by Amelia Gates
She smirked at me and leaned against the bookshelf, flipping her blonde hair back. “So that means he’s up for grabs, then?”
The icy shock to my system surprised me. I whirled on her, nearly dropping my armload of books.
“Don’t you dare. You know he killed my brother,” I said, swallowing back the bile that rose from me saying those words. “Plus, what kind of friend are you, anyway?”
She chuckled. “Did he? Did he, really? Seems to me if he really killed Hunter he wouldn’t be walking free right now. Cops make mistakes, you know.”
I turned away from her and shoved a book into place. “Not this time.”
“Oh, really? So you were there when it happened?”
“You know I wasn’t.”
“Right, because you were with me. Hanging out, watching horror flicks—”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not like you could have known it was happening. Let that guilt go away.”
That familiar twinge twisted my gut. Of course I couldn’t have known, not intellectually anyway. But I had known that something was wrong. I’d been uncomfortable the whole night. Lizzie had made fun of me for being so freaked out by old B-movie horror, but it hadn’t been that. I’d known Hunter was in trouble and I hadn’t done anything. I pushed it off as paranoia. Maybe if I hadn’t, he’d still be here.
“You know, being an observer to the whole situation gives me a sort of—vantage point.” She ran her finger over the spines in my cart.
“What kind of vantage point?”
“Well, see, the whole thing was very curious to me. Very curious. For as much as Hunter pissed Kash off sometimes, I never saw Kash as a killer. I never thought you would be stupid enough to hook up with a killer, for one thing. Plus, the two of them, Kash and Hunter, they were thicker than thieves.”
I stiffened, muscles knotting across my back. “I never claimed to be a genius,” I muttered.
“Yeah, yeah. But trust me. You’re not that dumb. So anyway, I went poking around after he’d been charged with murder. I followed the trial and kept tabs on the appeals. I assume you didn’t do the same.”
“What makes you think so?”
“If you had, you wouldn’t still think Kash was Hunter’s killer.” She paused, examining my face with her big blue eyes.
Apparently I was a better liar than I thought because she apparently couldn’t really tell where my beliefs sat. It’s not that I thought Kash killed my brother. It’s just that…if he hadn’t then he wouldn’t have avoided me the way he had. He would have at least sent me one damn letter back.
I wanted to ask Lizzie to elaborate, but I couldn’t bring myself to. If she knew something I didn’t, it would give me hope. Worse, it would mean that the years of simmering fury I’d held on to and fed in to were years of wasted energy.
She shrugged. “Well, I guess if you’re not interested—”
“Wait.” I took a deep breath and set the stack of books down. “I feel like I need coffee for this.”
I glanced at the clock. It was close enough to get away with an early lunch.
“Meet me outside in five minutes,” I told her.
She grinned wide and blinked slow like a cat. “There’s the smarty-pants I know.”
It took me exactly five minutes to get everything wrapped up before I could head to lunch. When I got outside, Lizzie was sitting in her violently red hatchback, tapping on the cracked steering wheel impatiently. I slid in through the open window on the passenger’s side—the door never had opened properly, so why put in the effort?
“So? You ready to hear?” Her eyes sparkled the way they always did when she was about to spill some gripping gossip.
“I meant what I said about coffee.”
“Ugh, fine.”
The coffee shop was close enough to walk to. Everything was, which was one reason why I hadn’t bothered to try and buy a car yet even though I’d gotten my license at fourteen. Rural laws and all. But Lizzie was determined to get her money’s worth out of the little red piece of junk, so we drove.
Only when I had my coffee in hand did I let her speak.
“Okay, so check this out,” she said. “Do you know why Kash never presented an alibi at the original trial?”
“I assumed it was because he was guilty,” I said, though, to be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought. My brother was dead, the love of my life was wrongfully accused of his murder. And then convicted of his murder. And then did all the things a guilty man would have done. Needless to say, I was a mess and there were a lot of other things I had on my mind.
Lizzie shook her head. “Nope. It was because he was at the scene of a different crime at the time and didn’t want to implicate himself. Stupid idea, really. Like selling crack is gonna get you more time than murder? Idiot.”
I frowned. It didn’t really make sense. “How do you know that?”
“Remember old Raff? The guy with the eyepatch who used to sleep at the bus station?”
“Yeah, I remember him. What happened to him?”
She brushed the question away swishing her hand to the side. “Don’t know, not relevant. Anyway, back then I was working at Spinner’s. Every night Raff would come by and I’d give him anything that we couldn’t keep overnight, like burgers and stuff that we had made but didn’t sell. The night that Hunter died, Raff was late. Super late, like I was about to throw the food away kind of late.”
“So?”
“So, I didn’t think anything of it until I heard what happened to Hunter. Then I started wondering, if, I dunno, one had to do with the other. Or maybe he saw something. I dunno. The next time he stopped by, I asked him why he was late that night. He put up a fight—you know how paranoid he was—but eventually he came out with it.”
She paused dramatically and I frowned at her. This was taking way too long and I didn’t want it to turn into one of those things where she stretched the story out over a course of days. Usually, that wouldn’t have been a problem. I was never really that invested in her gossip. But now, well, this gossip wasn’t just gossip, it was a chunk of my heart.
