This was insane.
She couldn’t go back to the house now after Grayson trashed her bedroom. Whether she liked it or not, her days of living in the duplex and pretending everything was normal were over.
Moving in with Katie suddenly sounded like a good idea, especially if she wouldn’t have to worry about money. Not that she could accept generosity like that, though. The two of them would be fine on their own. Jennifer took a deep breath, then flipped open her phone to call Katie and try to explain what the hell was going on.
She had a missed call. Jennifer expected to see Katie’s name but saw Howard Unger instead. Why was the vice principal calling her on a Sunday? The first call was made at just after four in the morning.
“Howard?”
“Jennifer! You haven’t been answering. Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Where are you? Your home phone says it’s been disconnected.”
“What’s wrong?”
He took a ragged breath. “I need you to brace yourself. I have bad news.”
Not now.
“What? What is it?”
“I don’t know how to… look, I just have to say it. Two of our kids died last night.”
Her stomach froze and tightened up into a ball.
“Who?”
Howard took another ragged breath. “A transfer student named Cole Hauser, and Krystal Summers.”
It took Jennifer a moment to realize that Howard’s voice was so small and tinny because her hand went slack, the phone slid out of her grip and landed on the bed.
“Jennifer? Jennifer?”
She gingerly brought the phone to her ear. “What do you mean?”
Silence, and then, “They’re dead, Jenn. I’m sorry.”
“How did you-“
“Calvin called me this morning after they were found.” He meant the chief of police. “Shot. They don’t know who might’ve done it yet. I don’t know what else to say. We’re closed indefinitely. They’re going to hold a news conference in a few hours.”
“Oh,” she said, and hung up.
She tossed the phone on the bed. The pressure built up in her chest, creeping up her neck to pound behind her eyes as she clenched her hands into fists. When she couldn’t hold it back anymore, she wailed and thrashed on the bed, pounding her fists on the mattress.
Jacob stormed into the room. He reached out for her and pulled back, fumbling with his big hands as he tried to figure out what to do with them. Jennifer rocked on the bed and sobbed.
“What happened? Is your sister—“
“Not her,” Jennifer scrubbed her eyes. “Howard was trying to call me. Two of the kids got killed last night.”
“What? Who?”
“Krystal. From my advanced placement class. She—“
“I know who she is. I have her in the morning for calculus. You were close to her.”
“She was close to me. I always pushed her back. She just wanted to be my friend.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Don’t start,” Jennifer snapped. A moment later she muttered, “Sorry, I—“
“Who was the other one?”
“Cole, the transfer student. The one from the fight the other day.”
Jacob froze. “What?”
“The first day. The fight. I guess he worked up the courage to ask her out—“
“What happened to them? Tell me everything he told you.”
Jennifer forced down her breakfast with a hard swallow. “He just said they were shot.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need to find out.”
“Why?”
“I need to know.”
“Why? Tell me why.”
“Think about that morning. What started the fight?”
She leaned on her hand and scrubbed her fingers through her hair, tugging at the bandage. What did he mean?
Then it hit her. When they had the bigger boy restrained against the lockers, Cole yelled at them to open his bag. The backpack full of drugs. The impact swirled in her mind. She swayed a little until she leaned back.
“It was the boy they wanted,” she said. “They killed him. Krystal just happened to be there. Jesus Christ, Jacob. I pushed her to go out with him. This is my fault.”
“It’s
not,”
he said. He sat next to her on the bed. “It is not your fault. There’s no way you could possibly know that would happen.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “What about your chaos theory? If I’d done something different, she wouldn’t have been there.”
He jerked back as if he’d been hit. Jennifer sniffed and rubbed at her nose with her wrist.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s alright. You’re upset.” He stood up. “Elliot came to your house about what, four or five in the afternoon?”
“I guess. Why?”
“I followed him after he left, and—“
“What?” Jennifer said. “Wait, how did you know he was there?”
“I… I put a protection detail on you. Just watching the house to see if anything… what?”
Her jaw dropped. “A protection detail? Are you serious?
You were watching me?”
“Not you. Your house. I followed him after he left. Caught up with him, anyway. I followed him out of town to a biker bar and on the way back I talked to him.”
“Talked to him?”
“Slapped him around a little.”
“Like you did Grayson?”
“No, I just gave him a bloody nose. Then a few hours later Grayson went after you. That was around midnight. Sometime last night those kids were killed.”
“So?”
“There’s a pattern.”
Jennifer shook her head. “There’s no pattern.”
“I just can’t see the whole thing. These facts are related somehow.”
“I need to call her parents,” Jennifer said. “I want some things from my house. Can you take me back?”
“Yes, of course. Let me help you.” He stood and offered his arm.
“I can walk.”
She grit her teeth against the pain, but she did it. Still in her pajamas, she needed a change of clothes. Focusing on keeping her balance while moving kept her from thinking about Krystal. When she got to the steps leading down to the first floor, she stopped and sighed.
“Let me,” he said.
Jennifer nodded. She presumed he’d hold her arm and steady her, but he picked her right up off the floor. Her arm slid around his neck and she said nothing while he carried her down. Gently, he lowered her to the floor and she hobbled to the front door. When they made it to the front porch, he picked her up again, and didn’t put her down until he lowered her into the seat of the Aston Martin.
He drove slowly, easing the car around the sharp curves down the hill to town. When they pulled up to the duplex, it was even more ramshackle than before. The busted out air conditioner was like a black eye. The porch roof sagged, one corner ripped away from the house complete. A pile of rotten shingles had sloughed off the old gray wood, teeming with ants.
Jacob looked up at the damage. “I’ll have this taken care of.”
