by Hannah Jayne
The idea sat heavy in my gut. People were pawing through our things—through our lives. People who didn’t know my father was a meticulous note keeper but never actually filed his notes. People who never met my mom, who didn’t realize she was the most organized woman ever even if she had cash and lipsticks and grocery lists and calendars spread out among six different purses. People who didn’t know that Josh’s drawings of monsters and ghouls and mine of screaming faces and raised fists were just the imaginings of well-adjusted kids and not Crayola-colored cries for help.
Nate was scanning and making neat stacks. For some reason, it didn’t bother me that it was him pawing through our things.
“Your parents were paying five hundred bucks a month for something. Do you know what? It says DNR or something.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Dance, maybe?”
“Five hundred bucks a month for dance?”
“I don’t know. I guess not.”
I crawled onto the bed and picked up a few sheets, squinting, turning them upside down. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
“Blueprints. Copies of them rather.”
I nodded, set them aside.
Nate glanced over. “You didn’t tell me you have a rec room! Or did you all call it something highbrow like the ‘den’ or the ‘rumpus room’?”
“I hardly think ‘rumpus’ equals highbrow, and we don’t have one.”
“It shows it right there.” Nates eyes went wide. “Oh my God, did you guys, like, wall it in and call it a panic room?” I cocked an eyebrow, and Nate shrugged. “Sorry.”
“This isn’t even our house. We have more bathrooms.”
“Fancy.”
“And no rumpus room.” I squinted at the copy, turning it around and around until it made some kind of sense. Nate dropped a few more pages in front of me, and we pieced them together.
“Were you guys building or buying a new house or something?”
“Not that I know of. But it’s super weird. I feel like I know this house. I feel like I know where every piece goes.”
Nate sucked in a breath. “Do you feel like it’s 5123 Larkspur Road?”
Ice water shot through my veins, and my saliva went sour. “How do you know that address?” Nate didn’t answer right away, or if he did, I didn’t hear it, because there was something black and heavy clouding my vision. “Who are you, Nate? What’s going on?”
“I could ask you the same thing. Why are you freaking out?”
“How do you know that address?”
Nate snatched up one of the blueprint copies. “Because it’s written right here. What do you think—”
I studied the page. Of course I recognized the layout of the house. I had been there nearly every day of the last twelve years of my life. I traced the front door, the path we used to take: down the hall to the kitchen. Direct left to the walk-in pantry for something salty and sweet. Up the stairs, second door on the right before flopping down on Lynelle’s bed.
“The blueprints are for Lynelle’s house.”
Nate didn’t register the shock that I felt. He’d moved on to something else, stacking more papers, plucking one out, and reading it carefully.
Why would my dad have a blueprint for Lynelle’s parents’ house? Was that a thing that adults did? Like, “here’s the key and a blueprint to our house in case…” In case what?
“I just don’t get why my dad would have a blueprint for someone else’s house. Especially Lynelle’s family. Is that normal?”
Nate slowly put a typewritten page in front of me. “It is when you bought the house in a short sale.”
“Wait—what? Lynelle’s family bought—”
“No.” Nate pointed to a line. “Lynelle’s family was losing their house, and your dad bought it out from under them.”
My stomach lurched. “No. No, that can’t be right. My dad wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—like he was going to kick them out or something?” I scanned the sheet. “This is from three years ago.”
Three years ago, Lynelle promptly dropped out of dance.
Her mom went back to work…
Her dad was gone four nights a week.
“They were losing their house, and my dad bought it. Not out from under them but so they could stay in it.” Tears stung my eyes. That made sense. That was the kind of people my parents were—people you could turn to in time of need.
“So your parents were essentially Lynelle’s family’s landlords.”
“I guess.”
“Which could be a motive for murder.”
I could feel my lip snarl. “What are you talking about? My dad did them a favor.”
“Yeah, a million-dollar favor. And if he were the type to hold it over their heads…”
“He wouldn’t—”
“Or continually remind them that he had done them a favor…”
“My dad was not some kind of gangster or…or land baron or something.”
I could see Nate process that for a second. “Yeah, but if Lynelle’s dad were desperate to erase the debt…”
I thought of the barbecues, the group camping trips, my dad and Lynelle’s dad taking us to Trail Blazers meetings and teaching us to swim. I thought of them having boring conversations about the Dow and delivering piping-hot pizzas to our slumber parties. They were friends. They were buddies.
“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe that. I mean, if Jerry didn’t want my dad to help him out, he could have just gotten a loan from the bank, right?”
Nate laughed, and the sound was ominous and weirdly hollow. “You’re so naïve it’s almost cute.”
“What? Banks give loans. It’s what they do.”
“Banks don’t give loans to people who are bankrupt. Or to people about to lose their houses.”
“Banks help—”
“Themselves, girl. Banks, bankers, the guys in three-piece suits? They help themselves.”
I wasn’t that naïve. I knew banks didn’t hand out money like water, but the Howard family were good, upstanding people. Jerry worked for legal aid, and Delia was a lawyer, then a stay-at-home mom for most of Lynelle’s life. They had three kids. A minivan. They even had the shaggy dog.
