Blind Rage (45 page)

“No-o. But—”

“But nothing. There’s your answer.”

She wanted to scream at him, but she knew that the only way she would get through to him was to be calm, rational.

“Hear me out,” she said.

She told him about what had happened when Marcus killed Kenny, that Kenny had seemed confused about what Marcus was accusing him of doing. And she told him about recognizing Marcus’s cologne at Helen’s. When she finished, Travis was silent for a long time.

“That’s all you have?” he said finally. “A scent?”

“I’m never wrong about smells,” she said. “Ask Yoshi.”

“But isn’t it possible that more than one man in the world wears a cologne or uses soap that smells like coconut?”

She knew she wasn’t wrong, but Travis had a point. And she didn’t know how to convince him.

“Yes, it’s possible,” she said. “But will you promise me that you’ll think about it? Just keep an eye on him, please. For me.”

He sighed. “Okay. For you.”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She settled farther into her seat and let some of the tension drain from her body. None of her friends would believe the day she’d gone through, even if she could tell them.

“Do you think we’ll ever find out who sent me those e-mails?” she said.

He hesitated. “I couldn’t say.” After a moment he said, “You still think your dad sent them?”

“I don’t know. I guess not.”

“Why’d you do it, Tess? Why did you find those files and upload them?”

She thought about it long and hard and finally came to the awful truth. “I felt guilty,” she blurted.

“Guilty? About what?”

She bit back the tears, but they came anyway. “I killed them, Uncle Travis. I killed Mom and Dad.”

She told him everything. It poured out of her, about how she’d thrown a hissy fit when her parents had told her she couldn’t go to the prom with Toby, how she’d argued with her dad about the music in the Range Rover on the way home, how she’d reached up between the seats to grab his iPod, distracting him just as the mountain descended on them. When she finished, the car filled with silence so thick it threatened to pop the windows out.

“You didn’t kill them, Tess,” Travis said quietly. “I did.”

Stunned, she found she couldn’t move. She must not have heard him right.

He couldn’t have meant 
. . . 

“I didn’t protect them,” he said quickly. “I didn’t do my job. But I promise you, Tess, I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”

She wondered if it was true, wondered who she could trust. Gentle snoring sounds from the backseat intruded on her thoughts.

Oliver
.

Despite herself, Tess managed a small smile.

Authors don’t write in a vacuum. Many of our ideas, plot twists and character quirks come from everyday life, from observing those around us, or by simply going about our day. A book like this one requires a lot of research—asking questions and looking things up. I know in the course of writing it that I absorbed a lot of information from friends, family, and experts. You know who you are.

I’m indebted to Graeme Base, author of
The Eleventh Hour
, for inspiring the way in which Tess solves clues left by her absent father, and for the bond his marvelous books have created between parents and their children.

I’ve tried to get all the details right. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone. But since this is a work of fiction, a lot of them are products of my imagination. I leave you to figure out which is which.

Photo: Valarie Kaye-Sherer

Michael W. Sherer is the author of four books in the Seattle-based Blake Sanders series, including
Night Strike
and
Night Blind
, which was nominated for an ITW Thriller Award in 2013. His other books include the award-winning Emerson Ward mystery series, the stand-alone suspense novel,
Island Life
, and the Tess Barrett new/young adult thriller series. He and his family reside in the Seattle area.

Please visit him at
www.michaelwsherer.com
or follow him on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/thrillerauthor
or on Twitter
@MysteryNovelist.