He came around to scoop her out of the seat, and then lowered her in front of the door. She reached for her keys, but the door was broken open anyway. She limped through the door and gasped at what was left of her home.
The house was utterly destroyed. Every piece of furniture was flipped over. White tufts of padding spilled out from deep gouges in the couch fabric. Fallen books from the toppled wire shelves were lying on the floor, trampled and destroyed. Her crafting bench was upended and someone even tore apart some of the paper cranes. Franklin’s picture was crumpled on the floor. Someone stomped on the frame and picture both.
“Why?” she said.
Jacob took her by the shoulders and attempted to steer her away. She shook out of his grasp and then she saw what he was trying to hide from her. After they flipped over her kitchen table and busted off the legs and tipped the fridge, someone spray-painted “WHORE” on the wall in reflective yellow road paint.
A timid voice called her name.
Mrs. Carmody stood on the front porch in her dressing gown and peered into Jennifer’s part of the house. Jennifer limped to her. Jacob drifted off and pulled out a phone.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I called the police, but they told me they was busy and they couldn’t come out until the morning.”
Shock froze her thoughts from forming. “It’s… I don’t know.”
“I saw him,” Mrs. Carmody said. “I saw that Grayson boy. I’ll—“
“No,” Jennifer cut her off. “Don’t say anything to anybody. It won’t help.”
“There were two of them. One of them was Elliot, don’t I know it. The other was tall and skinny. Both of ‘em had masks on, I couldn’t see their faces. They came in around four thirty and started ripping the place up.”
Jennifer sighed and rubbed her arms. She felt a twang in her leg and shifted her weight off of it.
Wait.
“What time did you say?”
“Four thirty. It was right after the news channel put on that show about gold they run every morning.”
Jacob handed Mrs. Carmody a card. She took it in her wizened hand and held it at arms length.
“Wilmore Group? What’s that?”
“I’ve made arrangements for some repairs and cleanup to the house. My men will come this afternoon to gather Jennifer’s things. They’ll speak to you first, before they go inside. Don’t bother with the police.”
“Are you in the CIA or something?”
Jacob shook his head. “No. They’d make me cut my hair.”
He picked Jennifer up off the porch and she put her arm around his neck. Mrs. Carmody watched, open-mouthed, as he brought her to the car and lowered her into the seat. Jennifer stared at Mrs. Carmody through the windshield even though the afternoon sun hurt her eyes. Jacob dropped in next to her.
“Okay,” she sighed. “I see a pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“Elliot was here in the afternoon. He left here, went to this biker bar you talked about, and then you lost track of him. Grayson broke into my house at one or two in the morning, right?”
“I arrived at about one fifteen.”
“Sometime after that, the kids get sh-sh-sh… the kids…” she choked up. “Howard gets the call half an hour before my house is trashed. Mrs. Carmody calls them and the say they’re ‘busy.’ There’s something going on here.”
He sighed. “I thought you’d see it.”
“We’ll start with the biker bar.”
“We?” said Jacob. “What we? You’re going to—“
“If we’re going to do this, it’s going to be as partners. I’m not your princess to lock up in a tower. Did you see what they did? It’s never going to stop, no matter where I go. I’m sick of looking over my shoulder every day, and I’m not dragging my sister into it. She’s out and she can stay out.”
“Jennifer—“
“They killed my husband, Jacob. They killed Krystal. I have as much a right to see this through as you do.”
Jacob nodded in silence. In between looking ahead or glancing at the mirrors, he stole short looks at her, keeping his face a mask. She folded her arms as she looked out the window, doing her best not to break down any more. Images of Krystal bubbled into her mind.
My best big sister teacher
.
Jacob let her have her quiet. It was broken when they pulled up to the house and there was a PFPD cruiser sitting in the drive with the lights going. Jacob pulled up next to it and got out. Ellison Carlyle, Grayson’s little brother, leaned on the car.
In this case,
little
brother was a tad misleading. Ellison was over six feet, narrow and lean. Jennifer opened her door but Jacob motioned for her to stay in the car. Ellison stood, and adjusted his hat and mirrored aviators. The safety strap on his holster was unsnapped.
“Jacob Kane, ain’t it?” said Ellison.
“Yes, officer. Is there a problem?”
“Where were you last night?”
“He was with me,” Jennifer loudly insisted.
“All night?” said Ellison.
“Yes,” Jennifer said.
Ellison’s gaze shifted between Jennifer and Jacob. “Doing what?”
Jacob remained calm. “That’s not your business, officer. Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, there’s a problem. My brother’s in the hospital and we got two dead kids. I’m wondering where you were at the time.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your brother, but I don’t know anything about that.”
Jennifer pushed herself up out of the seat, grimacing as she shifted her weight onto the ankle that hurt the least. After closing the car door, she ignored Jacob’s motions to stay back and hobbled over to him. Jacob folded his arms across his chest. Ellison was about the same height, and Jacob didn’t look much bigger, but there was something about him that made Ellison appear mousy by comparison.
“Anything else, officer? You’re on my property.”
“Might be,” Ellison said. “Where you say you were, again?”
Jacob’s jaw clenched. “I was home all night.”
“With me,” Jennifer added.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me,” said Ellison. “Would you? ‘Cause maybe I got somebody that says you ate at the Wham with your sister and this guy wasn’t there. Maybe I got somebody that says he was out on Route 62 in an ’86 Dodge.”
“Do you?” Jacob said.
“You might have those things, but my landlady called you last night to report a break in. What about that?”
“Yeah,” Ellison said. “I sent a cruiser by, we took a look. Animal damage.”
“What?”
“Rogue coyote,” Ellison said. “Getting to be a real problem in this part of the state.”