Beneath Her Skin

by Gregg Olsen

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Under the watchful eye of Annie Garnett and the stony faces of his mother and sister, Teagan Larsen slumped into a chair across from the Port Gamble police chief. The boy who wanted nothing more than to be the man of the house after his dad left suddenly dissolved into tears. If the thirteen-year-old had been on the cusp of adulthood a moment before, all of that was gone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  Mindee was crying too. She’d set all of this in motion, and the outcome had been devastating to everyone involved.

  “Honey, this is my fault,” she said.

  Starla didn’t say a word. She’d seen enough cop shows to know that every utterance she made could be used against her. Starla didn’t intend to go down with the ship. She, more than anyone, had something greater to lose.

  My brother is a loser. My mother, a damned hairstylist. A second-chair stylist at that!

  Chief Garnett patted Teagan on the shoulder, not so much to comfort him but to keep him focused on what he had to say.

  “Teagan,” she said, “I need you to tell me what happened.”

  Teagan looked up with flooded eyes. “It was an accident. I swear it was.”

  “Do we need a lawyer?” Mindee asked. It was the first indication that she knew that whatever it was that had transpired in Katelyn’s room was potentially the subject of a criminal investigation. Apparently, it had slipped her mind that they were sitting in the office of the Port Gamble police chief.

  “Up to you,” Annie said, somewhat coolly. “We can get to the truth either way. Teagan, what do you want to do?”

  “I want to talk,” he said. “I want to tell Mr. and Mrs. Berkley that I’m really, really sorry. That what happened was my fault, but it was an accident.”

  His word choice was interesting: an accident, but his fault.

  Annie waited for Teagan to look up. There seemed to be no guile in the boy’s damp eyes just then. Whatever he was about to disclose was going to be the painful truth.

  Every rotten detail.

  “Then you need to tell us what happened, okay?” Annie asked.

  Mindee spoke up again. Her eyes were puffy from her own tears. Her voice creaked a little with the emotion of the moment. She had so much to answer for right then, but now it was her son’s turn and she was worried.

  “Are you absolutely sure he doesn’t need a lawyer?” she asked.

  “If it was an accident, there’s no need for it,” Annie said.

  Mindee turned to Teagan, who up to that moment had barely looked at his mother or sister. When he did, there was no doubt what he felt about either one of them. He’d been living his life alone in house number 21. Starla was caught up in the wonderland she’d created of her own life, and her mother had dragged Jake Damon into her bed. Everyone was so busy doing whatever it was they’d wanted to do to make themselves happy. Teagan had been left to his own devices.

  He’d always liked Katelyn. A lot.

  Teagan looked at the chief. “I used to think that maybe, you know, if we were both the same age we’d hook up. Be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  Teagan took a gulp of air.

  “When I saw those notes Jake was writing to her—at least I thought it was Jake—it made me so mad. I mean, he already had my mom and then he was going to steal Katelyn away from me too. Forget that.”

  “Steal her away?” Mindee said, now touching her son’s shoulder. “She wasn’t interested in you, Teagan.”

  Teagan shot his mother a frosty look and removed her hand. “Mom, you don’t know anything about me or Katelyn or anyone. Not even your precious Starla.”

  “Don’t drag me into this,” Starla said. Not surprisingly, the first words out of her mouth were meant to preserve her character in a very messy situation.

  “Your pregnancy started the whole thing,” he said.

  Mindee gasped.

  Starla shook her head. “I’m not pregnant.”

  Teagan shrugged; it was a dismissive gesture and it brought a smile to his face. It wasn’t often that Starla squirmed.

  “Maybe you’re not now,” he said. “But you thought you were.”

  Starla looked at her mother before glowering at Teagan.

  “You’d better not be,” Mindee finally said.

  “Oh, shut up, Mom,” Starla said. “I wasn’t pregnant. And I’m not pregnant.”

  Annie steered the conversation away from the mini family feud.

  “What about the pregnancy, Teagan? What did that have to do with anything?” she asked.

  Teagan grinned a little more. In that, the worst moment of his life, he’d found something that brought a smile. “I found that gross pregnancy test kit in the trash. Mom makes me take out the garbage because I’m a boy, and the garbage is too nasty a job for a princess like Starla. Like she ever lifts a finger around the house anyway. And Jake? He never does anything but come over to hook up with my mom, so I guess he’s too beat to do anything.”

  “Don’t talk about Jake like that,” Mindee said.

  “Mom, do you ever hear yourself? You put Jake, Starla, anybody ahead of me,” Teagan said.

  Mindee, heeding some of her own advice, kept her lips zipped.

  Annie pushed a can of soda in front of Teagan and the boy took a sip.

  “That’s interesting, Teagan, but what about the pregnancy test?” Annie asked. “What did Katelyn have to do with it? I thought you said you found it in Starla’s trash.”

  “I did,” Teagan said. “I thought it was funny. I thought if I took it over to Katelyn’s she and I could, I don’t know, get closer because we could share something nasty about Starla. I logged on to the account and read the emails and chats that Jake… I mean, my mom was doing. By the way, Mom, you’re really twisted to do that to her.”

