Thicker Than Water Page 9

  “No.” I swallow. I might have played a part in his trips to the police station yesterday, but I’m not playing a role in another one today. “You can take me home with you.”

  His eyebrows go up, and I wince at the double entendre. “I mean. Um. You can take me back to Stan’s.”

  “Can you walk at all?”

  I try to put weight on my ankle. It feels like I’m stepping in fire.

  I can’t ask him to carry me. It’s too awkward. I bite back the pain and try to take another step.

  “Don’t be a hero,” he says.

  And then, before I can say another word, I’m in his arms again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THOMAS

  So here’s the irony of this whole situation. I used to think I could read people. Mom always warned me I’d grow up and find myself in messes I couldn’t charm myself out of. She said that’s what happened to my father—which made me hate the comparison. I’ve never been a troublemaker, but I’m pretty good at reading people and figuring out what makes them tick.

  Or at least I used to be. Forgot to study for a test at school? I could tell the teacher I was so busy working because my mom couldn’t afford the electric bill this month, and they’d give me another day. (Even though we always had enough money for the electric bill.) Didn’t have lunch money? I could compliment the heavily made-up cafeteria lady on anything about her appearance, and then feign shock when my wallet turned up empty.

  It wasn’t just school, either. I worked nights at Best Buy, moving stock. If I showed up late, the manager never hassled me. Once I dropped the end of a big screen television, shattering the screen—something I’d seen a guy get fired for. My apology got a smile and a “Don’t worry about it, kid.”

  Here? In this town? I’m a murderer.

  No one trusts me.

  No one will hire me.

  Everyone hates me.

  And Charlotte is afraid of me.

  I wish I could hold her away from my body somehow. Her sundress isn’t skimpy, but it’s not Puritanical either, and my bare arm is under her bare legs, and I’m trying really hard not to think about that too much.

  Stan’s going to flip his frigging lid. I’m glad he’s home, though. He can be a witness to the fact that I’m being a perfect gentleman.

  I think about her warm body in my arms and almost wish he wasn’t home.

  My mother would be smacking me on the back of the head right about now.

  Charlotte clears her throat, and I wonder if she’s found the silence as awkward as I have. “My friend said she saw you on the news last night.”

  I nod. “Yeah. It was great. There was a news van in front of Stan’s house this morning, too, but apparently the mayor was caught with his pants down somewhere, and they went chasing a better story.”

  “There was one in front of my house, too.”

  “What, your brothers didn’t open fire on them?” She looks taken aback, and I sigh. The not-being-shitty thing still needs work. “Sorry.”

  “No. You’re right. I’m not happy with them either.”

  “I’m sure they think they’re being protective.”

  “More than they should be. Part of it is the diabetes, but I also think it goes along with the cop thing. You spend all day trying to keep citizens safe from stupid people, and it leaks into your personal life.”

  “Am I the stupid person in this scenario?”

  She blushes and looks away. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  My grip is starting to slip, and I have to readjust her in my arms. She wasn’t paying attention, and she catches my shoulders. A quick gasp escapes her lips.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “I’m too heavy.”

  “You’re not. It’s just hot and you’re sweating.”

  The words come out like they’re loaded with double-meaning. She’s blushing harder now. She doesn’t have a response to that.

  But she’s not shoving at me to put her down.

  I can’t decide if that’s progress or not. She’s not a potential girlfriend. I might as well just ask Stan to shoot me if that’s what my brain is considering.

  “How much farther?” she asks.

  “Not much.” I’m starting to feel it in my back and shoulders now, and I have to adjust her again. She doesn’t ask me to put her down this time. I grunt. “Had to be the boonies. Mom couldn’t marry some guy who lived in a major metropolis. I almost want to blame her for this.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize what I’ve said, and it’s like someone punched me in the back. All the wind goes out of me. My feet stop, but I have to keep walking or I’m going to drop Charlotte.

  I force my feet to move. My eyes feel hot, and I have to take a long breath to settle my voice. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “I know.”

  I glance at her. “I just meant we wouldn’t have been in the woods.”

  “It’s okay.”

  It’s not okay, but it’s nice of her to say so. She is kind. I’ve only known her for a day, but she’s probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

  Kinder than I deserve, for sure.

  I clear my throat. “A city probably would have made this whole thing more likely.” I grimace. “Not some little town where no one’s ever been killed before.”

  She inhales quickly, but then doesn’t say anything.

  It was a loaded breath, though, like she was going to correct me. My eyes zero in on hers. “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You were going to say something.”

  Her face squinches up like she doesn’t want to answer. “I’d like to plead the fifth.”

  I sigh. “You’re one of two people who will speak to me, and now you’re crossing yourself off the list.”

  “I just—” She hesitates, biting her lip. “It’s not the first murder in this area.”

  “I was kidding. I’m sure someone was probably run over by a Model T back in nineteen-ten . . .”

  “No, two years ago,” she says. “Someone was killed two years ago.”

