The Winter Sister

by Megan Collins

  “Right,” Ben said, “but I’m going to be in there with you, so it’s okay. I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Would you please spare me the chivalrous bullshit? I’m pretty sure I can handle Tommy Dent. You can just go home, all right? I came here to speak to him by myself, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  I said it with all the confidence I could muster, but the truth was—I didn’t actually want to be alone with Tommy; he was so much bigger and gruffer than I remembered. When I started walking toward the front steps, as if to carry on by myself and leave Ben behind, there was a tiny part of me, somewhere so deep I wouldn’t have even known where to find it, that was relieved when Ben wrapped his hand around my arm and steered me back toward the curb.

  “Listen,” he said. “This isn’t about me trying to be some sort of gentleman. I know you’re strong. Just look at what you’ve been through.” He gestured to the space around us, as if all my life experiences had happened in that cold and biting air. “But Persephone was tough, too. And . . .”

  His face tightened, as if he’d tasted something he wanted to spit out. “Let’s just agree to work together,” he said. “We can have each other’s backs, okay?” He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

  His fingers—they were long and thin, twitching slightly in the air as he waited for me to place my palm against his. I remembered the print of them on Persephone’s skin, the purple ovals he left on her each night. But I remembered them on my own skin, too, the way he’d held the paper towel to my neck in the hospital the day before—firm but gentle. He could have hurt me right then, could have pressed down harder until my skin ached with the promise of bruises, but he stopped when I’d protested. He’d watched the towel fall to the floor and then, instead of grabbing me the way I’d always imagined he’d grabbed Persephone, he just calmly bent over and picked the towel off the ground.

  “Okay,” I said, and I slid my hand into his.

  We shook on it then, our eyes locked together, and in that moment, I couldn’t tell what was more powerful—the reassurance that, no matter what Tommy did, I’d be safe, or the feeling that, with Ben’s hand in mine, I was betraying Persephone all over again.

  21

  Tommy’s trailer was tidier than I’d expected. It was almost disarming how neatly everything was displayed. He didn’t appear to have much, but everything he did have—magazines, a few movies, a small bowl that cupped some change—seemed so meticulously placed that I feared what would happen if I accidentally disturbed something. Even the patch of laminate floorboards beneath his TV stand looked recently dusted, as if he’d known we were coming and had left no space untouched.

  “Why do you think I killed Persephone?” Tommy asked.

  He was rocking in a recliner that looked eerily similar to my mother’s, while Ben and I sat in the two remaining chairs in the room. I stared at him, my eyes growing wide. Her name in his mouth sounded wrong, misshapen. He lingered too long on the s, like his tongue was savoring the taste of each syllable. The sound paralyzed my vocal cords.

  “You used to stalk her,” Ben jumped in, “and you just served a prison sentence for assault against a woman. It’s two plus two, Dent.”

  Tommy crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “That girl was nothing,” he said.

  A muscle in my eyelid spasmed. His flippancy jostled loose the words that had been crouching inside me.

  “What did you do with my sister’s stuff?” I asked.

  Tommy cocked his head. “What stuff?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” I snapped. “My mother told me she gave you Persephone’s things. I want to know what you did with them.” Then, my voice wavering slightly, I added, “Do you still have them?”

  He sucked in one of his cheeks and his eyes crept over my face.

  “How is Annie?” he asked, practically purring my mother’s name, and as I flinched, another grin spread onto his face as greasily as butter in a hot pan.

  “Answer the question, Dent,” Ben said.

  Tommy looked at Ben, then back at me, and for a couple seconds, his head pivoted between the two of us. Then, with a sound that gurgled up from his stomach, he laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Ben asked.

  Tommy’s body pitched forward, his arm clutching his stomach, and he wiped his hands over his eyes in a theatrical display of amusement. “Oh, nothing,” he said. “It’s just—” He paused to allow for an aftershock of chuckles. “You’re fucking the little O’Leary now, too?”

  Something flashed in Ben’s eyes, as clearly as a blade glinting in the light. His hands balled into fists.

