by Tess Sharpe
“I’m fine.” I wipe the sweat off my forehead, swallowing against the constant nausea that’s taken over since yesterday. God, withdrawal sucks.
Macy gets up and shoves a trash can in my hand. “If you’re going to throw up, use this.”
Her face softens, a ripple in that bad-cop facade she wears so well. She reaches over, grasping my free hand in hers, and holds on tight enough that I can’t tug away. “I won’t give up on you, Sophie. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, I’m here. I won’t lose you. Not to this. I will get you clean. Even if you end up hating me for it.”
“Great,” I say bitterly. “Lucky me.”
5
NOW (JUNE)
Harper’s Bluff is nestled in Northern California’s side of the Siskiyou mountain range, a tiny town carved out of the wilderness, sheltered by the piney mountains, surrounded by oak woodland for miles around, with a lake that stretches out into what you trick yourself into thinking is infinity. We’ve got a population just tipping twenty thousand, more churches than grocery stores, American flags flying from most of the houses, and REAL MEN LOVE JESUS bumper stickers on every other truck on the road. It’s not idyllic, but it’s comfortable.
I thought I was ready to come back, but the second we pass the WELCOME TO HARPER’S BLUFF sign, I wish I could tell Macy to hit the brakes. Beg her to take me back to Oregon with her.
How can I be here without Mina?
I bite my tongue. I have to do this for her. It’s the only thing I can do. I stare out the window as we pass by my high school. I wonder if they decorated Mina’s locker, if it’d been festooned with flowers and candles, notes tucked into corners, never to be read. I wonder if her grave’s the same, teddy bears and pictures of her, beaming up at a sky she’ll never see again. I hadn’t even gone to her funeral—couldn’t bear to watch them put her in the ground.
As we’re turning onto my street, Macy gets a call. Maneuvering the car into the driveway, she tucks the phone under her chin. “Where?” She listens for a second. “How long ago?” She shuts the car off, eyeing me. “Okay, I can be there in thirty.”
“Someone jump their bail?” I ask after she hangs up. Macy’s a bounty hunter, though she prefers being called a bail recovery agent.
“Sex offender in Corning.” She frowns at the empty driveway. “I’d hoped your mom would be here by now.”
“It’s okay. I am capable of being alone in my own house.”
“No, you shouldn’t be by yourself right now.”
“Go catch the bad guy.” I lean over and kiss her on the cheek. “I promise I’ll be fine. I’ll even call as soon as Mom gets home, if it’ll make you feel better.”
Macy taps her fingers against the steering wheel. She’s itching to get going, to chase down that guy and put him in jail where he belongs.
I know that feeling, that drive for justice. All the women in my family have it. Macy’s is wrapped up in the chase, in hard and fast and brutal judgment, and Mom’s is wrapped up in rules and laws and juries, the courtroom her chosen battlefield.
Mine is wrapped up in Mina, magnified by her, defined by her, existing because of her.
“Seriously, Aunt Macy. I’m seventeen, I’m clean, and I can spend some time by myself.”
She shoots me a calculating look. Then she reaches over and flips open the glove compartment. “Take this,” she says, pressing a container the size of a water bottle into my hand. There’s a white pulley at the top of it and a label with big red letters that say BEAR REPELLENT.
“You’re giving me bear spray? Seriously?”
“It’s got way better range and packs more of a punch than that pepper spray key chain stuff they sell at the drugstore in the cute pink holders, and it’s even better than a Taser,” Macy says. “Too many things can go wrong there—clothes can get in the way, the prongs don’t fully eject, some big guys don’t go down from the current. Spray them in the face with this? They’ll go down.” She takes the canister out of my hands and points to the pulley. “Press the button at the top, move it right to unlock the mechanism. Aim and pull the trigger. Don’t ever drop the can—you may need to use it again. Spray and then run. Even if your attacker’s incapacitated, if he’s got a gun or a knife or any weapon, even blind, he can do some damage. Spray, run, and don’t let go of your only weapon. You got that?”
“You’re actually encouraging me to use this?”
“If someone’s coming at you? Absolutely,” Macy says, and her voice is so serious, it sends prickles down my back. “Whoever killed Mina is still out there. You are the only living witness. And I’m pretty sure you’re about to stir up some serious shit, so be careful.”
“You’re not going to stop me?” Until I say it out loud, I realize that I’ve been waiting for her to.
Macy’s quiet for a moment. She looks me up and down, her blue eyes assessing me like she might a perp. “Could I?” she asks baldly.
My hand tightens around the canister. I shake my head.
“That’s what I thought.” Macy tries not to smile, but I catch it before she slips back into seriousness. “Do you remember what I told you the night we decided you were ready to come back home?”
“You said I was capable of making my own decisions.”
“You’re not a kid anymore, Sophie. You’ve been through too much. And though you’ve made some pretty bad choices, you’ve made some decent ones, too. You got clean—and you stayed clean. I believe that. I believe you. And it would probably be smart to tell you to move on, that letting go of Mina is the right thing to do. But I see it in you, babe, how it’s gonna eat you up if you don’t do something. If you don’t try. Just—” Her phone rings again. “Dammit,” she mutters.