“Okay, okay. He told me he was late because there were a couple guys arguing over the price of a bag, and it came to blows. He liked to hang around fights because stuff would fall out of people’s pockets and they wouldn’t notice. He didn’t get anything that time, though.”
“What is the point of this story?”
“The point is that when Kash was arrested, his face was messed up like he’d been in a fight. The cops figured that he and Hunter must have fought. But I think it was the crackhead he was fighting with on the complete other side of town from where Hunter died.”
She smiled smugly and sipped her own coffee with triumphant flair. I waited, but she was finished talking.
“Are you serious? That’s all?”
“What do you mean, that’s all? That’s everything! Kash is obviously innocent.”
I shook my head in frustration. “It’s nothing, Lizzie! Kash was beat up. Hunter died. Some random hobo watched a fight. They found the murder weapon in Kash’s shed! Your theory is nothing. Thanks for wasting my time.”
I expected her to get huffy, but she was still smiling.
“What’s so funny?”
“You know, for an aspiring librarian, you’re really not good at details.”
“What are you talking about?”
She sighed like I was stupid. “Think about it. Six years ago, how many people were selling crack in Danton?”
I frowned. “I don’t know.”
She held up two fingers. “Hunter. And Kash. That’s it. Don’t you remember? Dayle Jenkins was trying to edge in on their territory, but they shut him down when he tried selling to the kids at the bus stop. They kicked his ass. Nobody else had the balls to try after that.”
I frowned and shook my head. “No, there had to be somebody else.”
“There wasn’t. Kash and Hunter had the whole town.”
“Okay but how do you know that Raff really saw what he thought he saw? Maybe it was just a couple people fighting over something else. Or maybe he was high off his ass.”
She laughed. “Raff knew a crack fight when he heard it. You think he was waiting around for loose change to fall out of people’s pockets? Dude was a fiend. And whether he was high or not, he was still itching to get his hands on some free drugs.”
I frowned, letting the facts—such as they were—roll around in my head.
Lizzie shrugged. “And hey, if that doesn’t convince you—this last appeal? They showed the camera footage from across the street. Time and date stamped. Kash’s face, clearly visible. They let him go with time served.”
My eyes widened as I slapped her shoulder. “Why didn’t you lead with that?! God damn it, Lizzie!”
She burst out laughing. “What kind of story is that? Oh, they found a video that exonerated him, hurr durr. What kind of amateur sleuth does that make me look like?”
“A competent one,” I said primly. Tension left my body in dizzying waves. Damn it. Six years of torment, cleared by a video of Kash being a criminal. It was surreal. I hung my head between my knees and groaned.
“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” she said. “It’s not like you told him to never speak to you again or anything.”
I gave her a miserable look and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Her wide eyes twinkled gleefully.
“Oh God, you did.”
“You don’t have to be so thrilled about it.”
“I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t. Hey, when’s your break over?”
I checked the time. “Two minutes ago.”
“Onward and outward!” She brought the shaky beast to life coughing and choking, but managed to get me back to the library in one piece.
Lizzie liked a good story better than anything, which made her a gold mine of information—but also made her difficult to trust implicitly. If a story wasn’t spicy enough for her liking, she had no qualms about adding a little zing. This story was a whole bowl of jalapeños, and I had fact-checking to do.
I poked around online as I worked, stopping between shelves and taking longer breaks between carts. At first all I could find was the same story the papers printed—that Kash got off on some unspecified technicality and had gotten away with murder. Court transcripts were locked—they said that the case was now considered an open investigation, and everything related to it was sealed tight.
Several hours later, after a frustratingly tiny bit of information, I locked up the library and texted Lizzie.
How did you know about the video?
I glared at my phone as I walked, willing her to answer me.
I was at the appeals, she replied. I was gonna use the case for my dissertation but then we all had to sign NDAs. Oops!
“Oops,” I muttered angrily. “She could have ‘oopsed’ a long time ago.”
Even thinking that made me feel a little guilty. Lizzie could have gotten in a lot of trouble for telling me that, assuming she really had signed an NDA. She must have, though. There was a reason she’d gotten into journalism—she never could keep her mouth shut. The NDA must have been very strongly worded to have kept her from spreading this news all over town the second she heard it.
Thank you. My lips are sealed, I promised.
If you wanna make me happy, seal your lips against Kash’s. Nobody that hot should be left unkissed, especially after a wrongful conviction!
Back off, I answered with a smile. I’m still mad at him.
Her only response was a row of kissy-face emoji. I rolled my eyes and stuck my phone in my pocket. I wasn’t convinced. And even if I was convinced, I wasn’t ready to talk to him. And even if I was, I’d already told him not to talk to me. And even if he ignored that, I wouldn’t know what to say.
I was so busy making excuses that I didn’t remember to take the long way around until it was too late. Against my better judgment, my eyes wandered to the motel as I passed—and immediately locked with Kash’s. He was standing in a second-story window and it looked like he was measuring it. His eyes burned into mine and time stood still. I felt my heart do at least five somersaults before thrashing against my chest, as though trying to get to Kash.