  “Hey, man, I get it,” Tommy continued. “She’s a good stand-in for Persephone, isn’t she? I mean, they don’t look anything alike, but there’s still something kind of similar there, don’t you think? There’s definitely an essence.”

  Even though he was speaking to Ben, Tommy’s eyes latched onto my skin like a pair of leeches. I could feel him trying to drag the blood from my veins, keep me troubled and tense.

  Ben was sitting at least four feet away from me, but I sensed how tightly he was wound. It was calming, somehow, to see his jaw clench. It reminded me that we needed to keep our cool.

  “Look,” I said, cutting Ben off just as he opened his mouth to speak. “Our . . .” I searched for the right word, but after several seconds, I was still unable to find one that fit. “It’s none of your business. I came here today because I’m willing to make a trade. I hear you like those.”

  I picked up the package from my lap and shook it, the necklace and lotion bottle rattling around inside. “I have some of Persephone’s things right here. If you just let me look through the stuff you have of hers, maybe we could make an exchange. You could have these new things, and I could have back some of the things that mean something to me.”

  Tommy’s eyes swelled with interest.

  “It’s just . . .” I softened my voice. “My sister and I were really close, and I never got to keep anything of hers. There are certain things that would be nice to have. Things I really loved.”

  I could see him getting reeled in, his lips parting, just like a fish on a line. “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like this necklace she had. It was gold and had a starfish pendant. It meant so much to her, and I’d do anything to have it as a way to remember my sister. Please. If you have it, just—at least let me see it.”

  I looked away from him as desperation crept into my voice. When I glanced at Ben, I saw that he was already looking at me, nodding his head a little, a wince of pain in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to tell me something—that he knew that necklace, too, maybe, and that the thought of it was comforting and annihilating all at once, just as it was for me.

  Tommy shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I never got a fish necklace.”

  “Not a fish,” I corrected. “A starfish.”

  “Never got one of them either.”

  Disappointment sank into my bones, but I wasn’t really surprised by his denial. He was playing with me, and I had to keep at it.

  “Well,” I said, “can I just look through the stuff you do have?”

  Half a smile wormed up his face. “Sorry,” he said again. “I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Any of it?” The question barged out before I could balance my tone, and his eyes flickered with recognition of his power.

  “Any of it,” he confirmed.

  “Well, where did it go?” Ben asked.

  Tommy glanced at Ben, but then snapped his eyes back to me. My skin grew cold beneath his stare.

  “I gave it all away,” Tommy said.

  “Where?” I asked, and I was surprised to hear Ben’s voice overlap my own with the same question.

  Tommy’s smile grew wider, filling out both his cheeks. “I’m not at liberty to say,” he taunted.

  “That’s bullshit,” Ben said.

  “Is it?”

  Tommy reached toward the coffee ta
ble. He placed his fingers on a shiny issue of Gun World and moved it a fraction of an inch. Apparently satisfied, he leaned back in his chair and resumed his amused watch of my face.

  “Well, did you pawn it or something?” I prompted. “None of it was valuable.”

  He chuckled. “Value’s in the eye of the buyer,” he said. “Don’t you think so, Ben?”

  Tommy turned his head sharply to look at Ben, whose eyes widened like a kid called on in class. “Uh,” he said, stretching out the syllable as he returned Tommy’s gaze, “I wouldn’t know.”

  Tommy nodded. “Sure you wouldn’t,” he said.

  I looked between the two of them, watched them glare at each other like ancient rivals, and my stomach churned. There was a glimmer of history in that stare, as if this wasn’t the first time they’d shared it, and Ben’s nostrils flared as he breathed.

  “What is he talking about?” I asked him. “Do you know something about this?”

  Ben didn’t answer. He kept his eyes bolted to Tommy’s.

  “Ben,” I tried again, a note of panic rising in my voice. “Do you know where Persephone’s things are?”