  She sounds like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Her voice is too hesitant to be referring to some convenience store holdup gone wrong.

  “You make it sound like it’s significant,” I say.

  “I’m not a police officer. I’m sure they’ve considered it.”

  “Can you stop talking around it and just tell me what happened?”

  “A girl was strangled in her bed.”

  I almost drop her. She gasps and holds on.

  She looks up at me, and her eyes are full of something like guilt, like maybe she feels bad for telling me this.

  Or maybe she feels bad for not telling me earlier. I have no idea.

  I don’t know what to say. She’s right—the cops have probably considered a connection. I don’t exactly want to buy any of them a cup of coffee, but I feel fairly sure they’re not completely incompetent.

  “Is that all you know?” I finally ask.

  She hesitates. “Pretty much. I knew the girl. She lived about twenty minutes from here. We took ballet together. But—she was a kid. She had just turned fifteen. Your mom—” Her face twists, and I know she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “It was different.”

  “How different?”

  She pulls away from me a little, and I realize I must sound fierce. I can’t help it.

  “How different?” I repeat, less harshly this time.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know all the details. I heard it was a boyfriend or someone who knew her, but . . . it was never solved.”

  Stan would know. I can’t believe he hasn’t mentioned this to me. I wonder if it’s deliberate. We found some solid ground last night, but maybe it was only solid to me. Maybe he’s still playing everything close to the chest. This unravels my feelings about our entire conversation, especially how easily he deflected my questions about what he was doin
g that night.

  I want to put my fist through a tree trunk.

  Charlotte watches me, but she doesn’t say anything. I can almost feel her pulse pounding through her body, and it’s a touch too fast.

  She’s still afraid of me.

  She’s not asking me to put her down, so I keep walking.

  “Don’t tell me,” I say. “I should start lining up an alibi for that murder, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she says. “I thought—I thought you knew—”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know anything anymore, Charlotte. Not a damn thing.”

  We’ve come to the tree line behind Stan’s house, and before I walk out of the woods, I check the driveway for any sign of a news van. All clear.

  Also absent: Stan’s car.

  “Shit.” I ease her feet to the ground and now I do slam my hand into a tree. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Stan’s gone.”

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “If I had a car, you think I’d be walking through the woods to get to the grocery store?”

  “Shit,” she agrees, and the word doesn’t sound right from her mouth, like profanity is a new thing. Despite everything, that makes me smile. It takes a bite out of my tension.

  “What?” she says.

  “Nothing. What do you want to do?”

  She looks at the house, and then back at the woods. It’s taken us about fifteen minutes to walk here from there, and I can see her doing the math in her head.

  “My mother doesn’t know I was buying the flour at the local store,” she says. “We don’t usually shop there. But she might assume it. She needed me right back. I was hoping Stan could drive me home and I could make up some story about a flat tire and falling in the mud.”

  “You didn’t have a flat tire.”

  She makes a face. “That, too.”

  “I could run back and stab it.” I can’t believe I’m suggesting this. I imagine the headline. Local teen suspected of murder caught vandalizing car.

  Her face lights for a second, but then she sobers. “I think that would generate more questions. And I don’t want anyone to see you.” She heaves a big sigh. “Can we get out of the heat, at least?”

  I hesitate. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to bring her inside. It’s ridiculous, especially when you consider that we’ve been alone in the woods all this time, and theoretically, there’s nothing I could do to her in there that I couldn’t do out here. But still. Taking her behind closed doors feels like a risk.

  Her eyes light with understanding. “You don’t trust me.” “That’s not it.” That’s exactly it.

  “It is. You don’t trust me. You still think this is some kind of setup.”

  “Let’s just say that I’d rather Stan not come home and find us alone together.”

  “We’re alone together right now!”

  I sigh. “We can sit on the porch.”

  I try to avoid being a complete asshole. I help her into one of Stan’s cushioned patio chairs, and bring her a bag of ice and some Advil. Then I go inside to put on a clean shirt. Stan’s air conditioning is a welcome reprieve, and I almost reconsider leaving her outside. The heat out there is oppressive, now that I’m out of it.

  Then I remember her brothers arresting me at gunpoint, and I take my time.

  Just when I’m feeling like an asshole again, I pour us each a glass of iced tea. I return to the porch and sit across the round glass table from her.

  A good safe distance.

  Charlotte has used the paper towel from around the ice bag to wipe her face clean and her hands as well. We sit there awkwardly for a minute. She doesn’t seem afraid of me anymore—but maybe discovering that I don’t trust her has somehow reassured her. Hard to be afraid of someone when you realize they’re a little afraid of you.

  Her eyes glance up after a moment. She gives me a hesitant smile. “My grandmother would have your head for wearing a hat at the table.”

  “I’m sure she’d have my head for a lot more than that.” I pull the hat off, though, then ruffle my hair with my hand. I’ve never had a girl chastise my manners, but maybe she’s right. “Sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean—” She falters. “Now I feel like your moth—”

  She stops. Grimaces. “Sorry.”