A blaring horn snatched my attention back to where I was. “Are you crossing or not?!”
“Shit,” I muttered and frowned, realizing I’d accidentally stepped into the street. “Sorry! Sorry.”
I backed up to the sidewalk and turned back toward home, walking as fast as I could without running. I didn’t look back in Kash’s direction, despite how much I really wanted to.
My defenses were down and I knew it.
Now, Kash knew it, too.
Chapter 5
The best part about working at the library was that I always had something new to read. On this day, I’d chosen a fantasy adventure book about dragons which, at first glance, didn’t seem to have any romantic overtones whatsoever. I was hoping for a land far away from here, a mystery, maybe some blood, anything that would carry my mind off into a faraway land. I brought the book to bed after delivering Dad’s nightly dozen of beer. The game was on and I’d barely gotten comfortable before he started shouting at the TV.
“Get it in there! Get it in there! What are you doing?! Oh, come on!”
My temple throbbed and I tried to tune him out. The stiff breeze blew ice cold over the waves of G’alut--
“Pass it, pass it! Damn it, who let this guy on the field?”
I groaned and grabbed my headphones. A little music, maybe some movie scores, and I could block him out and focus. There, that was better.
The stiff breeze blew ice cold over the waves of G’alut. Prince T’ryll watched the horizon with a—
“Woo! Did you see that? Yeah! Finally got some players out here!”
I buried my face in my pillow and swore. This was never going to work. Tension twisted my body and made my small room feel even more claustrophobic than it usually did. Giving up on my routine, I put the book aside and shoved my feet into my sneakers. I shook my head at it.
“Don’t even need a bookmark, do we? Sorry, Ivy Lee Smith. I’m sure it’s great.” I wasn’t sure—her being a new author to me and all—but I felt irrationally guilty for cracking open a book and not getting through the first chapter at least.
The swamp cooler rattled as I walked under it. It was leaking onto its supports again—I was sure that one of these days I’d meet my end under its bulk when it finally rotted the roof through. I eyed it warily and took a cartoonishly big step out of its path. God, I needed to get out of here. Out of this house. Out of this town. Out of this life.
Dad was up out of his chair, sloshing beer around while he gesticulated. The carpet was soaked with the stuff. It would have taken a thousand shampoos to get the smell out. Maybe not even then. The whole trailer needed to be thrown away, honestly. Burnt to the ground and shoveled beneath the earth. I thought about it on my darker days—but Mom never left the house anymore, and I wasn’t willing to kill her to get out of here.
I entered the room to find her sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through bills with a blank face. I don’t know why she never went paperless. Maybe there was something soothing about the routine, paper bills, paper balance book. She jotted a figure down and flipped to the next page, expression unchanged. I always wondered what went on in her head when she was doing that. She had never been the most expressive person in the world and after Hunter died, it got even worse.
She glanced up at me and offered me her weak little smile. “Where are you off to so late in the night?”
“Just gonna sit on the porch a while,” I said with a pointed glance at Dad, who had started shouting at the television again. “Maybe go for a walk.”
She nodded. “Be safe. Lots of coyotes out lately.”
There was something about the warning that made me look at her twice. She smiled at me benignly—but somehow I didn’t think she was talkin
g about canines.
“I’ll keep an eye out.”
The thin door didn’t do much more than muffle Dad’s hollering, but it was better than being inside. Cicadas buzzed and screamed in the woods and coyotes sang a grating harmony way off in the distance. They were miles away and moving south.
They’ll only hurt you if they’re starving and you’re alone.
Hunter’s words of wisdom floated through my head in his voice, so clear that I could almost feel him standing beside me. We used to sit out here and talk—just the two of us at first, then the three of us. God, we’d been inseparable back then.
My body moved through the memory, wandering over to the rickety porch swing. The paint had peeled down to almost nothing and the roof anchors were rusted, but it could still hold my weight. Probably couldn’t hold all of us at once anymore.
“Not like it needs to,” I said through a sigh. “Never again.”
The stars were bright tonight. The Milky Way swirled red and purple high above me, just the same as it always had. I wondered how many of those stars, like Hunter, were dead already. Gone way before their time.
Kicking my feet out, I drew memories around me until they draped over me the way Kash and Hunter’s arms used to. I was the smallest of our group, so I always got stuck in the middle. I used to hate that. It seemed unfair. It’s funny how some things grow on you, though. I’d have given anything to be squished between them just then, hips pinched, neck uncomfortably warm, just to feel that eternal security once more.
The coyote yips faded in the distance and Dad’s shouts devolved into snores. It was just me and the cicadas and the endless sky. No Hunter, no Kash, no comfort.
Then, suddenly, no cicadas either. The hairs on my arms stood up and I held my breath. They didn’t stop screaming for no reason, not at this time of year. My eyes strained out past the gentle splashes of light streaming from the windows, out into the black woods. My ears rang, desperately trying to fill the silence with anything.
When it came, it sounded deafening. A birdcall for a bird who never really existed, some crazy hybrid of mockingbird and quail, whistled out of the woods directly in front of me. There was only one person alive today who knew how to make that sound. I could feel his eyes on me but I still couldn’t see him.
