Deviant (16 page)

“Something … terrible …” Grahame choked on the words. He blew his nose on a large tartan handkerchief.

Her heart started thumping. “Tell me.”

“Becky.”

Without waiting for more, Abigail jumped out of bed and ran across the hall. The bedroom door was open. Two police officers—one male, one female—were hunched over something next to the bed. Abigail pushed her way in between them.

Her breath caught. That something was Becky: lying on the floor, dried white froth at the corners of her mouth, vomit on
the carpet, eyes open. Abigail’s knees seemed to give out. She crumpled beside her sister. “No. No, no.” She lifted Becky by the shoulders and held her, rocking. The flesh was cold. This made no sense. Becky was fine when she’d last seen her. She’d been typing and drinking and smoking—

“I’m sorry, miss, but you have to stop that,” the female cop interrupted. “You can’t touch anything. I’m sorry.”

Abigail couldn’t let go. Last night she’d wanted to hug her. She should have.
Rewind, rewind
, Abigail thought desperately.
It is last night. Becky’s hugging me back. Her arms are around me and she doesn’t want to get rid of me and she doesn’t want to get me into trouble and she loves me and she’s warm and I’m warm inside and I’m smiling—

“I’m sorry,” the officer repeated.

There would be no rewinding.

Abigail gently lowered the cold body to the ground. She’d seen violence. She’d seen tragedy. Fights, abuse, blood, teeth knocked out, even stabbings. But this was
death
, only the second corpse she’d seen in her life. Two corpses in a week. One, her mother; the other, her sister. Both strangers. Both the opposite of strangers. She kissed Becky’s clammy forehead. It didn’t feel like skin. She didn’t know what it felt like. Reflexively, she wiped her lips.

Jesus
. Her throat tightened. Her eyes began to sting.

“Miss, you really must leave,” said the male police officer.

“Just … one second,” she choked out. “Please.”

Neither officer argued. Perhaps they could see into her brain, perhaps they could see that she regretted not taking more time
with her mother. Perhaps everyone in America had the shining. Whatever the reason, the police-officer couple allowed her to sit over her sister for just a little while, taking in her dark lashes and her perfect little nose, now unfortunately smeared with white powder. Abigail’s blurry eyes roved over Becky’s square shoulders, the high insteps of her feet, her skinny forearms, and slender, toned, tanned legs. She stared and stared, burning every detail into her memory. Lovely, troubled Becky …

“That’s enough now,” the male cop finally said, helping her to her feet.

“I want one last look at her room. I promise not to touch anything.”

She shook free from his grasp. She knew exactly why she wanted to do this: the video they’d shot would not wind up confiscated by the police. She poked her head in the bathroom and then darted into the walk-in closet. There were the boots, tucked behind a pair of trainers. Before he could catch up to her, she dug in the left boot—
not there
—dug in the right, and her fingers clasped around the iPhone.
Thank God for small favors
, she thought. Her throat tightened. She wiped the image of Nieve from her mind and shoved the phone into her bra just as he appeared behind her.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.

“Just looking to see … if she left a note,” Abigail said feebly.

It wasn’t a lie; she really wanted to know. She brushed past him into the room. There were traces of white powder on the desk. Becky had said she’d only smoked pot. Maybe she was too ashamed to admit a more serious drug problem. By the
looks of it, Becky had guzzled almost a liter of very strong margaritas (the blender was empty) and a bottle of red wine (upside down in the bathroom sink); plus she’d smoked two joints (snuffed down into the china saucer-turned-ashtray by the window) … a bag of powerful-smelling marijuana lay open on the bed. Saddest of all, two empty pill bottles lay open next to her right hand.

“No note that we can find,” the female officer said.

As Abigail backed out into the hallway, dizzy with shock, a thought struck her. The room was a mess as far as the booze and drugs went. Yet Becky had tidied up everything related to her other secret pastime. Her stencils and paints and brushes were gone. The paperwork once strewn all over the desks and floor was gone, too. Maybe she’d snuck out in the middle of the night and taken it to that weird house, the “Headquarters” she and Stick rented.