  We fall into silence again. I’m still mulling over the revelation about her ballet classmate. Is it significant? I need more details. I just don’t have any idea.

  Then I realize I might still be acting like a jerk. I clear my throat. “Can you drink that? It has sugar in it.”

  She takes a tiny sip. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Do you need something to eat?”

  Her eyes flash with anger. “Don’t you start, too.”

  “Start?”

  “I hate that, you know. I get enough people telling me how to dress, how to act, and especially when to eat. This is my life, okay? You don’t need to protect me.”

  “Protect you? Five minutes ago you were afraid I was going to kill you.”

  Her eyes go wide, and her cheeks flush. “That’s not—it’s not—”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She clamps her mouth shut. We sit there and stare at each other for another minute.

  Finally, I have to say something. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  She looks puzzled for a moment, then pieces it together. “No—she wasn’t—we weren’t friends. Not really. I just knew her.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was one of Ben’s first cases. He’d know more.”

  “Who’s Ben?”

  “My brother. Another one.”

  Oh. I frown. I’m pretty sure Ben won’t want to grab a soda and talk about the case.

  “He’s not like Danny, though,” she rushes on. “He’s my favorite brother. I could ask him.”

  “How exactly are you going to slip that into conversation?”

  My tone is just a bit nasty, but I’m surprised when hers matches. “Maybe I could tell him while we’re planning our next attempt to trap you alone with me.”

  I scowl. She scowls.

  Finally, I say, “Do you want me to get the phone so you can call your mom? Or do you want me to call Stan?”

  She sets her mouth in a line and shakes her head quickly. “Call Stan.”

  I get the cordless phone from the kitchen and call him. He picks up after two rings.

  “Tom?”

  “I need you to come home.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sort of.” I pause. “Charlotte Rooker is here.”

  “I’ll be right back.” He hangs up.

  I stare at the phone.

  “Did he just hang up on you?” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “He didn’t even ask why I was here.” She sounds incredulous.

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t care why you were here.”

  “Are you going to be in trouble?”

  It’s such a foreign concept that I can’t quite wrap my head around it. In trouble? Like, grounded? I’m eighteen. He’s not my father. What is he going to do, send me to bed without my saffron rice? Take away the phone that the cops have already confiscated?

  Stan is so stoic that I have a hard time imagining him doing anything like that. He’ll probably take one look at both of us and tell Charlotte to get in the car. Then he might not mention it again until dinner, when it’ll be an offhand, “So what exactly happened with Charlotte Rooker today?”

  Then again, maybe I’m not thinking clearly. Stan’s car comes flying up the long gravel driveway less than five minutes from when I called, and his police flashers are on. He slams the car door and strides across to the back porch. He takes one look at Charlotte’s torn and muddy dress, and looks like he’s about to call nine-one-one himself.

  His voice, however, is level. “Tell me what happened.”

  I tell him. I start with the grocery store, and I end with the iced t
ea.

  I leave out what Charlotte told me about the other murder. We’ll be talking about that later.

  His eyes turn to Charlotte. “Do you realize what kind of position you’ve put me in? What kind of a position you’ve put Thomas in?”

  She glances between me and him, and her expression is frozen in some combination of contrite and irritated. “I’m sorry.”

  “Leave her alone,” I tell him, even though he’s right. “It was my idea to bring her here.”

  This is the first time I’ve seen him truly mad. “What do you want me to do, Tom? I’m trying to keep you out of jail, and you seem to want to walk right back in.” He pulls his keys out of his pocket. “I’m taking you to the police station, Charlotte. Your father can drive you home.”

  Her face goes white. “No. Just take me back to my car—”

  “No. I’d have him come here if I didn’t think that would cause more problems.” He looks at me. “You stay put. You hear me?”

  “You don’t have to be so hard on her—”

  “This isn’t hard, kid. You have no idea. Charlotte. Walk.”

  She hesitates. Glances at me.

  I sigh. “She can’t.” I realize that maybe I’ve left out another detail. “I had to carry her here.”

  Now his face looks like thunder. “Go in the house, Tom.”

  “She didn’t do anything—”

  “Go in the house!”

  I don’t move. “Why?”

  “Because I’m about to call her father, and I don’t want you around when he gets here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHARLOTTE

  Stan doesn’t tell my father anything more than that I’ve had car trouble, I stumbled in a hole on the side of the road, and I’m sitting on his porch.

  That means the story is going to have to come from me.

  This sucks.

  I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but my father doesn’t roll up Stan’s driveway in a police cruiser.

  My brother Ben does.

  He shakes hands with Stan, then puts his hands on his hips and looks at me with this whole condescending what-are-we-gonna-do-with-you look.

  It’s probably three thousand times kinder than the look my father is going to give me when he sees me, so I don’t glare back. I shift to the edge of the chair. Despite the Advil and the ice, my ankle has blown up like a balloon.