Don't Say a Word (Hometown Antihero)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  I sniffled and wiped my eyes with my sleeves.

  “Glad your pants didn’t get soaked for no reason,” I said, hoping to lighten the moment, but my tone was too acerbic for that. “So, what now?”

  “I need to call the bureau, then the sheriff. I have to hash out a plan for how we can deal with this. The body could still have forensic evidence on it and I’m sure as hell not leaving that to the locals to recover. But we can’t afford for this discovery to be leaked, either. I don’t need a circus down here or my cover will be blown.” He stood there thinking for a moment, his body shivering with the cold.

  “How about you solve that mystery with your clothes on.” I turned and stormed up the hill, my anger creeping in as my adrenaline slipped away. Without an argument, he followed until we were back on the bridge. I grabbed my phone and answered a text from Tabby while he put his dry shirt and jacket back on. At least half of him would be warm.

  I tried not to overhear his conversation with the sheriff, but it was impossible not to. When he started to describe the degree of decay, I had to leave. I soon found myself dry heaving against a tree.

  When I was sure my stomach was done, I went and sat on the hood of his car, hands crammed between my knees to keep them from shaking.

  “Danners,” Dawson called as he headed my way. “Sheriff is coming out now to secure the scene until the feds can come process it. I can’t leave, but you shouldn’t stay here. You don’t need to see this.”

  “I’m fine. My nerves are just shot, that’s all. I really thought you’d—”

  I cut myself off, unable to say the word “drowned” without my emotions betraying me. My gaze fell to my bouncing knees—the ones that still held my hands captive. Dawson’s eyes must have followed, because those hands were soon freed, taken by his for inspection. The second he saw how violently they shook, he ushered me toward the driver’s side of his car.

  Then he started to pace.

  “Shit!” he said under his breath. “I can’t leave the crime scene, but you can’t be here when the sheriff shows up and shouldn’t be driving right now. You’re too shaken up—”

  “Dawson, I’m fine—”

  “Really?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “I don’t think so.”

  “You also think you’re always right, so you can see my conundrum at the moment.” I forced a smile and he stopped wearing a path in the dirt.

  He pinned narrow eyes on me.

  “What do you think of my car?” he asked.

  I looked at him like he had three heads. “I think it’s great for someone who enjoys an early-bird special and mall walking.”

  “What did you want to do to me the first day we met?”

  I cocked my head at him. “I feel like that answer is fairly obvious.”

  He hesitated for a second before asking one final question.

  “How badly do you want this case to be over so I’m out of your hair?”

  My smile fell slightly. “I see what you’re doing, Dawson—trying to distract me—but it’s unnecessary. I’m okay. Just let me go.…”

  His features hardened, all sharp angles and shadows.

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  A strong gust of wind shot between us, blowing my hair wildly across my face. He pushed aside a stray lock of hair, tucking it safely behind my ear.

  “I should go,” I said, just as headlights cut through the trees around us.

  He hesitated for a moment before escorting me to my car. Once in, I fired her up and pulled away. As I drove off, I saw him in the rearview mirror, watching me. His expression was as unreadable as ever.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I didn’t sleep at all that night, visions of a faceless girl floating in the river depths plaguing my mind. Every time I began to drift off, I could see myself diving into the river to find Danielle but when I reached her, the dark hair that danced wildly around her would pull back to show me something else, something far more terrifying—my face where hers should have been. After the third time I shot up in bed, breathing hard and scrubbing at my face to try and erase that image, I gave up.

  I made my way to physics, lamenting my lack of sleep. Then I saw Garrett waiting for me outside Callahan’s room and everything was right with the world, if only for a moment.

  “Hey!” I shouted, running to meet him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were staying at casa de Higgins for the next week doing the homeschool thing until you were fully healed up.”

  “My dad is making me nuts. I can’t sit there and watch him watching me anymore. I won’t stay all day—I get tired pretty easily—but I thought I could make it until lunch and then head back. Get a break from the sheriff.”

  “You need to rest,” I scolded as we walked into the classroom. Callahan looked up from his desk, true shock on his face at the sight of Garrett. In fairness, his face was still bruised, and he had tape covering his stitches. Reconstructing part of his right cheek had taken two surgeries and a specialist. They said he’d be totally fine once it fully healed—but I couldn’t help but cringe at the thought of his face being permanently scarred because of what Donovan had done to him.

  Because he’d gone with me that night.

  “Garrett!” Mr. Callahan said, sounding every bit as shocked as he looked. “It’s great to see you. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired—sore.”

  “I have your homework for you, but I don’t want you to worry about that. Take all the time you need. Kylene can probably help you get caught up.”

  I shot him a look of sheer, unadulterated outrage, but Callahan didn’t even bother to glance my way.

  “Thanks, sir. I’ll do my best to get it done soon.”

  Garrett took the pile from Callahan, then made his way to his seat, welcomed back by everyone he passed. While I was elated for him—he deserved a hero’s welcome—I couldn’t help but be bitter. Nobody rolled out the sympathy wagon for me when I’d returned. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Garrett, having put two and two together, shot me a look of understanding. I guess my anger was written all over my face.