I take advantage of her distraction. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Go to Corning.” I unbuckle my seat belt and grab my bag. “Kick the perv in the balls for me.”
Macy smiles. “That’s my girl.”
Our house hasn’t changed. I don’t know why I thought it’d look different. Maybe because everything else is. But the tasteful leather couches and the cherrywood table between them are still in the living room, the coffee machine in the kitchen half-full, my father’s empty mug sitting next to the sink. Just like any other day.
I go upstairs to my room. My bed’s freshly made, and I run my fingers over the red sheets. They’re crinkled at the edges, which means Mom put them on herself instead of having the once-a-week housekeeper do it.
Thinking about her struggling with them in her heels and pencil skirt, trying to make it nice for me, makes my eyes sting. I clear my throat, blinking fast, and dump the contents of my bag onto the bed before going to take a shower.
I let the water stream over my head for a long time. I need to wash the smell of rehab—lemon air freshener and cheap polyester—off of me.
For three months, I’ve been stuck, stagnant and waiting, behind white walls and therapy sessions while Mina’s killer walks. It hits me all at once that I’m finally free, and I jam the faucets shut. I can’t stand to be inside for another second. I get dressed, leave a note on the kitchen table, and lock the door behind me. The canister of bear spray is safe in my bag.
Macy was right—I’m about to stir up some serious shit. I have no idea why anyone would kill Mina. Which means I have to be prepared for anything. For anyone.
It’s getting late. But he’ll still be at the park.
The good thing about growing up in a small town is that everyone knows everyone. And if you’ve got a routine, you’re usually easy to find.
I walk to the park and get there as the guys playing soccer are finishing up their casual game, shirts versus skins. The sun’s sinking, that dusky time where dark and light are balanced almost artificially, like an old movie, saturated with hazy color. I watch from across the street and wait until a massive, shaggy-h
aired blond guy in a dingy white soccer jersey and baggy shorts breaks away from the group, heading toward the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind him.
It’s perfect: isolated, with nowhere for him to run. So I seize the moment.
I want to slam into the bathroom, scare the shit out of him, grind his cheek against the dirty tile with my foot until he admits the truth.
Instead, I slip in quietly and lock the door behind me once I’m sure it’s just him in here.
The toilet flushes, and my stomach leaps, part anger, part fear.
He doesn’t see me at first, but halfway to the sink he catches sight of me in the mirror.
“Shit.” He spins around.
“Hi, Kyle.”
“I thought you were in rehab.”
“They let me out.” I step forward, and when he moves away, a sweet feeling rushes through me. Kyle’s huge, thick-necked and solid—more suited for football than soccer—and I like that he’s a little scared of me, even if he’s just afraid that the junkie will do something crazy.
I take another step. This time he manages not to retreat.
But he wants to. I can see the fear in that frat-boy-to-be face.
Fear means guilt.
I pull the bear spray from my purse, unlocking it and raising it to his eye level as I step forward. “You remember that time Adam’s brother accidentally got him in the face with bear spray? We were, what, freshmen? Maybe it was even eighth grade.…Anyway, it’s one of his favorite drinking stories. To quote Adam: ‘That shit stings like a fucker.’”
I tap my finger on the trigger. Kyle tenses.
“When I was in rehab, I had a lot of time to think,” I say. “That’s pretty much all you get to do: think about your mistakes and your problems and how to solve them. But in all that time, I never came up with the right answers to my questions.
“Maybe you can help me, Kyle. Why don’t we start with why you lied to the police about the night Mina died?”
6
FOUR MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)
The day after Mina is murdered, my dad drives me home from the hospital. We’re silent the whole way. I want to rest my forehead against the window to let the solidity ground me. But when I lean my temple on the glass, it presses against the arc of stitches. I wince and look to my right.
It’s sunny out. A crisp February day, snow still capping the mountains. There are kids playing in the park as we pass it. It seems strange, life going on now, after everything.
Dad opens the car door for me after we pull into the driveway, but when we get into the house, I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs. He looks at me, concern in his face.
“Do you need help, honey?”
I shake my head. “I’m gonna shower.”
“Remember, the detective should be here in about an hour. Do you think you’ll be ready to talk then?”
They’d sedated me at the hospital. I’d been too out of it to answer questions when the police had come by.
The idea of talking about it makes me want to scream, but I say, “I’ll be ready,” before I labor up the stairs. I almost wish I hadn’t tossed my cane when I was fifteen, because right now I could use it.
I turn the water on and undress slowly in the bathroom, peeling off my sweats and henley.
That’s when I see it: a smear of red-turned-brown on my knee.
Mina’s blood.
I press my fingers against the spot, my nails digging into my skin until beads of fresh, bright red appear. My fingers are stained with it, and it makes my chest go tight, tight, tight.
Five months. Three weeks. One day. Ten hours.
I breathe in. The air’s steamy from the shower, hot, almost sticky down my throat.
I toe off the sneakers Dad had brought me to wear home. My feet are still dirty. I’d been wearing sandals last night. Along with everything else I had on, they’re probably sitting in a bag somewhere, to be tested for evidence.