All of a sudden, Abigail noticed that Becky’s computers were gone, too.

Had the police already taken them for some reason? How could someone so chaotic and drug-addled be so organized at the same time? Wouldn’t someone so organized have written a note? What the hell was Becky’s problem, anyway?

Why did you do this, you idiot?
Abigail felt like screaming.

Black dots swam at the corner of her eyes. Her head spun.

At that moment, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist. It was her father.

If he hadn’t caught her, she’d have fallen unconscious to the floor.

Lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, Abigail wondered if she were a phony. The black hole at the center of her belly couldn’t be real.

She hardly knew Becky. She hadn’t warmed to Becky to start with, and probably would have never understood her politics or her Graffiti Tease “art” or her mood swings. Abigail could sort only through the facts, the evidence. All amounted to the same: Abigail Thom ruined everything. Wherever she went, disaster struck. She should never have come to LA.

Three days—three measly little days in her presence—and an innocent eighteen-year-old girl had died. So that initial fear was probably spot-on: Becky must have been overwhelmed by her new sister. Jealous, even. Shoved out of the way at the party, by her father’s speech, the whole circus. Abigail had driven Becky over the edge. Was that why she was hurting?

Her mother’s death hadn’t had much impact. Then again, Mum was a dream; Becky was a promise. The promise of family and of friendship. (For fuck’s sake, for the first time ever,
Abigail had reveled in being called “Abi.”) Now that promise lay motionless on the floor of an LA bedroom. Becky was dead, ugly-dead: froth, powder, booze, pills, vomit. Abigail had learned dead was never pretty, and now she’d learned dead could never promise anything but an end.

Without the painkillers, Becky’s autopsy might read “Death by misadventure.” That’s what the authorities called ODs in Glasgow. More euphemisms, supplied by idiots in charge. Misadventure: such a playful word. Death by Playfulness. Death by Idiotic Horrible Accident, more like. A bottle of pills wasn’t a fun night gone wrong. It was suicide.

Abigail wiped her eyes on the duvet, clutching Becky’s iPhone to her chest.

At least Melanie and Grahame had left her alone. Of course they had. They weren’t Nieve; they weren’t even Arthur at No Life. They didn’t know her, so they couldn’t console her. Nor she, them.

H
OURS PASSED
. A
BIGAIL COULD
hear people talking in the room across the hall. She could hear doors opening and closing, the body being taken away, cars coming and going in the driveway. She covered her head with a pillow, squeezing down on her ears. She did not want to hear.

Don’t come near me
, she willed.
Don’t anyone come anywhere near me
.

But it was self-pity rather than grief. She knew that now.
Weakness
, she thought again and again as the sun turned her shades a fiery orange and disappeared.

Poor, poor Abigail. A happy future: gone. A good life: splat
.

Well, screw weakness. Screw it all. She wondered if she should just get back on the plane, go back to Glasgow. At least there she knew how to deal with unhappiness, having never expected anything else. Here, in this weird wonderland-now-hell, she had no idea how to cope.

T
WO DAYS LATER—AFTER
silent meals, after silent retreats into silent rooms, and after the very occasional silent hug (Abigail counted three with Melanie, two with Grahame: all random)—she sat with her new parents in the backseat of an old-fashioned, shiny-black car. It was like the ones Royals took to do that dumb wave, minus the pageantry.

A long line of similar vehicles followed them. Down they went, through tree-lined streets … past the gated houses, out of the neighborhood, and finally along the beach. The hearse led the way, Becky in charge of this somber parade.

Grahame sobbed occasionally into Melanie’s shoulder. She wiped his tears with her hanky, held him tight.

Abigail had cried however long she’d needed to cry in private. Right now, she held in her tears. She observed. There was no way in hell she’d ever go back to Scotland. Of that she was sure. She wasn’t exactly in robot mode. She wasn’t sure if she could ever return to robot mode again. But she refused to break down.