And they were losing their house.
I wanted to already have known that. I wanted to feel like I knew anything, like I had any grasp on my previous life at all, but with every page turned, with every minute that passed, I felt more and more like I had slept through life, as silly and naïve and “poor little rich girl” as Nate thought I was.
“I don’t know anything about anything anymore.” A sob tore from my chest, and Nate did his usual awkward pat on my knee, had that humoring expression I had grown to hate. “If I don’t even know what my parents were into or, hell, what the neighbors are into, how can I even begin to know who did this?”
“Well, we actually have a pretty viable suspect now.”
“Jerry? I can’t believe Jerry would—” I shook my head.
The eyes. The dark eyebrows.
The voice.
It was Jerry in the window.
Thirty
Bile itched at the back of my throat.
“What is it?”
“The voice—the man at the house. It was Jerry. It was Lynelle’s dad. What the hell was he doing there?”
Nate picked up the sheath of papers. “Maybe he was trying to get rid of some evidence.”
I couldn’t believe that. I didn’t want to believe it. But why was he at our house? Why did he have a key? Why was he looking specifically through my dad’s office window?
“No,” I said with something like certainty. “Jerry is not a murderer. He couldn’t—he’s shorter than my dad! He’s barely bigger than I am!”
And where would he have taken Josh?
�
��Statistically, people kill for three main reasons.”
“Statistically? Who are you? What is happening here?” I could hear the hysteria growing in my voice, but I didn’t care.
Nate waited for me to catch my breath before holding up three fingers. He folded each one down as he spoke. “Love or lust, loathing, and loot.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Again, Nate’s voice had that soft, humoring ring to it, and I wanted to strangle him while absorbing every weird word he was saying.
“It means that despite all the serial killer shit you see on TV, the average person kills for love or because they seriously hate someone or for money. Simple as that.”
“What about revenge?” I asked, my teeth gritted.
Nate kept talking. “So this Jerry guy has a built-in motive.”
“He didn’t hate my parents.”
“Maybe not, but he owed your parents a shit ton of money. If he wanted to get rid of that debt, he had to get rid of the debt collector.”
I considered that for a half second before shaking my head. “I’ve never even heard Jerry raise his voice.”
“And Lynelle was always going to be there for you. But her parents said she was supposed to call the police if you tried to get in contact with her.”
I half shrugged, still stung. “They were just trying to protect Lynelle.”
“From you, a teenaged girl whose father has just been murdered and mother attacked and left for dead? You, a teenage girl who could have known their deep, dark secret.”
“Delia is scarier than Jerry.”
Now it was Nate’s turn to shrug. “She could have done it. Statistically, males are—”
“Shut up with your statistics! This doesn’t make sense! Nothing about it makes sense.”
Nate began to gather up all the papers and shove them back into Dad’s briefcase. “Then we’re back to square one, and it’s either a lady no one knows who visited your mom at the hospital, Cal the Ken doll, or—”
All the breath left my body. “Me.” I was quiet for a long time before I made a decision. “It’s time to go to the police.” Nate opened his mouth to protest, I was certain, but I held up a hand. “Save it. I won’t mention you or this exceptional establishment. But if I deliver this”—I pointed to the briefcase—“to the police and tell them about the break-in here—”
“Was that Jerry?”
I frowned. “No. I got a good look at that guy, and it wasn’t Jerry.”
“Do you think Jerry has goons?”
I rolled my eyes and continued talking. “Jerry doesn’t have goons! If I bring the briefcase and these papers and maybe not mention the break-in at the motel but definitely Jerry being at my house, they’ll have to investigate, right? I mean, that’s a lot of information that can’t be ignored, right?”
“They’re still going to go after you, Andi. We have to get harder evidence.”
I flopped backward onto the bed. “How is nothing good enough? Someone tried to attack me in my room. Shit, someone kidnapped me and dumped me in a motel! Jerry owed my dad a ton of money and broke into our house—he basically broke in, Nate—”
“He had a key.”
I could feel my nostrils flare, the rage surging through me. I was sobbing now, the big, racking, ugly cries that I was starting to get used to. “This whole thing—this whole world is fucking twisted. I can’t go anywhere. I’m a criminal, and I haven’t even done anything. I’m going to have to live like this forever, aren’t I? In random motel rooms, drinking horrible orange Crush and just—just—” I huffed and hiccuped. “This is going to be my life now, and the worst thing about it is that I have to live it without Josh.”
The numbness started at the top of my head and dripped down like ice water. I felt pitiful. It started small, but then it was like every cell inside me broke open, the knowledge that I had just come from my home where my father was murdered and my mother was left for dead crushing me, making every inch of my body ache.
I felt Nate pat my back awkwardly. “Hey…uh. There, there.”
I cried harder.
My mother was barely hanging on, my father was dead, my brother was missing, and I was a fugitive who had just broken into my house with a guy who told me “There, there.”
