. Not yet. Or maybe it was that with Victor having Hank’s eyes, Jenna wasn’t ready for it. Either way.
“A, go in and see if Uncle Charley wants to read Fox in Socks. Tell him I’ll come in after I talk to someone,” she said.
“Okeydoke,” Ayana replied. She put the towel and plate on the counter over her head, then skipped off.
Jenna rested both hands on the edge of the sink, breathing. Then she turned to open the door. After she’d gone through the lock series, she cracked it.
“Hey,” Victor said. “I asked for you when I got back to the scene. They said you’d gone home in a hurry. I was . . . well, can I come in?”
Jenna nodded, opening the door wider.
Victor stepped past her, and she closed the door, taking her time relocking every bolt in the series. She had no clue how to explain her absence from the scene of Eldred’s disappearance, particularly since she’d called Victor into it in the first place. Not to mention her reason for calling him in was because she had a personal stake in the case. He knew he was there because of Yancy. How could she excuse her own disappearing act without telling the whole story when he was already aware Yancy was involved? Burning guilt crept up her spine.
I’m not the liar.
“I just couldn’t stay anymore,” she said truthfully.
Despite her best efforts, the tears came. Fast. Hot. Painful.
“Jenna, what on earth happened?”
The concern in his voice, its steadiness, pulled at her. She could confide in him. She could ask advice from someone.
For whatever reason, she trusted him.
“Why do you care?” she blurted despite the thought, pushing past him to tackle the remainder of the dishes.
She turned on the water, snatched up a plate. Harder and harder she scrubbed, throwing plates onto the drying rack as she finished them.
“Maybe because if I don’t speak up for those dishes, no one will? Seriously, Jenna. They don’t deserve to be treated like common criminals . . .”
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Her hands slowed at the cup she was now scouring with a brush. Gut instinct. You trust it everywhere else.
“Victor, if I told you something, would you swear never to tell another soul?” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“Of course,” his voice came back.
A soft melon flashed in. Sincerity.
She reopened her eyes, set the cup back into the sink unfinished, and faced him. “Even if it was the worst thing you’d ever heard, and your conscience told you to tell?”
He studied her, calculating. “What are we talking about here?”
“Would you?” she pressed.
Those eyes of Jenna’s ex’s met hers, though the lines of his face, his build, and his color were all different. Fixed on her, he nodded.
“I swear.”
“The reason Yancy couldn’t call the locals in. I want you to know up front, when I involved you, I didn’t know this . . .”
“Point taken,” Victor said. “Mind if I sit?”
She shook her head. “Go ahead. Mind if I wash while I talk?”
“Only if you promise the plates a fair trial.”
She reached for the cup again, this time washing more slowly. Deliberately.
“Victor, Yancy told me tonight that he killed someone.”
“What? When?”
Dear God. A nightmare.
And Jenna told Victor everything. What Yancy told her about shooting the cop, why he’d done what he had, the color she’d seen to know he wasn’t telling her everything, how there was a chance this could have something to do with Eldred going missing. How even if she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t tell the cops or her team, because no matter how mad she was at Yancy, she wasn’t willing to throw him to the wolves. How she didn’t know what to do now.
When she finally finished, she turned off the faucet and faced Victor, ready for judgment. Hell, if she were him, she’d judge her, too. She should’ve told Saleda the moment she found out.
Instead of judgment, however, she got only a grim, set jaw. “Where’s the body?”
Double Vision Page 29