The Foxglove Killings

by Tara Kelly

  I threw on a dark green cami and the cutoff shorts on my floor. The camera outside my room should’ve picked up everything that happened overnight…and anyone who was here. I needed to grab the SD card from the receiver and see what it recorded. But instead, my hand froze on the doorknob.

  Either someone other than Alex was in my room or they weren’t. There were no other explanations. No easier-to-swallow scenarios. There was only the truth, a truth I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Because no matter how many times I told myself Alex didn’t write that note, there was this small, nagging doubt. Maybe he’d really lost it.

  Even from the end of the hallway, the air felt thick. Mom was talking in a low voice, silence her only response. The receiver was in the living room, between the two cameras—probably right where she and Jenika were standing.

  I tiptoed past Gavin’s room and peered into the bathroom. Alex’s clothes were gone, which meant—whatever happened—he’d definitely had time to grab them. He must’ve been extra quiet to make sure I didn’t wake up.

  Mom and Jenika were standing in the entryway, several feet apart. Jenika was still in front of the door, her military backpack slung over one shoulder, one foot behind her. Soot tinged the ends of her blond hair, and there was gauze around her right hand.

  “Do you want to take a shower?” Mom asked.

  “Not here.” Jenika’s voice was low, almost emotionless. Her face was in the shadows, but I knew she had her chin tilted up and that stone-cold glare.

  “Where are you going to go?” Mom asked.

  “Matt’s.”

  “Did his mom say you could stay with them?”

  “Sure.” Jenika didn’t miss a beat.

  Considering Matt told me he slept on the couch because his younger brother and baby sister were in the other rooms, I doubted that was the case.

  “We both know you’ve got nowhere else to go,” Mom said, softly.

  I tiptoed toward the living room, staying close to the wall, but Jenika’s face turned in my direction. I kept going, focusing on the blue lights of the receiver.

  “Look, I know this is awkward,” Mom continued. “But you’re welcome here. Eric really wants to see you.”

  “Yeah? Where is he?”

  “He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

  “I bet.”

  I reached for the SD card. There was no way around this. I couldn’t unsee whatever was on here.

  “You going to join the conversation or are you just going to spy?” Jenika called out.

  My hand squeezed the card, part of me wishing I could crush it. “I was grabbing something,” I said, meeting them in the entryway.

  “Right,” Jenika muttered. Her eyes were bloodshot and smudged with mascara. She looked every bit as small as her five-foot-three, hundred-pound-and-change frame right now. Even with her knee-high steel-toe boots and stick-straight posture.

  Mom gave me a questioning look. If I told her I thought someone other than Alex was in my room last night, she’d freak out and want to call the cops. I needed to see what was on that video first. I needed to prepare myself.

  “The cameras recorded something last night,” I said. “It was probably just…” I paused. “Alex.”

  “Is he here?” Jenika asked, her eyes darting between me and the hallway.

  “He was gone when I woke up.” I knew her. If she even got an inkling of what happened between Alex and me, she’d use it against me somehow. “Did you see him at all? This morning?”

  “No.” Her mouth tensed, and she folded her arms.

  My nose caught a whiff of old burned carpet and cigarettes. “I’m sorry about your house,” I said, knowing it was lame. It was also the most sincere thing I could say to her.

  “Why?” she asked. “Did you set the fire?”

  A door opened behind me, and Gavin padded out in his blue Avengers pajamas and green socks. His hazel eyes widened when he saw Jenika, and he froze, as if he wasn’t sure it was safe to come closer. He’d only met her a few times—and it wasn’t for very long.

  Jenika stared back at him like he’d stepped out of a portal. Her fingers tensed around the strap of her backpack.

  “What’s she doing here?” he asked, his voice uncomfortably loud in the morning light.

  “She’s going to be staying with us for a little bit,” Mom said.

  “Why?”

  Grateful for the distraction, I headed back to my room, my heart getting faster with every step.