  Class started, but I drowned out Callahan’s monotone lecture on the physics of electricity with thoughts about Jane and the case. I hoped Dawson was busy ignoring his classwork as well in favor of plotting things in his mind. With a suspect list ripe with opportunity, we needed either physical evidence or motive—preferably both. And since walking up to Coach or Callahan and asking them straight up if they killed Danielle and where the murder weapon was or what the AD had on them wasn’t a viable option (though a tempting one, just to see the looks on their faces), we had to take the insidious route.

  I think I preferred mine more.

  * * *

  Garrett was looking rough by lunchtime, but he toughed it out just to have that time with Tabby and me. She glowed like a mythical creature when he came and sat down, her excitement at his return plain. Few people had the ability to make you feel truly cared about. Tabby was one of them.

  “I’m just so excited!” she squealed, frantically clapping her hands. “Things can go back to normal now.”

  “That might be too much to ask,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “I take it Callahan wasn’t as gracious upon your return, judging by how you fumed all through class,” Garrett said dryly, poking at his food like he wasn’t sure eating it was the best idea.

  “That’s a fair assessment.”

  “He’s a grump,” Tabby said, dismissing Callahan’s assholeness. “Just ignore him.”

  I sighed. “If only it were that simple.”

  “So Ky,” Garrett said, braving a bite of his food. His expression soured and he dropped his fork, clearly regretting his choice. “How’s your dad’s case coming along?” He pinned me with a knowing glance and I looked away.

  “Have you been working on that?” Tabby asked, perking up yet again. “Do you need me to help?”

  “What’s this?” Garrett asked, feigning affront. “You
let the Canadian help but not me?”

  “I was busy letting you help me with the Donovan thing.”

  “Glad to see you’re keeping it even,” he replied, staring me down. After our interaction outside his house the day before, he knew I was poking around where I shouldn’t be—and likely doing so alone. His displeasure with that was clear in the set of his jaw and furrow of his brow.

  “I am,” I said to him before turning to Tabby, “and no, I haven’t really been. I kinda hit a wall with his transcripts, and when I last went to visit him, he didn’t seem too keen on me digging around anymore. Not after everything that happened with Donovan.”

  “I can’t say I blame him, Ky. Having you out there, possibly putting yourself in harm’s way, would be a nightmare for a parent,” Tabby said.

  “Yeah.” I tried to hold her gaze, but it was too full of worry. “I’m going to give it a rest for now. I’ll check in with his old partner soon and see if maybe he has some insight.”

  And he should have had just that. It had been days since I gave him the file I’d found. Facial recognition didn’t take long to run and given that both men in the picture were white males, it made it more accurate. All I could hope was that he’d gotten multiple matches and was weeding out false positives. Whoever Reider was talking to in that photo had been important enough for my father to tail him and snap off pictures. We just needed to know why.

  Just as Tabby started to fill Garrett in on everything he’d missed, my phone started buzzing. I excused myself when I saw an unfamiliar number and walked to an open area for privacy.

  “Hello?” I said quietly.

  “Did you find anything?” Jane asked, cutting to the chase.

  Man, that was a loaded question.

  “Yeah. A lot, actually.” I filled her in on all the samples gathered that had already been shipped off for testing. Then I let her in on the rest. “I also found Danielle.…”

  I heard a loud crash on the other line. Jane had dropped the phone.

  “You what?” she replied, sounding winded.

  “I found her. She was weighed down under the bridge.”

  “Dammit,” she muttered under her breath repeatedly. “You can’t keep that quiet, Kylene!”

  “I know. I would have called you and told you, but—”

  “Does the sheriff know?”

  “He does. I called it in anonymously.”

  “Dammit!” she shouted before lowering her voice. “Once this goes public I’m screwed, you know that, right? We all are!”

  “The FBI was already investigating the prostitution, Jane. The sheriff isn’t the one handling this. I know you don’t trust any of them, but I trust my contact at the FBI, and he’s all over this, okay? This is a good thing. If they find DNA on her body, then they can find the killer and send him away for life.”

  “Or he’ll know one of us saw him murder Danielle and get rid of us all for causing trouble.”

  I wanted to refute her point but couldn’t.

  “I’m doing everything I can, Jane. Having the feds involved with this is going to help. They’re not wrapped up in our small-town politics.”

  “You hope.…”

  I left that one alone, too.

  “Did Danielle have connections to any of the other suspects we discussed before? I know about all the faculty at school, but what about outside of there?”

  “Maybe. She had a friend who’d sneak her into the movies all the time. She got busted a lot but never got in trouble with the owner. Before she got caught up in all this mess, she said she was cleaning the ice cream shop for Mr. Matthew, but I figured she was using that as a cover for hooking. I mean, it made sense: late nights, working alone.”

  “I never saw her on his employment records.…”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “What about the others?”

  She was quiet for a moment before responding. “No. If she was connected to them, I didn’t know about it.”

  “All right,” I said, glancing back at my friends, who were now staring at me. “I should go.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Another silence. “Thanks, Kylene.”

  She hung up, and I returned to the lunch table.

