Thicker Than Water Read online

  “I can help you,” says Stan.

  “You don’t want to help me.”

  He acts like I didn’t respond. “It might take me an hour,” he says. “You need to sit tight.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t even look at him. Stan feels like the enemy now. I don’t trust him.

  “No more shouting at the window,” he says, his voice very quiet. “Get me? Not another word at all.”

  He sits there for so long that I know he’s not going to move until I respond.

  I look at him. “Fine. Whatever.”

  Then he’s gone, and I’m left alone with my thoughts.

  It doesn’t take an hour.

  It takes three.

  By the time he comes back, I’m irritated and starving and sitting on the floor of the tiny room, leaning into the corner. The lights have given me a migraine. My shoulders ache, and my wrists are sore from being held together for so long. I can barely feel my legs.

  “We’re out of here,” Stan says. He throws a windbreaker on the table. “Get up. Let’s go.”

  I blink up at him. “What?”

  “I’ll take the cuffs off. Come on. You’ve got to be hungry. I am.”

  “Wait. They’re letting me leave?”

  “Yes.” He sounds irritated about it. “Move it before they change their minds.”

  I move it.

  He leaves the handcuffs on the table, then holds up the windbreaker. “Put this on.”

  I take it from him. It says POLICE across the back in bright yellow letters. “Why? Is it still raining?”

  He looks aggrieved. “Just put it on. We’ve got to run the gauntlet.”

  I have no idea what that means, but lack of food doesn’t leave my brain too sharp. I slide my arms into the sleeves, and Stan takes my arm as if to escort me.

  “I can walk, Stan.”

  “Put the hood up. I want to make sure you keep walking. Don’t talk to anyone. Just walk, straight to the car. Ready?”

  Every cop in this place probably knows who I am. “What’s with the big—?”

  “Don’t talk. Walk.” He jerks the hood up. The entire jacket is too big for me, and the hood hangs over my face a bit.

  I feel a little giddy. Maybe I’ve fallen asleep and this is all a dream. “You’re not, like, breaking me out of here, are you?” I whisper.

  He gives me a withering look. “Walk, kid.”

  The police station is busier than it was earlier, but no one really pays attention to us. The hood of the windbreaker cuts down my vision, making me feel like a horse with blinders on. I keep trying to peek around.

  “It’s change of shift,” Stan says, his voice low. “Just keep walking.”

  “You’re not—”

  “Shh! Not a word.”

  His voice is so tense that I wonder if he really is breaking me out of here. I clamp my mouth shut and walk.

  Before I know it, we’re through the first set of double doors, and we’re in the little vestibule before pushing through the heavy fire doors into the outside air. Pamphlets about spousal abuse and drug rehabilitation line the walls. There’s a flyer for a family day at the local fire department. The small area is blessedly silent and free of people.

  I breathe a sigh. “That wasn’t worth all the drama. No one even looked at us.”

  “It’s not cops I’m worried about,” he says. “You’re allowed to leave. I’ll give you the details when we get home.”

  “Then what’s with the cloak and dagger?”

  “This.” He pushes the door open, and my world explodes with light and noise.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHARLOTTE

  I’m on house arrest. I’d prefer a jail cell. Or even the hospital, for god’s sake. At least there they wouldn’t be checking on me every fifteen minutes.

  My mother actually sent me to bed. It’s not even seven o’clock at night, and I’m stuck in my room. You’d think I was twelve years old and got caught sneaking out with the local bad boy.

  The thought sticks in my head. Aside from the whole insulin shock, that’s a pretty solid description of what happened.

  No. It’s not. We weren’t sneaking. We weren’t hiding. We aren’t romantically involved.

  I was walking beside him pretty closely. I can still smell him, some faint mix of sandalwood and sage. When he took his jacket off, he was more built than I expected. The suit hid some real muscle.

  You’re brave, then.

  His voice was rough and bitter, but there’d been grudging respect under his tone. Remembering it throws a blush on my cheeks.

  I was blushing in the hospital, too, and I couldn’t get my cheeks to knock it off. Matt wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. His voice could have cut ice. “We’re trying to convict this kid of murder, and you were out swooning all over him.”

  I was not swooning. I was falling. Distinct difference.

  I was ready to fire back at Matt, but then Ben said, “We thought you were dead, Char.” He swallowed. “When he carried you out of the woods—we thought he was carrying a body.”

  The fear in his tone stole the fight from me.

  I pace the floor again, wrestling with boredom and agitation. My insulin levels are fine, now. I don’t need to be in bed at seven o’clock. Like a toddler.

  They can’t honestly think I’m sleeping up here, but there’s nothing else to do. My mother never let me have a television in my room, saying it creates distance in the family. Danny has a television in his room, and when I bring it up, she says, “Danny is an adult, earning a living. He bought that with his own money.” Then I ask if I can buy a television with my own money, and I get a glare. I should tell her he watches porn on it.

  Yes. That’s exactly what I should do.

  My cell phone chimes, and I leap on it. I’d sell a kidney for a smartphone, because at least then I’d have Internet access and some way to entertain myself. A text message is almost as good.