Besides, she was a pro at death. This was the second funeral she’d attended in a week. Of course, only three people had managed to make her mother’s: four if she included the priest.
Her sister’s funeral was the polar opposite. The church was overflowing with well-dressed mourners, choir singers, violinists, and extravagant floral arrangements.

As Abigail took her seat in the front pew, her eyes zeroed in on the large portrait of Becky. There she was, pictured on a sumptuous, rose-littered table near the coffin. Interesting: that smiling face in the photo was quite a few years younger than the Becky she knew. Long hair. Fresh-faced. No piercings. Grahame had obviously chosen a shot that he approved of.

As for their father, he’d written a eulogy, but only managed a few words before collapsing into a blubbering heap. Mr. Howard walked up to the front of the church and rescued him, taking the sheet of paper and reading out the story of Becky’s life. Amazing, like a true politician, he managed to make the speech sound fact-ridden and insincere. “She
loved art at school, was an excellent swimmer, made an impression on everyone she met
 …” If Becky could hear, wherever she was, she’d be rolling her eyes and exhaling big puff of pot smoke.

As for Melanie, who knew what was going on under that black hat? Maybe Melanie was a bit glad. She was so very still in her tight black dress, meticulous makeup, and perfect hairdo. Maybe she worried that the slightest movement would betray the truth:
I am free
. The difficult teenage stepdaughter was gone; replaced by a pliable new one, grateful to have been saved.

Abigail began to feel sick. She snuck a quick scan of the congregation, hoping to spot Stick. She wondered which costume he’d choose to wear, graffiti artist or posh ass. He was the only
person she wanted to talk to, the only person whose shoulder she would have welcomed.

He wasn’t there.

The last time Becky had seen him, she’d called him “sweetie.”

Not so sweet after all
, Abigail thought numbly. Maybe that was for the best.

T
HE CEMETERY WAS PERCHED
on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A very expensive plot, by the looks of it, with room for the rest of them when it was their turn.

How tidy!
Abigail thought as the coffin was lowered into its hole.
This is how it all ends. I will be buried in a place I don’t know with a bunch of people I don’t know
.

At the graveside, a girl Abigail’s age read a pretentious poem. (The girl hadn’t been at Abigail’s homecoming party.) Another stranger sang a tear-jerking ballad. Abigail had only known Becky for a few days, but she knew Becky would have howled in protest at this charade. She found herself thinking of Nieve’s funeral. She knew nothing about it, but she was at least certain it had been
real
. She knew it had been down-to-earth, honest, appropriate. It hadn’t made Nieve out to be a saint, hadn’t overly celebrated some random part of her life. (Swimming competition? Really?) It had been the kind of funeral that would have been perfect for Becky.

Oh, how tasteful the hors d’oeuvres at the reception afterward!

How plentiful the excellent wine!

How sad, sad, sad all the strangers!

That wasn’t entirely fair. Grahame’s suffering was real. He sat quietly at the bar, drink in hand. Mr. Howard and Melanie took turns to comfort him. Abigail felt too awkward to make her own move. Besides, what could she say? A hug might prompt some outburst, and she didn’t want to start crying, not here. So she kept her distance. But mostly she was afraid. She was afraid of what he
really
thought, what everyone really thought.

Three days after Abigail had snatched a spot in this family, Becky had snuffed herself out.

Whenever Abigail caught someone’s eye, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were rendering judgment.
You’re no better than a murderer
.

Enough. Time to leave. She strode out the door, down the driveway to a steep rocky path that led to the shoreline, and past boats moored in front of an exclusive yacht club. Soon, she was onto the beach. Kicking off the heels Melanie had bought, she walked barefoot in the hot sand for a long while—further and further away, as far as possible from that tragic farce of a funeral reception.
For Becky!
Exhausted, she sank cross-legged in the shade of a secluded dune. No use caring about ruining her new dress; she’d never wear it again. She wiped the sweat from her brow and touched the chain and key around her neck, the one Nieve had given her. It was a small, insignificant object, like her mother’s photo. Like Becky’s iPhone. Artifacts of the dead.