  “Who was that?” Garrett asked.

  “Just Gramps. He wanted to check in. He’s still a bit uneasy.”

  Garrett nodded. “I get it.”

  I tried to eat my lunch without entertaining the awful thoughts invading my mind. What if the killer did suspect the girls? What if he did clean up his mess before he was caught? Dawson couldn’t protect someone he didn’t know. I wondered if finding Danielle was the clue we’d needed to track down a murderer or a death sentence for the girls he was abusing.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t very hungry.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I was ill-prepared for the shit storm I walked into at school the next day.

  News that a body was recovered from the river had finally been leaked, and in true Jasperville fashion, the halls were filled with whispers and rumors. I knew that the details hadn’t been intentionally released, but that didn’t matter. All it took was a few nosy people and a loose-lipped secretary at the sheriff’s department to take care of that. Though Danielle’s identity was never mentioned, it wouldn’t be long before that came out, too. The sheriff couldn’t keep that secret forever.

  By lunchtime, the conspiracy theories had hit epic levels. Aliens, Bigfoot, and a few other urban legends were all in the running. I sat down at our table, prepared to weather Tabby’s thoughts on the matter as well as her interrogation of Garrett. She’d undoubtedly assume that he knew something about the body his dad had fished out of the river.

  “I just can’t believe it,” she said, pushing her red hair back. “A real dead body…”

  “Some drunk probably fell in,” Garrett said before taking a bite of his sandwich.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Makes sense.”

  “But wouldn’t someone have reported that person missing?” Tabby asked. The naïveté of her question stung, and I tried not to flinch.

  “Maybe it was a vagrant,” I said.

  “Do we even have those here?”

  I shrugged. “We get random wanderers. People from the backwoods that only come to town when they need something.” She stared at me like I had three heads. “What I’m trying to say is that it’s not out of the question.”

  Tabby opened her mouth to argue, but AJ’s arrival cut her off.

  “Did you hear about the body in the river?” he asked, sitting down next to Tabby. “Crazy, right? I wonder who it is.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” I asked, dropping my sandwich. “This isn’t great lunchtime conversation.”

  AJ looked to Garrett and then back to me with concern in his eyes.

  “It’s a mystery, Ky.… You live for those.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t live for the kind involving waterlogged, bloated corpses.”

  Tabby’s face turned a little green. Her sandwich hit the table, too.

  “All right,” AJ said, putting his hands up in surrender. “New topic. How’s this: Ky and I discussed a possible movie night at my place this weekend. Tabby? Garrett? You in or what?”

  “Sounds fun!” Tabby’s enthusiasm was impossible to miss.

  “Yeah, man. I can swing that.”

  “Perfect. I’ll text you guys later. For now, I gotta run. Callahan has me on a tight leash lately. I don’t feel like listening to another lecture.”

  “Good call. They’re the worst,” I said.

  “They really are,” Garrett grumbled.

  “What would you know about it? He’s so far up your ass right now it’s not even funny!”

  “True. At least getting the shit beaten out of me wasn’t totally without an upside.”

  Nervous laughter broke out among the group, then AJ gave a nod and ran back to the main building. I tried not to watch him go but there’d always been something captivating about the way he moved. A confidence
that only someone who gave zero fucks could have.

  “Enjoying the view?” Garrett said, yanking my attention from AJ. I didn’t bother answering him. Instead, I stole a chip from his plate and chewed it dramatically. I wasn’t about to get into AJ drama in front of Tabby. With my luck, she’d have pulled out little AJ flags and started waving them or ripped her shirt open to a #TeamAJ tank underneath. Yeah, no. I’d take a hard pass on that any day.

  While Garrett and Tabby hashed out the logistics of who’d be driving whom to AJ’s, I kept my head down and tried not to think about Danielle’s dead body, instead focusing on its potential for the killer’s DNA. Dawson hadn’t answered any of my texts. I prayed that no news was good news.

  THIRTY

  It was the end of the day before I heard from Dawson. He texted me then came tearing into the building before the bell for final period rang. The two of us eyed each other across the hall for a moment. His lack of expression forced my heart into my throat. Then he stormed toward me, intercepting me by the classroom door. He hauled me into the corner, then whispered in my ear.

  “We found DNA.”

  Holy. Shit.

  “Are you sure?” I said under my breath, his face too close to mine.

  “Positive. There were still some skin cells found deep under her fingernails. It’s been processed and is currently being run to see if it matches anyone in the system.”

  Deep under her fingernails … Danielle had put up a fight.

  Excitement surged through me at the realization that she’d have left marks on the murderer—physical evidence that could narrow our list. Then my hopes crashed seconds later when I remembered what Jane had said. That she’d died two weeks earlier. Any markings left on the perpetrator would have long since healed.

  Another dead end.

  “Do you think you’ll get a hit?” I asked, my voice soft and empty. Images of the dead girl clawing to get away from the man that ultimately killed her played over and over in my mind.

  Dawson looked around at the student-filled hallway, then grabbed my hand and led me to the stairs. The two of us rushed out the door to the parking lot. Once there, he filled me in.