  He broke the stare, the spell, whatever was passing unsaid between them, and he met my eyes with a squint in his own. “No,” he said, sounding offended by the question. “Of course not. He’s crazy.”

  “Crazy man with all the answers,” Tommy said, and we turned to look at him. “According to you two, at least. Why else would you both come banging on my door today?”

  His eyes flicked toward the box. “What’s in there anyway?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, drawing the package closer. “What did you want with her stuff in the first place? Or was it always your plan to sell it?”

  Tommy rolled his eyes—bored, it seemed, to be back on that topic. “Your sister and me were the same.” He leaned forward, raked his eyes across my face. “I deserved to have some reminders of her. And your mother agreed.”

  My pulse thrummed against my wrist, but I focused on keeping my muscles as stiff and unyielding as possible. I was unwilling to give him the reaction he wanted—not even a twitch, not even a shaky inhalation.

  Finally, he added, “I didn’t sell it until the money ran out.”

  “What money?” Ben asked. “Your family didn’t have any money.”

  “No, you’re right,” Tommy said. “My family wasn’t rich. Not like yours, Benji. Not like Daddy Emory in the big fancy house on the hill. Must be nice, huh?” He slid his hands over the armrests of his chair, petting them as if they were animals. “But I had ways of getting what I needed.”

  I thought of the drugs he’d given to Mom, how her cupped hands were probably not the only ones he’d dropped some pills into. What other exchanges had he made? How much had he profited off of other people’s suffering?

  “Okay,” I said, letting him hear my impatience as I tapped the box with my finger. “So your money ran out, and then what happened?”

  He continued stroking the chair, tilting his head while he looked at me. “Like I said, I sold it all. To someone who needed it more than I did.”

  Ben and I glanced at each other.

  “To someone?” I asked. “Who? Who else could have possibly wanted her stuff?”

  “Not wanted,” Tommy said. “Needed.” Then he slammed his eyes toward Ben. “You wouldn’t know about need—would you, Emory? Sylvie, though.” His gaze slinked back to my face. “She knows. She and Persephone both knew. Persephone needed more than you could ever give her, Benji. She didn’t need a joyride every other night behind her mother’s back. She needed companionship.”

  “And that was you, huh?” Ben said. “A real companion?”

  Tommy shrugged. “I let her know what she needed to know. I let her know that somebody saw her.”

  “You let her know you stalked her,” Ben said. “She showed me all those notes, you know. She thought you were pathetic.”

  Tommy continued, unfazed by Ben’s words. “I see you, too, Sylvie,” he said. “And—I have to tell you—you’re not going to make it.”

  My lips parted, the breath between them unraveling. “What?”

  Tommy nodded. “If you keep going like this,” he said, “you’re not going to make it. There’s so much pain inside you, I can see it clear as day. Your inner feng shui—it’s all fucked up.”

  He chuckled then. “I mean, Jesus,” he went on. “Just look at your eyes. It’s like you’re already half dead.”

  Ben moved forward in his chair. “Are you threatening her, Dent?”

  “Hey, man,” Tommy said, holding up his hands. “It’s not me she has to worry about. I’m not the one whose girlfriend ended up dead.”

  Ben stood up, the movement so sudden that it made me jump, distracting me from the chill threading through my veins.

  “I think we should go, Sylvie,” he said.

  “Go?” My voice sounded hollow as I looked up at him. “But we haven’t even . . . he hasn’t even told us anything yet.”

  “Yeah, Ben,” Tommy chimed in, “I haven’t even told you anything yet.”

  Ben’s fingers contracted into a fist, but he kept his eyes on me. “Come on,” he urged. “I was wrong, okay? We’re not going to get any answers from him. He’s spewing nonsense. He just wants to mess with us.”

  He tried to pull me up, but when his hand circled my arm, I jerked away from him. “No,” I said. “I’m not—I can’t go yet. He has to tell—” I leaned forward, searching Tommy’s face for some weakness, some fragility, something that would let me speak to him on a level we could both understand. “You have to tell me what you know.”