  It’s Nicole. My best friend.

  About time, since I’ve sent her twenty texts without a response. I told her everything that happened, but I haven’t heard anything back. I knew I just had to wait until the dinner hour was past—her parents don’t allow any “techno-gadgets” at the table.

  NK: Still in the clink?

  My fingers fly across the keys.

  CR: This is brutal. At least it’s giving me time to plot an escape plan.

  NK: Does the funeral fiasco have anything to do with why you’re on the local news?

  What? I’m on the news?

  I look around my room like a television has somehow appeared on the corner of my dresser.

  My phone vibrates in my hand. Nicole is calling.

  I have no idea if my parents will come up here and confiscate it if they hear me on the line, so I answer as quietly as I can.

  “Hello?” I whisper.

  Nicole’s voice is low and ironic. “Oh, sweetie, I told you to take that picture off Facebook. Now your boobs are all over the news.”

  “What picture? What’s going on?”

  “The picture from the lake. The one where you’re in that purple tankini and a life jacket. You need to turn on the television.”

  What? I know the picture she’s talking about. It’s from last summer, and I’m half sunburned. Why is it on the news?

  “Are you watching yet?” Nicole says.

  “I don’t have a television in here!” I hiss.

  “I don’t care. Find one. Climb out your window and watch your neighbor’s.”

  I open my bedroom door and peek out. The hallway is hushed. Danny’s door is closed, but that could mean anything. If it was open, I might have tried to sneak in there to watch, but closed . . . I mean, he really could be watching porn.

  I hear running water and dishes clinking downstairs. Mom must be cleaning up from dinner. My father always watches television after dinner, so I’m sure it’s on, but he usually avoids the news. Thank god.

  OMG. If my grandmother sees me
in a bikini on television. . .

  Nicole is still feeding me the play-by-play. “Now they’re showing some guy being dragged out of the police station. What a fox. Is this the guy you texted me about?”

  My brain decides to kick into gear. Is there a story about me and Thomas on the news? I need to find a television.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “What’s going on now?”

  “He’s being dragged across a parking lot. They’re saying his name is Thomas Bellweather. Do you think they’re taking him to prison? Maybe you could offer him a conjugal visit.”

  Only Nicole would think about sex with an accused killer at a time like this. “I can’t even leave my bedroom. Pretty sure he’s going to be sleeping alone.”

  “That’s all that’s stopping you? Being grounded? You mean you’d offer him a conjugal visit if you weren’t in trouble?”

  Heat hits my cheeks before I can stop it. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers.”

  Then I stop. What is wrong with me?

  I ease my door closed and go back into my room again. “What’s happening now?”

  “He’s being shoved into a car. It’s a circus. Are you sure something else didn’t happen at that funeral?”

  My text version wasn’t too specific, but I can’t imagine anything about our interaction in the woods that would have generated a media circus. “Is it a police car?”

  “No. Just a sedan.”

  That doesn’t mean it’s not a police car. If I could see it, I could tell. I wonder if he’s being moved to a more secure facility. “Is he in handcuffs?”

  “No. Doesn’t look like it. Is he a cop? He’s wearing a POLICE windbreaker.”

  “No. He’s not. Who’s with him? Do you recognize them?” We’ve been friends long enough that she knows most of my brothers’ friends and some of their colleagues.

  “No,” Nicole says. “Whoever it is, he’s not in uniform. Older. Forties, maybe. His lawyer?”

  If Thomas isn’t in handcuffs, that probably means he’s not being held. He got out. I thought for sure my dad would have him on death row by Saturday.

  Okay, not really. But I didn’t think Thomas would be walking around town anytime soon.

  “He’s free,” I whisper.

  “He’s being chased by news vans. Not sure that counts as ‘free.’” She stops abruptly, and the line goes silent.

  “Nicole?”

  Nothing.

  “Nic? What’s happ—?”

  “Shh!”

  I shh.

  “Sorry,” she finally says. “I wanted to listen. Apparently he’s not being charged at this time. Oh, and he’s filing a harassment complaint.”

  “Shut. Up.” Danny is going to give birth to a large, mooing cow when he hears about this. Right in the middle of our living room. Matt will probably be doing the same thing across town. I can see it coming.

  “The police have declined to give a statement,” Nicole says.

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, look, your picture again. At least you’re fully clothed in this one.”

  I still don’t understand why I’m featured in Thomas’s story. “What are they saying?”

  “They’re totally lifting all of these from the Internet. I don’t know why they even bother crediting Facebook, like Mark Zuckerberg took the photo himself—”

  “Nicole! Oh my god! What are they saying?!”

  “Oh. That he . . .” She falls silent.

  She. Is. Killing. Me.

  “What?” I demand.

  Her voice is less animated. “That he lured you to a secluded area and attacked you.” She hesitates. “You didn’t tell me that, Char. I didn’t know he hurt you. I didn’t mean to make a joke about a conjugal visit.”

  Nicole is crazy, but she has the biggest heart of anyone I know. She’s probably realigning all her thoughts so nothing involves sex in a prison cell and is now envisioning stroking my hand while I weep into a pillow.

