I like him.
He clicks on something on his laptop, then strikes a few keys. “I like you too, kid.”
“Stop it.”
He smiles. “Did you have anything you wanted to do today?”
“Let me check. Nope. Schedule is wide open.”
He looks at me over the computer screen. “Do you want to go get your stuff?”
I set my coffee mug down. “You mean from Stan’s?”
“Yeah.”
I look down into my coffee and wonder how that would go over. I had a key to Stan’s house, but I didn’t have it on me when they arrested me, so I don’t have it with me now. Stan didn’t come see me in jail, and he didn’t answer when I called him. If we showed up at his house, I have no idea how he’d react.
I can practically guarantee he wouldn’t be happy.
I try to imagine what he’d make of JB, and I come up with nothing positive.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I say.
“You don’t have anything you want?”
“Yes. Lots of things.”
“Well. Let’s go.”
I wince. “I don’t think that’s the greatest idea. I don’t want to get into it with Stan.”
“He won’t get into it with you.”
“How do you . . .” JB is smiling thinly. “Oh.” I hesitate. “I’m still not sure how I feel about this whole making-people-do-what-you-want thing.”
“It’s not quite that easy,” he says. “Look at Mark Duplessy. Like I told you before, they don’t exactly jump in my car.”
“And you couldn’t have made him?”
“Nope.” He closes the laptop. “I probably could have gotten him to go for my gun and shoot me with it.” He studies me. “Even without knowing what you are, I’d bet you’ve used this for your own purposes before.”
“No. Never.”
He looks at me sideways. “You’re not even thinking about it.” His eyes narrow, just a bit. “I’d bet you got away with all kinds of things in school.”
I stop with my coffee mug halfway to my mouth. I remember all the teachers who let me coast by with minor infractions. I remember breaking that stupid television at Best Buy, how another guy had gotten fired, but my error had barely been acknowledged.
“Why couldn’t I get myself out of jail?”
“Too afraid, and they weren’t predisposed to let you out.” He leans back in his chair. “Yelling at the judge probably didn’t help your case. If you’d been trying, I bet you could have pulled some sympathy and gotten the whole thing thrown out.”
“Wow,” I whisper. I almost want to go back through the previous day again with this insight.
Almost.
Then reality comes crashing back down. “Charlotte,” I whisper. “She must hate me.”
“Want to go see her too?”
I do. Desperately. I want to see if she’s okay. I want to apologize. “There’s a court order saying I can’t see her. Her brothers would shoot me on sight.”
“That court order means you can’t go near her. Not the other way around.”
“She doesn’t want to see me.”
He half shrugs. “You might be surprised.”
I hate that he’s inspiring my curiosity. Again, I’d kill for a phone. Then again, I’m not allowed to text her either.
Then I remember Nicole.
I look at my brother. “Maybe we could stop by the library. Her best friend works there. I could find out how she is.”
“See? Look at that. Your schedule is filling up already.”
We’re on the highway, beating down the path back to Garretts Mill. I’ve grown more comfortable in his car, in his presence, and for the first time, I don’t feel like anxiety is going to tear me apart.
“Will you tell me about Dad?” I ask him, out of the blue.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. He must have mile high walls, because sometimes it’s very difficult to pull emotions out of his head. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything?”
His eyes flick toward me. “I didn’t live with him once I turned ten or so, and even before that, it was off and on. I grew up with our grandparents. I didn’t see him often.” A pause. “I haven’t seen him since before I enlisted.”
“Why?”
He hesitates. “Remember when I told you that there are people like us who don’t use these abilities for good reasons?” When I nod, he says, “Dad is one of those. He’s very powerful. He can control other empaths. When I was young, I couldn’t fight it. When I grew strong enough to resist, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
Walls or not, he doesn’t like this line of conversation. It practically radiates from him. “Why?”
“Because he’d use me to do things.” His hands are tight on the steering wheel. “Not good things.”
I’m horrified at his choice of words, and I’m sure he can feel that. “Like . . . what?”
“He made me stay with him.” He glances over at me. “When I was young. He made me hate her.” He pauses. “It wasn’t just you, Tommy. She wanted to take me, too. I fought her like hell. Ran away from her and right back to him.”
Our mother. I don’t know what to say. My voice is husky. “I’m sorry.”
“She came back for me. Spent a year with him trying to get to me, but my grandparents—our grandparents—were under his spell, too. They helped him keep me away from her. You would have been four or five.” He pauses. “He eventually let her see me, but he’d make me think she was there to hurt me. I wouldn’t let her get near me.” He hesitates. “I was already so screwed up. I tried to hurt her. He’d taught me well.”
I swallow. “How?”
He glances at me. “I convinced her I was going to kill you. I couldn’t help it. He was in my head, and everything he wanted me to feel, I’d feel. He taught me with violence and threats, so I’d retaliate against her the same way.” There’s so much regret in the car, I almost can’t breathe through it. The most heartbreaking part of his story is that he blames himself for all of it. I can feel that. “Eventually, she ran again. That time, it was for good.”