  Mindee’s face turned a deeper shade of red. It was a harsh statement and she’d deserved it.

  “I know,” she said, stumbling over her monosyllables. “I went a little Mama Grizzly that night.”

  She didn’t want to say she was a little drunk on boxed wine when she’d started the emailing. That would make her sound even more pathetic than she was.

  “Go on, Teagan,” Annie prodded.

  Teagan swallowed the rest of his drink and asked for another. His mom would never let him have two cans of pop at home, but this was the police station and she wasn’t in charge.

  “My mom spent all her money for Christmas on Jake and Starla, and I was pissed off.”

  Mindee unzipped her lips. “That’s not true! I got you several wonderful things.”

  Apparently, it was difficult to keep them closed.

  “Do you mind, Mindee?” Annie said, cutting her off once more. “This isn’t about how fair you are to your kids, but I suspect if you were fair in your attention to them none of us would be sitting here right now.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Teagan said, clearly enjoying the focus on his mother’s child-rearing expertise—or lack thereof.

  “What happened next, Teagan?”

  “I pretended to be Cullen Anthony and messaged Katelyn and told her I wanted to come see her. That I promised to come and I had a surprise Christmas present for her.”

  “The pregnancy test kit?” Annie asked.

  “Right. I didn’t tell her that because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. She said her grandparents were going to leave early and I should come over at about nine. She’d leave the window unlocked. She told me how to climb up the trellis, which I already knew, because I had done it before. She didn’t know it. But I did. I guess that makes me sound like a perv, but I never spied on her. I only looked in her window when she was gone. You know, to see what she was reading or whatever so I could be a better boyfriend.”

  “A secret boyfriend,” Annie said.

  “Yeah, secret until I guess she realized that I cared about her.”

  “So you went over there that night…”

  Chapter Forty-Six

>   Teagan Larsen put on his coat, gloves, and stocking cap (which in his mind was spelled stalking cap). He stashed the pregnancy wand inside his pocket, a little grossed out that his sister had actually peed on it, and said goodbye to his mom. Apparently enthralled by Jake, who was poking the log in the fire, she didn’t seem to care that her son was going out in the darkness on Christmas night.

  Teagan told himself repeatedly that Katelyn would revel in the idea that Starla was pregnant, or thought she was, and when he pretended that he was the one who had been messaging her, well, he was sure Katelyn would forgive him. She’d see him as more than the boy next door. She’d see him as a true friend, and maybe, he hoped, as something more.

  The only cars in the alleyway were Harper’s and Sandra’s; the grandparents had come and gone. A dog barked from the woods, and Teagan could hear one of the neighbors from across the road calling a cat.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” the woman’s voice said in a voice that easily carried over the cold Port Gamble night.

  Maybe some coyote found your stupid cat, Teagan thought.

  Teagan was grateful for the gloves as he climbed hand over hand up the trellis, hoping that the ancient wood structure would still support his wiry frame. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but he was afraid of falling, making a lot of noise and looking like an idiot.

  He hoisted himself up and worked his way over to Katelyn’s window, the only one of several on the second floor emitting any light. It was ajar. He pushed it, and in a second, was inside.

  Her room. Katelyn’s beautiful, almost magical room. He’d never been in there before—except in his imagination when he pictured her typing answers to his messages. That was a fantasy. That was a dream. This was all very, very real. It smelled like Katelyn—pretty, light, sweet. Not like his sister’s room, which always smelled like burning incense.

  Her spiritual side, he thought. What a joke!

  Not Katelyn. She was spiritual. Like a lot of people who’d suffered great hurt, she never forgot how that felt. She could understand the pain of others because she’d been there herself. She was a fighter, and everything she had was because she was able to dig herself out of it. Starla thought she was on the rise, but Teagan was sure that it was Katelyn who was the true star.

  And he was in her bedroom. Her wonderful, freaking awesome, amazing bedroom.

  He could hear the water running in the bathroom, and he followed the sound. Each step closer, closer. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to see her naked, but he was positive that must have been something she had wanted.

  Why else would she have let him come over?

  The faucet stopped and the sound of her in the water beckoned.

  Before opening the half-closed door, he drew in a breath. Katelyn smelled of jasmine bath salts and scented candles. It was the scent of a young woman. Not like his sister. Not like his mother.

  A sweet, young woman. A woman who wanted him there. Invited him there.

  He pushed the door open. And just like that, the fantasy was over.

  “Teagan!” a stunned-beyond-measure Katelyn called out. “What are you doing here?”

  She moved her arms to hide her breasts and sank lower into the water, trying desperately to cover herself. Her long dark hair, which had been clipped up out of the water, became unfurled and soaked as she swiveled around.

  Teagan started to shake. “You asked me to come over,” he said. “That last message was from me.”

  Katelyn was angry and embarrassed—and the punk kid next door was frozen in fear.

  “No, I didn’t! Teagan, get out of my bathroom! You little creep!”

  What? Teagan couldn’t quite grasp what Katelyn was saying. It was at odds with how he felt about her—and how he was sure she felt about him.

  “I brought you Starla’s pregnancy test. She thought Cameron knocked her up. We can report her to the school or something.”