  The corners of Tommy’s lips curled up. “What about your mother?” he asked. “Did she tell you what she knows?”

  I straightened up, my spine like an elastic snapping into place. “What are you talking about?”

  Talk to the mother—that’s what Tommy had told the detectives—and now, here he was, making the same ridiculous insinuation that Mom knew something about what happened to Persephone.

  “It’s really not my place to say,” Tommy answered, his grin nothing but teeth, a film of saliva glazing his lower lip.

  “Then why bring it up at all?” Ben challenged. “See, Sylvie? It’s nonsense.”

  Tommy looked up at Ben, who towered above him. “Let’s just say,” he started, “that Annie lied to the police. I was the one who told them to talk to her. I was the one who knew they should. But she didn’t exactly tell them the truth.”

  “How would you even know that?” I asked. “How would you know what she did or did not tell them, and how would you know if what she told them was the truth?”

  Tommy shrugged. “I have my ways,” he said. “A person on the inside.”

  “You have a person on the inside,” I scoffed. “On the inside of what—the police?”

  He didn’t answer, but a low, reverberating chuckle emanated from his throat.

  “You’re lying,” I said. “You don’t know a thing about my mother.”

  “Oh, I don’t? I guess I just imagined it, then—all those long, intimate chats we had.”

  He chewed on the word intimate as if it were a delicious bite of food.

  “I guess I don’t know anything about what kind of pills she prefers, huh?” he continued. “Or how long it takes for her to just—”

  “Stop!” Anger ballooned inside me, squeezing out the fear and hesitation. I leaned forward as far as I could, the package on my lap thudding to the floor as I stared him in the eyes.

  “Don’t say another word about my mother,” I said. “I know what you’re doing. I know you’re just trying to distract me from figuring out what you did and what you know.”

  “Is that so?” Tommy said.

  “Yep.”

  “Well—please, Sylvie—tell me what else I’m doing. This is so informative.”

  He leaned forward, too, his face coming so close to mine that I could see the web of veins pulsing through his ey
elids.

  “Dent . . .” Ben warned, taking a step closer to Tommy.

  “For one thing,” I said, “you’re lying about Persephone’s stuff. You didn’t sell it to anyone, that’s ridiculous—no one in their right mind would want it. So it’s here, isn’t it? I know it is. And I’m going to give you one more chance to come clean about everything.”

  Tommy smiled as he inched even closer to me, the excitement on his face dripping with vulgarity. “Or what?” he asked.

  I saw pockmarks on his cheeks—ghosts of old acne and the scrawny teenage boy he’d once been. I saw strands of gray in the wiry hair of his goatee.

  “Or this.”

  I stood up, marched through the kitchen, and entered the hallway beyond it. It was dim back there, and it took a second for my eyes to adjust enough to make out the bathroom to my left, the shaded bedroom to my right.

  “Sylvie,” Ben said, and I could feel him following just behind me.

  “Not now,” I snapped. I walked into Tommy’s room, flicking on the light switch by the door, which illuminated a space as tidy and spare as his living room had been. There was a twin bed, its comforter pulled taut toward the headboard, a dresser with a watch and a comb on it, and a couple of plastic bins stacked in the corner.

  “What is she doing?” Tommy asked as I rushed toward the bins. His laughter bubbled up in pitch.

  “Sylvie, come on.” I felt Ben’s hand on my arm, but I pulled away and tore off the lid on the highest bin in the stack.

  “It’s in here,” I mumbled, rifling through shirts and blankets, tossing each item on the floor as soon as I confirmed that it hadn’t belonged to Persephone. When I reached the bottom of the bin, I picked it up and threw it over Tommy’s bed.

  “She’s insane!” he said, his voice dancing with delight as I looked inside the bottom bin. A stack of blank paper, a couple magazines, journals packed with indecipherable handwriting—but nothing I recognized. I held up the bin and shook out the rest of its contents, Tommy’s laughter in the background only spurring me on.

  “Sylvie,” Ben said again, his voice a little firmer this time.