“How did he make you do all of this?”
He takes a long breath and blows it through his teeth. “You name it, Tommy. If I fought him, he’d do something worse. When I was thirteen, I had a crush on this girl named Annabel. Dad caught us in the backyard, and he inspired so much lust in her that I couldn’t get her off of me without hurting her. And I did hurt her. I had to. It was either that or—” He breaks off, his breathing fast. “He’d do this shit for fun, Tom. He’s a sick fuck, and I’m glad to be rid of him.”
Now I understand the note in his voice when he warned me away from Liam. Don’t hurt him. “How did you get away from him?”
He glanced over. “I joined the army.”
So that’s why he enlisted.
“I was good at football,” he said. “When you can sense where the other players are going to be—it gives you an advantage. But my knee couldn’t take it. I had to have surgery when I was sixteen, and it never came back all the way. I almost didn’t pass the physical to get into the army, but I gave the doctor a little nudge.”
“Wow.” I look at him. “I’m sorry. I never knew.”
“I know.” He glances over. “I know. I’m sorry too.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I say.
He reaches out and ruffles my hair, then turns it into a good-natured shove. “Thanks, Tommy. You’re a good little brother.”
“Nah,” I say. “You’re probably just making me act that way.”
I was secretly hoping that Stan would be working and he would have accidentally dropped his keys in the driveway.
Unfortunately, he’s home, and he comes out the side door when we pull up the driveway. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt. At first, he looks confused at the unfamiliar vehicle, but then we pass below the trees lining the driveway, and he can see me and JB. Hi
s mouth settles into a line, and his eyes are hard.
“Yeah, so I’ll wait here,” says JB.
My head whips around. “What?”
“I’m kidding. He’s a cop, right?”
“Homicide detective.”
“Well, that’s kind of hilarious.” He says it like it’s not hilarious at all. He kills the ignition. “I hate cops.”
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s one of the few things I have in common with Dad.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re a pain in the ass. You’ll see. Come on.”
Stan folds his arms across his chest and looks at both of us, but he only addresses me. “Tom. What are you doing here?”
I stop halfway across the driveway. Even under the shade of the oak trees, it has to be in the high nineties. We’re both sweating just from the effort it took to get out of the car.
Stan’s face is closed down. Suspicious. Angry. I didn’t expect him to welcome me with open arms, but I wasn’t ready for hostility. “I wanted to come pick up some of my things.”
“Who’s your friend?”
I glance at JB, unsure how to explain his presence. This is my brother probably wouldn’t go over too well.
But JB holds out a hand to Stan. “JB Augury. I’m a friend of Tom’s. I’m letting him crash with me for a while.”
“A friend.” Stan shakes his hand, but something about it seems like a challenge.
“Yep.” JB gives me a nudge. “Go get your stuff.”
Stan lets go of his hand. “No. I’ll get it.” He glances at me, and I’m ready for him to say something openly aggressive, but he doesn’t. “Wait here,” he bites out. Then he turns and goes into the house.
Once he’s gone, JB says, “Want to put money on how much stuff the cops have already taken for evidence?”
I’ve been wondering about the last name JB gave him, but that throws me. “What?”
He glances at me. “You thought you could be arrested and charged with attempted murder, but the cops wouldn’t search your stuff?”
Fury grabs me, searing in its potency. “There’s no evidence. I don’t care what you said. I didn’t hurt Charlotte.” I swallow. “I didn’t—” I can’t finish this sentence. After the episode in the car, I’m scared to even think of my mother.
“Okay, Tommy.” His voice is even, placating. “Hold it together. I didn’t realize this would come as a surprise.”
“Well, it does.” Then I turn to look at him fully. “What if they found your letters?”
He shrugs. “If they found them, they found them. I’m not worried about someone reading a bunch of letters I wrote when I was a kid.”
“You’re not?” I look between him and the door. “But you just called me a friend—”
“I’m trying to spare you an hour of questions. He’s already suspicious. We don’t need the cops thinking you’ve been hiding a brother on top of everything else.” He rolls his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t need the hassle.”
I wonder if Charlotte has already told them. She couldn’t possibly, if Stan isn’t drawing a connection right now.
I wonder why she’d cover for me.
I study my brother. “You think they’d question you, too?”
“I know they would.”
“Is that why you gave him a fake last name?”
“You think I made that up on the fly?” He laughs under his breath. “It’s our grandmother’s maiden name. I enlisted under it. It’s on my driver’s license.”
Stan returns with a worn plastic bin stacked with clothes. My messenger bag is thrown on top. He thrusts it at me unceremoniously. “I’ll box up the rest of your things this weekend. You can call me, and I’ll tell you when you can pick them up.”
This is it. My entire life reduced to a box. My mother’s husband, one of the few people in this town who’d bothered to show kindness to me, reduced to another cop who hates me. I take it from him, surprised at the sudden emotion that snakes around my throat to pull tight.
“Thanks.” I turn away.