  He held out the test wand to prove what he was saying.

  But Katelyn didn’t seem to care.

  “Do you want me to scream?” she asked. “Get out of my bathroom!”

  Teagan became frantic. This wasn’t how he thought it would be.

  “I love you, Katelyn,” he said.

  She turned in the tub, sending some water to the floor.

  “You are seriously f-ed up, Teagan. You need help. I get that. But get the hell out of here!”

  Teagan was embarrassed, confused, ashamed. All of his emotions were in a Magic Bullet and were spinning around and around. He moved forward, closer to the tub. He’d wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wasn’t going to touch her.

  “Get out!” This time she was loud. Not loud enough to wake up the neighborhood, but loud enough to get him into trouble.

  He was going to be in trouble. His sister was going to make fun of him. He was going to get yelled at by his mom. Jake was going to hit him again.

  And yet he stood frozen, unable to move.

  * * *

  “It happened so fast,” Teagan said to Chief Garnett. “It was so, so fast, but at the time, it happened in slow motion. Really.”

  The chief’s office was pin-drop quiet.

  Annie looked over at Mindee and Starla, their grim faces easily betraying their own shame and guilt over what had occurred. A lot of what the boy said was true. In fact, all of it. But what he had to tell them next was the most important part of the story—the part that would keep him out of juvenile detention in Port Orchard… or wouldn’t.

  Teagan had started to tear up some more, which Annie considered a good sign. Whatever happened in that bathroom in the house next door, it had not occurred without a heaping measure of regret and hurt. Teagan might have been a bit desperate and a pervert-in-training to climb up that trellis to Katelyn’s bedroom, but he likely wasn’t as bad as the kid who sets fire to the family dog or the one who trolled the neighborhood for an open window to get a peek at a girl undressing.

  “Okay,” the boy said. “I just stood there a second, not really knowing what to do. I thought she wanted me there. I really did. She was so mad at me.”

  * * *

  Katelyn was completely pissed off. “Get out of here, Teagan!”

  “But, I thought…” Teagan tried to find the words that would turn all of that moment into something better. Something he’d imagined.

  “You thought wrong!”

  Seeing that he wasn’t going, Katelyn fumbled for the towel on the vanity adjacent to the bathtub. Once she got a hold of it, she jerked it toward herself. In that terrible moment, the towel caught the electrical cord on the espresso machine. In a second, but again, seemingly in slow motion, the machine cartwheeled into the bathtub.

  Although she saw it coming, Katelyn didn’t have time to scream.

  In those hideous split seconds, the water hissed and Katelyn jerked in the bath like a fish on a line fighting that brief battle for its life. And then the lights went out.

  “Katie?” Teagan called out.

  No answer.

  “Katie?” he tried again.

  He bent down, embarrassed to get so close to the naked girl next door but needing to know what he could do to help her. Her eyes were open, staring at him in the ultimate staring game, one that he knew for sure he couldn’t win.

  * * *

  “She had soap on her face and in her eyes. I turned on the water and tried to rinse it off, thinking… I don’t know… thinking that maybe she’d be all right. But I kind of knew that she wouldn’t be.”

  “Then what did you do?” Annie asked.

  Teagan looked over at his mother and sister, then back at the police chief. He was shaking then, no longer a grown-up wannabe, but a kid who’d have done anything right then to turn back time for a do-over.

  But with Katelyn Berkley’s death, there was no do-over.

  “I heard her mother calling up the stairs, and I got out of there as fast as I could. I swear I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. I just wanted a girlfriend.”

&nb
sp; “I’m really proud of you, Teagan,” Annie said, meaning every word. “I know that telling me all of this was really hard to do, but you got through it. You did a good job in being truthful. That’s something that’s been in short supply around Port Gamble these days.”

  She looked at Mindee and Starla. It was a long, searing look and the message was easily understood.

  “Teagan’s not going to be arrested, right?” Mindee asked.

  “If his story’s true, not likely,” Annie said. “He’s not, but you might be.”

  Mindee’s jaw dropped. “Me? What did I do?”

  “You and your game,” Annie said with obvious disdain, “lit the fuse here. You might not have meant for any of this to happen, but your online taunting of Katelyn Berkley instigated her death. Plain and simple. It’ll be up to the county prosecutor to decide what kind of blame, if any, to lay at your feet, Mindee.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  For a half hour, the girls whisper-argued through the outlet about the Larsens, their dad’s email from Savannah and whether or not to ask Colton for help. Taylor knew that something serious was up, but she deplored the idea of calling him into the scenario. They could take care of things on their own. They’d done it before. And they could do it again.

  “I never figured you’d ever go damsel-in-distress on me,” she finally said in a little dig that felt good.

  “It isn’t about going to him because he’s a guy,” Hayley said.

  “Your Prince Charming. Ugh! Your boyfriend. Whatever.”

  Hayley tried to let it bounce off. “Look, we can argue about it, but the bottom line is that we need help. He’s got a learner’s permit, and we don’t. Plus his mom’s car is sitting right there. Do you have a better plan? Because we need it now.”

  Taylor didn’t, so Hayley texted Colton.

  EMERGENCY!