That flicker of rage came back.
“We’re going to find out who did this. We’re going to find Josh, and we’re going to clear my name even if it kills me. I’ll rip Jerry limb from limb until he confesses.” I stood up and started power pacing across the motel room.
Nate scooched to the end of the bed and grabbed my arm. “Andi,” he started. I pulled back, and he dropped my arm, his fingertips lingering. “Don’t get me wrong, but do you suddenly have an idea?”
“Something like that.”
“But not that.”
“Rage, Nate. I have rage. Someone—” I couldn’t bear to say the words. “Someone did this to my family, and for whatever reason, they let me live. Or wanted me to live—”
“Did they?” Nate stood up, started to pace behind me.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Maybe you were supposed to be killed too.” He shrugged. “Maybe you were even the target.”
“Wait, what?”
“It’s just a thought. I mean, maybe someone went to your house looking for you, and they couldn’t find you, so…” His eyes darted around, and I thought I was going to be sick.
“So this is my fault?”
“I’m not saying that…exactly. Just…were you involved in something you shouldn’t be, maybe?”
I blinked. “None of that. I. Am. Boring. Was happily so. We were a freaking sitcom family, Nate!”
I was getting frustrated, and when I was frustrated, I started to cry. That was the last thing I wanted, the last thing I could handle, because if I started to cry again now, I knew I would never stop, not ever. Every bad thing, every inch of my parents’ terror and disbelief and Josh—my God, Josh—everything inside me would break into a thousand pieces, and no one would be able to put me back together again.
Because the pieces wouldn’t fit.
It was a tiny, raspy voice on the periphery of my mind, whispering.
The pieces wouldn’t fit because you don’t fit.
Josh had our dad’s super dark eyebrows that made the both of them look thoughtful and deep even when they were sitting on the couch howling at a SpongeBob episode they had seen a thousand times. Josh also had our mother’s pale, unblemished skin and ski-jump nose that burned a fierce red anytime they were in the sun for more than an hour. I found myself rubbing my arms, pulling the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my hands, trying to cover my deep olive skin.
You were never part of them. They didn’t even adopt you.
“No,” I said, my lips barely moving as I gritted my teeth. “I was their daughter. I am their daughter.”
I could feel my nostrils flare, could feel Nate’s eyes studying me.
“I am their daughter,” I said again, more defiantly.
Nate took a step back, went palms up. “Oh, hey, I wasn’t saying anything, just that—”
“Just that you believe what everyone else does. That I wasn’t their daughter, so I couldn’t be like them. I couldn’t be exactly like them, but I was. I am. I’m not like my birth parents—not that I really know squat about them. Maybe dear old dad is serving life in prison. Maybe my birth mom is dead, maybe she’s not, right? But my mom and I drank lattes and loved marathoning cake-decorating shows on Netflix. My dad and I spent hours in the garage and sent each other snippets of Car Talk podcasts and cat memes. We had a normal family life.”
“I’m not saying you didn’t.” Nate looked around his room, and I felt sorry for him, sorry for his life that was cobbled together from an impersonal motel room. “It sounded like you had a pre
tty nice life—a pretty nice family.”
I nodded, unwilling to let the tears that clouded my vision fall. Then something dark and hard settled in my gut. “I’m just not sure if I can do this anymore, Nate.”
He nodded, silent but solemn, and I walked to the window, pushing aside the oatmeal-colored curtain. The parking lot outside was sparsely filled, the occasional car coming in or going out, headlights cutting into the room.
“I can’t live here with you,” I said without turning around, “but I can’t see any way out. Maybe I’m better off turning myself in.”
We sat in silence for a long time, then silently took turns in the bathroom and quietly got into our separate beds, and Nate clicked out the lights. I lay there, eyes wide in the darkness, until I heard Nate’s breath fall into the soft rhythm that let me know he was asleep, then I clicked the bolted-down remote and turned the volume down way low. There was an episode of I Love Lucy playing, one I had seen with my mom a thousand years ago, and I dozed off, waking up only when the screen exploded in color and the sun slit through the curtains. It was morning, and the sun was shining, and I Love Lucy was now the local news, that same coiffed anchorwoman looking concerned. I sat up straight when the camera flashed to my house and to Jerry, shifting his weight from foot to foot while a man in a plaid button-down shirt interviewed him.
I hit the volume button up-up-up until Nate groaned and threw the pillow over his head.
“Nate, it’s Jerry on TV!” I said without ever turning away from the screen.
“I’m here with neighbor and longtime family friend Jerry Howard. Now can you describe what happened last night, sir?”
“Well…”
That voice!
“I drove by the McNulty house—we’re not far down, just there on Larkspur—and saw a light on inside.”
“That’s bullshit,” I hissed. “There weren’t any lights on!”
“So I went around to investigate. That’s when I saw Andrea. She was in her dad’s office. I don’t know what she was doing, but she was in there, maybe going through his files or looking for money?”
I snarled, and Nate sat up.
“First thing I did was call the police.”