He catches my arm. “Tom.”
I stop, but I don’t turn back to face him. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
Stan always surprises me. I look at him. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
He glances at JB. “How long have you known your . . . friend?”
“Not long. He’s all right.” I begin to move away.
He lets me go, but he watches me. “Tom.”
I shove my box into the backseat, then turn to look at him. “What?”
Uncertainty almost shimmers in the air between us. “You can call me if you’re in trouble. You know that, right?”
JB climbs into the car and slams the door. My nerves are shot: the sound makes me jump.
I look back at Stan. “I tried that once. You didn’t answer.”
His face falls, and I can feel his shame. It’s amazing how emotion seems to have taken on a crystal clarity now that I’m aware of it.
I pull open the passenger door.
Stan doesn’t move, but he wants to stop me. “Tom.”
“I’ll call you next weekend.” I climb into the cab.
“I had hoped everyone was wrong about you.”
I can’t look at him. “They are wrong.”
Then I slam the door in his face.
JB doesn’t even ask if I’m okay. He can probably figure out my mental state better than I can. He just drives.
We’re a few miles down the road before I let out a breath. “That was both better and worse than I thought it would be.”
“He’s worried about you. He doesn’t trust me.” JB shrugs. “Kind of touching, really. You and he get along?”
“Yeah. Sort of. He said I was like a puppy.”
JB gives a quick burst of laughter. “A puppy?”
“Yeah. He said he wasn’t sure how to have a teenager in the house.”
“I can see that. He seemed kind of stiff.” He pauses. “Did your mom love him?”
“Yeah. She did.” I think of the excitement in her voice when she told me Stan had proposed. “He loved her, too.”
“Good,” says JB. “She deserved that much.”
And then, before I can say anything more, he reaches out and turns up the radio until it’s too loud for conversation.
For some reason, I thought JB would have a hard time getting Nicole out of the library. I wait in the parking lot by his car, because I’m worried she’ll panic at the sight of me.
He’s inside for less than ten seconds before she comes flying out the sliding doors. When she sees me, she storms across the parking lot.
I’m glad I’m starting to be more in tune with people’s emotional state, because I have a little warning before she takes a swing at me.
“Nicole!” I push her arm away, and she uses the other one. Thank god she’s so tiny. It’s like being attacked by a vicious kitten. “Stop it!”
“I told you I’d kick your ass if you hurt Charlotte.” She tries to smack me, and I throw an arm up. “I can’t believe I defended you. I can’t believe I covered for you.”
“Want me to take her down?” says JB. I’ve been so distracted trying to defend myself that I didn’t even see him come out of the library.
I’m beginning to know when he’s kidding, but he’s so deadpan that she whirls around. “Ooh, you can try. I’ll kick your ass, too.”
He glances at me, eyebrows raised, wondering if she’s for real.
“Nicole,” I say. “I just came to see if she’s okay.”
“No, she’s not okay.” Nicole’s chest is heaving, and she glares between us. “You need to get the hell out of here before I call the cops. She can’t sleep, thanks to you. She’s scared to be alone. Are you a psychopath? What the hell are you even doing here?” Suddenly, her face goes pale, and she takes a step backward, glancing between me and JB, who’s leaning against the car behind me now. A lick of fear threads through the air. “You leave me alone, Th
omas Bellweather, and you, too, creepy other guy. Do you understand me? If you put so much as a hand on me—”
“Nicole.” I’m torn between laughing at her and crying at how serious she is. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to touch you.” I put my hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to see if Charlotte was okay. Is she hurt?”
“Yeah. Okay. Like I’m falling for this.” She turns and puts up a hand. “You get out of here. I’m calling the police.”
“Nicole!”
She gives me the finger and keeps walking.
Shit. Shit.
JB calls after her. “Don’t you want to hear what he has to say?”
Her steps slow, and she hesitates, but then keeps walking.
“He didn’t want to hurt her,” JB says. “You know that. You can feel it. Don’t you think Charlotte would want to know what he has to say?”
Nicole stops. Her chest is heaving, but she’s stopped.
“Holy crap,” I whisper.
“No one is going to hurt you,” JB says. “You wouldn’t be out here if you thought you were truly in danger.”
She turns around and walks back to me. Her arms lift, and I’m ready for her to try to deck me again, but instead, she throws her arms around my neck.
“I knew there had to be some mistake,” she breathes. “I knew you were too hot to be a killer.”
My brain can’t handle the one-eighty. I look at JB helplessly.
He’s looking at his phone, not even paying attention now. “You’re welcome,” he says.
I put my hands on Nicole’s arms and gently push her back. “Is Charlotte okay?”
Nicole nods. “A little banged up, but she’s okay.” She pauses. “She’s very confused. She doesn’t understand.”
I let out a breath. “I barely understand it myself.”
Her eyes narrow, just a little. Questioning. “Did you break into her room?”
“I—don’t know. Something is happening to me. I’m losing time or something. I don’t—I don’t remember doing it.”
She frowns.