All they’ll find is her blood. My blood. Our blood.
My nails dig deeper into my knee. I take a breath, then another.
On the third, I step into the shower.
I let the water wash away the last of her.
When I get out of the shower, I find my mother ransacking my room.
“Are there more?” she demands. There’s mascara running down her face, eyes flecked with red as she rips the sheets off my bed and flips up the mattress.
I stand there wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping down my shoulders, stunned.
“What are you doing?”
“Drugs, Sophie. Are there more?” She rips the cases off the pillows, unzips them, and pokes her hand inside, clawing through the fluff.
“There aren’t any drugs in here.” I’m reeling from the anger that throbs off her like heat.
Mom grabs my jewelry box off my dresser, shaking it upside down. Bracelets and necklaces tumble out, fall in a heap on the ground. She yanks my dresser drawers with enough force to pull them clean out and dumps their contents on the bed.
As she scrabbles through shirts and underwear, tears leak from the corners of her eyes, smearing more black down her face.
Mom is not an emotional person. She’s a lawyer down to her bones. She likes control. Rules. The chaos she’s rained down on my room is so out of character that I just stand there, my mouth open.
“Mom, I’m not doing any drugs.” It’s my only defense: the truth. I have nothing else.
“You’re lying. Why are you still lying to me?” More tears course down her face as she throws open the closet doors. “Detective James was just downstairs. He told me they found OxyContin in your jacket pocket.”
“What? No. No!” Shock penetrates through the numbness that’s taken over me. My eyes widen as I realize that she believes him…as I realize what this means.
“The police talked to Kyle Miller the morning. Kyle says Mina told him that you two were going out to Booker’s Point to score.”
“No!” I’m on a loop, the only word I can get out. “Kyle’s lying! Mina was barely even talking to Kyle. She wouldn’t even pick up her phone when he called!”
Mom looks up at me from the closet, and there’s shame mingling with the smeared mascara and tears in her eyes.
“They found the pills, Sophie,” she says. “You left them in your jacket at the crime scene. And we all know they weren’t Mina’s. I can’t believe this. You’re not even home a month, and you’ve already relapsed. Which means everything Macy did…” She gestures wildly with one of my shoes and shakes her head. “I should have sent you to rehab. I should never have let you go to Macy. You need professional help. That’s my fault, and I’m going to have to live with that.”
“No, Mom. We weren’t out there to score, I swear. Mina was meeting someone about a story she was doing for the newspaper. I’m not on drugs! I haven’t taken or bought anything. I’m clean! My tests at the hospital were clean! I’ve got five and a half months!”
“Stop playing games, Sophie. Your best friend is dead! She’s dead! And it could’ve been you!” She throws the shoe across the room. It thumps against the far wall and scares me so badly, my knees buckle. I crash to the floor, hands over my head, my throat choked with fear.
“Oh God, sweetie. No, no, I’m sorry.” My mother’s face is a study in remorse, and she’s down on the ground with me, cupping my chin in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. She’s not just apologizing for throwing the shoe.
I struggle to breathe with her so close. I can’t stand the contact. I push her away, scooting until my back’s pressed against the wall. She stays where she is, crouched next to my dresser, staring at me, horrified.
“Sophie, please,” she says. “Tell me the truth. It’ll be okay. As long as you tell me. I need to know, so I can figur
e out how to keep you out of trouble. It’ll make you feel better, sweetheart.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Yes, you are,” she says, the ice creeping back into her voice. She draws herself up, standing straight over me. “I won’t let you kill yourself. You’re going to stay clean, even if I have to lock you up.”
She shreds that final thread of naiveté I have. It’s in pieces on the floor, with the rest of my life. My mother tears apart whatever’s left, determined to find the lies, the pills—anything to prove Kyle and the detective right.
She doesn’t find anything. There’s nothing to find.
But it doesn’t matter. Kyle’s words, those pills shoved into my jacket, they’re enough to convince anyone. Even her. Especially her.
Two weeks later, she sends me to Seaside.
7
NOW (JUNE)
“Seriously, Sophie?” Kyle folds his arms across his massive chest, looking from the bear spray to the door and back again. “You’ve lost it. Put that down; you’re gonna hurt yourself. The ventilation in here sucks.”
He’s probably right. But I keep the can aimed right at him. “You lied to the cops about why Mina and I were at the Point. Innocent people who want their girlfriend’s killer caught don’t do that.”
He gapes at me. “You think I had something to do with it? Are you kidding me? I loved her.” His voice quavers. “Mina’s gone, and it’s your fault. If you weren’t such a junkie, she’d still be alive.”
My fingers tighten around the can. “If you cared about her so much, tell me why you lied.”
Someone bangs on the bathroom door. I flinch, dropping the can. It rolls across the tile floor and Kyle takes advantage of the distraction, jumping for the exit.
“I won’t stop,” I warn him as he fumbles with the lock.
“Screw you, Soph. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He slams the door shut behind him. I can hear muffled voices on the outside, snatches of a conversation that starts with “Don’t go in there, man” before Kyle’s voice fades.