  It took five minutes of staring at the “7-05” folder on my computer to have the guts to open it. Eight video files sat inside, each titled with the time of the recording and the camera that recorded the footage—003046_1, 003105_2, when Alex showed up at my window last night, 021704_1, 023211_2, 023213_1, 024055_2, 025445_2, and 025454_1.

  Pins and needles ran up my arms. Either the feral cats around here decided to have a party in our yard or someone else was definitely here last night. Camera One recorded the entranceway and the driveway. Unless Alex left out the front door, which he never did, there was no way he could’ve triggered the recording at 2:17 a.m. because Camera Two would’ve picked him up crawling out my window first.

  I opened the 2:17 file, my chest full and tight with dread. A figure, silhouetted by the streetlights, stood at the edge of our driveway, almost out of frame. They swayed side to side like an anxious little kid waiting their turn. They were too far away to make out details, especially since I’d picked lower-quality recordings to save space on the SD card, but the body definitely looked male—tall, square shoulders, narrow hips. He was wearing a baggy dark-colored T-shirt.

  I turned up the volume on my computer speakers, but there was just white noise and the occasional hum of a car on the main road. After about ten seconds, a fire truck siren bellowed in the distance, gradually getting louder. More sirens joined in seconds later. As they got closer, the figure bolted out of frame and the recording ended.

  I double-clicked on the first 2:32 a.m. file, the camera outside my room this time. There was the low rumble of my window sliding shut before a figure fully appeared in the frame. Alex, dressed in his gray pullover and jeans, tilted his face up toward the camera and gave a quick wave. His expression was odd, not smiling but not noticeably upset either. He turned and went left, disappearing from the picture.

  An ache formed in my throat. Maybe he didn’t know how to deal with what happened between us. Maybe he was having second thoughts. But that didn’t give him a free pass to sneak out like I was some chick he hooked up with. He knew what a big deal last night was to me. I couldn’t believe he’d just leave…

  I opened the second 2:32 a.m. file, expecting to see Alex heading down the driveway. But it wasn’t Alex walking past my mom’s Subaru. It was the same figure I saw at 2:17. Only this time he came much closer to our entrance. Close enough to see his dark, spiky hair and We Are Numb spelled out in white letters across his shirt. We Are Numb was Zach’s favorite band.

  I held my breath. Zach froze, his face turning toward the direction Alex would be coming from. Then he ran to the other side of mom’s car, ducking out of sight.

  A moment later, Alex cut across our front lawn and headed down our driveway. He was jogging, almost like he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. I bit my tongue, waiting for Zach to reappear. But the video clip ended.

  Alex always did have a sixth sense—he was impossible to sneak up on. Maybe he sensed that someone was out there, lurking around. Maybe he was running because he heard Zach’s footsteps as he got closer to the front of the house.

  The next clip was recorded almost eight minutes later. Zach appeared from the right side, which meant he’d gone all the way around my house to get to my bedroom. A sick feeling settled in my stomach as he moved toward my window and I heard the gentle rattle of the glass. Based on the sound, he took his time opening it, inch by inch.

  I already knew what came next. He crawled inside, saw me lying naked in bed, and wrote that note. But he’d been in my
room for eleven minutes. That note could’ve been written in a minute or two. What else did he do in here?

  A prickly itch shot down the back of my neck, the sensation I always got when I felt like I was being watched. I went still, my hands gripping the arms of my chair.

  “That doesn’t look like Alex,” a voice said behind me.

  I jumped, whipping my head around to see Jenika standing inside my doorway.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  She motioned behind her. “Door was wide open.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I remembered pushing it shut behind me.

  “Okay, maybe more like a crack. But open is open.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right to walk in here.”

  She took a couple steps inside, scanning my walls. “This was going to be my room. Eric ever tell you that?”