  “No. Nicole. That didn’t happen. I didn’t eat lunch. It was hot, and I didn’t pay attention to the signs. My sugar got too low, and I collapsed.”

  She doesn’t say anything. The line is silent.

  “Really,” I insist. “There was no assault.”

  “They said he lured you.”

  Breath leaves my mouth in a heavy sigh. “I’ll explain.” And I do. It takes a minute or five.

  When I’m done, I can tell she’s imagining conjugal visits again.

  “He cried?” she says softly. “He must be so sensitive.”

  “No. That’s not the right word for him. And he was trying not to cry.”

  “What is the right word?”

  I don’t say anything. How to describe Thomas?

  I think of his fist wrapped around the rock, propelling it across the creek to crack into a tree. The indignant fury in his voice when he talked about Danny.

  I lick my lips. “He’s different.”

  “In a good way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yet,” she says.

  My mother would kill me if she could hear this conversation. Thank god we’re not on the house phone.

  But I agree with Nicole.

  “Yet,” I whisper. “I don’t know yet.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THOMAS

  Stan is a pretty good cook. Better than Mom, though I feel a little traitorous to say that. When he’s home, he always cooks. Tonight, we’re eating this baked chicken casserole with saffron rice. I don’t even know what saffron is, but it’s fantastic. It took him less than an hour from the time we got home to have dinner on the table.

  Where Mom had him beat, however, was in conversation.

  He’s cleared his throat twice now, and each time it sounds like a shovelful of gravel is trapped in there. He’s barely said more than a handful of sentences since we got through the press mob and into his house.

  One of those sentences was, “Why don’t you take some time to get yourself together?” So I took the opportunity to ball up the suit on the floor of my closet and take a shower. Now I’m in jeans and a T-shirt.

  What’s really sad is that this moment—eating chicken, sitting in silence, and wearing my own clothes—is the absolute high point of my day.

  We weren’t sitting in silence at first. The phone kept ringing, and Stan kept picking up the receiver only to set it back down. He peeked out the window and said three news trucks had followed us from the police station. Eventually, he just unplugged the phone.

  He didn’t yank the cord out of the wall or anything like that. Stan’s not a “big reaction” kind of guy. Even since Mom died, there haven’t been any wracking sobs, no anger, no fury. He’s held it together. A little stricken, maybe, but more or less composed. He’s a quiet man, and her death didn’t do anything to change that.

  He’s staring at his plate, eating his baked chicken methodically.

  For the first time, I sit and watch him.

  This is going to sound crazy, but until this moment, I hadn’t given too much thought to who killed my mother. I’ve been so fixated on telling people that I didn’t do it that I haven’t had a spare moment to wonder who did. Actually—that’s not true. I’ve thought about it, but without close examination. I’ve assumed some random criminal broke in. Some caricature of a bad guy, someone with a knit cap, a blindfold, and a five o’clock shadow. Some sleazy freak from an episode of Dateline crossed with last week’s guest star on Law and Order. Maybe a rapist who killed her when she fought back. Maybe a thief who killed her when she discovered him. Her wedding and engagement rings were gone, so either would fit.

  In all cases¸ a stranger. Not someone who knew her.

  Now I think about it. I try to remember if anyone questioned Stan.

  He must feel me looking at him. “What’s on your mind, Tom?”

  “I was wondering what you were doing that night.”

  He knows what night I’m talking about, and he doesn
’t pretend not to. “I was on Patrick Street. Staking out a drug dealer.”

  He might be quiet, but he’s intense. It’s hard to hold his eyes, so I push chicken around my plate. “Were you with anyone?”

  “You think the cops are investigating the hell out of you, but they’ve left me alone?”

  The profanity lets me know I’ve gotten to him. Otherwise, his voice doesn’t change. “I’m just asking a question, Stan.”

  He holds my gaze, and for a moment I think he’s going to throw me out of here. I don’t really suspect him, so I don’t know what I’m digging for.

  Or maybe I do suspect him. Maybe I’m wondering if I’ve been living under the same roof as a murderer.

  My head is a mess.

  “No,” he says. “No one was with me. But based on reports and check-ins, I was nowhere near here.”

  This is the first time we’ve talked about my mother since she died, and it’s completely the wrong kind of conversation. We’re not really talking about her anyway. We’re barely even talking about the crime. We’re talking around it.

  “Check-ins?” I say. “Like on a radio?”

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  “What, you can’t lie about where you are?”

  He puts his fork down. “Do you really want to do this, Tom?”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re funny.” The way he says it implies there’s nothing really funny at all.

  “Everyone is pointing at me,” I say. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Do you suddenly think I committed this crime?” he says evenly.

  “You’re one of the few people who don’t think I committed this crime. Maybe that means something.”

  He frowns. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  My heart beats so hard it hurts. “Everyone thinks I killed my mother,” I say, keeping my voice even. “You don’t think that, or you wouldn’t be letting me stay here. Maybe there’s a reason you don’t think that.”

  We stare at each other for the longest time. I can hear myself breathing. I can hear him breathing.

  We’re both sharing the same thought. It’s so clear, I swear I could read his mind right now.