  “No…” When Eric and my mom started seeing each other, we were still living with Gramps in his three-bedroom rambler in the woods off Cascade Creek Road. Eric had gotten this house for a steal because it was a dilapidated mess and the old lady who lived here died in the master bedroom closet. His plan was to fix it up and sell it for twice as much. But he’d changed his mind after he met my mom, and we moved in.

  At least that was what I was told.

  “Did he mean if you decided to live with us?” I asked.

  “Nope.” She looked down at her feet, pursing her lips. “He used to take me with him when he was fixing the place up. Said it was a surprise for Mom.”

  “He never told us that.”

  “Eric only tells you what you want to hear.”

  Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. With Jenika, you never really knew. But I didn’t have time for her games.

  Jenika’s gaze moved from my disheveled bed to my clothes on the carpet. “Underwear on the floor. Classy.”

  “Yeah, well, nobody invited you to come in here and look at it.” I walked over and collected my dirty clothes, throwing them in the hamper. “How’s your mom?”

  “She’ll be okay.” She said it deadpan, like I’d asked her if she was enjoying the weather. I opened my mouth to ask for more details, but she spoke before I could. “Is Amber’s body even cold yet?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you think?”

  Heat rose into my face as I realized what that video probably looked like. “Zach let himself into my room, without my permission. While I slept.”

  “Was Alex here?”

  “No, the cameras picked him up racing out of here around two thirty, like he was going to…” I trailed off.

  Her eyebrows rose. “A fire?”

  “Yeah.” I sat back at my desk, turning away from the intensity of her stare. I didn’t want to say too much—not to Jenika—but the words still came out. “It’s not like him. He never…takes off like that.”

  “Without getting your permission?”

  There was the snark I expected. If I’d just lost the roof over my head and my mom was in the hospital, I’d probably be a mess. But Jenika was never one to show feelings, other than anger. “Look,” I said. “I can’t do this right now. I’m trying to figure out what happened last night.”

  “So am I.”

  I hovered over the 2:54 a.m. file with my mouse, but I didn’t open it. “Then shouldn’t you be doing that?”

  My bedsprings squeaked behind me. Apparently, she wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.

  “What time was Zach here?” she asked, after a few seconds.

  “He first showed up at two seventeen. Sirens scared him off, though—is that around the time the fire started?”

  “It didn’t start. Someone started it.”

  I swiveled my chair around to face her again. She was sitting on the corner of my bed, the note signed by “Alex” in her lap.

  “Zach write this?” she asked.

  “Only other person here was Alex.”

  She squinted at me. “You seriously think Alex would write this?”

  “Did I say that?” I swallowed back the tension in my throat, the ache of guilt. It was a small voice that doubted Alex. But it had been there just the same.

  “I always knew Zach was a twisted little fuck,” she said.

  “Yeah. I’m realizing that…”

  “Him telling everyone you’re a nasty skank wasn’t enough?”

  I didn’t respond. The last thing I wanted to be reminded of was how much I’d trusted him. How I ignored every red flag.

  My eyes went to the purple envelopes on my nightstand. The excuses I made for Zach not being behind those letters were just that—excuses. Probably because a big part of me still didn’t want to believe I’d given it up to a creep. But it was as plain as day now. Leaving anonymous letters, whether they were a joke or not, was a cowardly act. And Zach was the biggest coward I knew.

  “Why would he write this as Alex, though?” Jenika held the torn piece of paper up.

  “He’s always been dead set on convincing me Alex is a psycho.”

  Her eyebrows rose, like she wasn’t quite buying it. I used that moment to turn around and double-click on the last video the camera above my bedroom recorded. Zach backed away from the window, like he wasn’t sure he was ready to leave. He was clutching a piece of spiral notebook paper.

  My heart pounded with anger this time. Alex wouldn’t take off without leaving a note. That was probably it. But still, of all times for him to take off on me. Why after that? It didn’t make sense.

  The entrance camera showed Zach walking up my driveway, the paper a ball inside his fist.

  “What time was that?” Jenika asked, making me jump a little.

  “Two fifty-four.” I faced her again. “You never answered me about when the fire started.”

  She studied me for a few long seconds, pursing her lips. Finally her shoulders sagged a little, and her expression softened. “I don’t know exactly. I wasn’t there.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I resisted the urge to snap back at her. If I were in her situation, I’d feel guilty for not being there, and I probably wouldn’t take kindly to anyone bringing it up. “I’m trying to figure out the timing.”

  “Me and Haley were out taking night shots of the fireworks,” she said. “We got back after two—it wasn’t more than ten minutes after. I saw the smoke. A few of our neighbors were standing there, being useless.”

  “I heard you pulled Anya out.”

  “Yeah, cause she’s a dipshit. I crawled in through my window, and…” Jenika shook her head, her lips lifting into a bitter smile. “She was trying to put it out with bath towels and bottled water because she was so wasted she…” Her eyes lifted to mine. “Whatever. That’s what happened.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was a lot like when Megan was making fun of her family yesterday. You could laugh with them or pity them, both equally insulting. Or you could sit there uncomfortably, saying nothing at all.

  “How much damage was there?” I asked.

  “Enough.” She flicked Zach’s note to the floor. “We didn’t have much to lose, though. Perks of being poor.”

  I wasn’t buying the devil-may-care act. I’d heard the rage in her voice when she said someone started that fire. And I saw it that night with Christian. Inside she was probably screaming.

  “Did they say it looked like arson?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me shit. They have to investigate.” She used air quotes. “And this is Emerald Cove. That’ll take a while.”

  “My house is a five-minute drive,” I said. “It’s possible Zach was involved. But he seemed startled by the sirens…”

  Before she could respond, Mom tapped lightly on the door, her eyes going back and forth between Jenika and me. Her expression said exactly what she was thinking—how long until they kill each other? “Are you guys hungry? I was going to make Gavin some blueberry pancakes.”

  Yeah, right. Mom made pan
cakes only about once a year, usually for someone’s birthday. But my stomach was so knotted up I doubted I could choke down a banana.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “You got real maple syrup?” Jenika asked, like Mom was her server. “I won’t eat the fake shit.”

  “I can pick some up.” She flashed a tight smile. “I’ve got to get eggs, anyway.” She started to retreat, but then she turned around again. “What did the cameras get?”

  I really wished I’d inherited Gramps’s poker face. “Just Alex coming and going.” I could sense the heat of Jenika’s stare. All I could do was hope she didn’t say anything.

  Mom’s brow crinkled. “He have somewhere to be?”

  I shrugged. “I’m going to give him a call and find out.”

  With that, she left, telling me to keep an eye on Gavin.

  Jenika waited until we heard the jingle of Mom’s keys to speak. “I thought you guys told each other everything.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  Her black nails traced patterns on my sheets. “Enough. So, why’d you lie?”

  “Because she’d want to get the cops involved.” And then I’d never have the chance to find out what he did in here, why he was writing me those letters.

  “That’s right. She’d rather rat than fight her own battles. How’s that working out for her?”

  I knew she was referring to the time Anya pushed my mom in the Emerald Market parking lot. “What was she supposed to do? Throw down in public, like she was on some trashy talk show?”

  “’Cause screwing a married guy is real classy.”

  I could’ve argued that Eric had tried to separate from Anya a few times, even before he met my mom. That he only stayed as long as he did because she said she’d kill herself if he left. But that would probably end with a fistfight between the two of us. And unlike my mom, I’d have no problem defending myself.

  “Your mom should’ve sucked it up,” Jenika continued, keeping her gaze outside. “She deserved it.”

  “She did suck it up that day. And she’s sucked it up every day since.”

  She turned, motioning to the walls around her. “Yeah, looks like it.”

  We stared each other down for what felt like an entire minute before she said she was going to take a shower. The tension in my chest dissipated as soon as I heard the water turn on.