When Violet turned back to Joel, he knew he needed to tread delicately.
“Look,” Joel said, casual and calm, “I don’t envy you right now.” He exhaled and made sure she could see he was sincere, that he was one of the good guys, that he could help her. And he was and he could. “I really don’t. But I can see you’re scared.”
Violet looked down, winced, and started to sniffle again. “Well,” she started and Joel didn’t move. He maintained eye contact to the top of her head until she lifted it and looked at him. “Is everything I tell you a secret?” she asked.
Joel frowned. So, it always came down to this. “No,” he answered with a sad headshake. “It isn’t.”
“Oh,” Violet said with disappointment and he could see that she wanted to book it out of his office in a hurry.
“Violet,” he continued, “it’s like this. If you’re being hurt by someone, or hurting someone, or going to hurt yourself…I have to tell someone. Anything that you might need to eventually tell the police? No. I can’t keep those secrets.”
“It’s fine, Mr. Rusk. I get it,” Violet said and she was annoyed. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a baby.” She shut her eyes tight and her knee began to jump up and down with nerves. Her hand in a fist bounced on her leg and she didn’t stop as she said, “Look, I think I know why Claire died and I can’t,” she stopped, gathered composure, “stop thinking that the same people are going to come after me. Because…God. Let’s just say, if I’m right, which I don’t know, then she’s not the only one…it’s like…other people could die…I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t. Look, it’s just a stupid fear. I don’t know anything. But,” she took a shaky breath and looked straight at him, “what if I’m right?”
She glanced behind her and back at him as if the enemy lurked inside Joel’s office. And
he bet, based on the striking fear in her eyes and the anxiety coursing through her body, that she was right.
Unlike some of the girls who sat and sobbed about Claire, none of them trembled with boiling terror at the thought of what Claire’s death meant to them other than a chance to get out of class to have a counseling session.
No, Violet knew something and she thought she could face the same demise.
Shit. Joel thought with rising stress. He wondered the best route to go and almost without consulting himself, he sped ahead, taking a chance, a gamble. “Violet, if you’re right…then we need to protect you from whoever harmed Claire. If your safety is in jeopardy, then—”
Violet shook her head and wiped the corners of her eyes, groaning and crying at once. “You don’t get it. I’m not in danger from the same person.” She turned, pleading, and added in a whisper, “Just in the same reason.”
Joel remained a picture of nurture and calm, but he didn’t understand what she meant or where she was going. He nodded and said, “Okay. Okay. Look, I don’t know if you can help me out…but maybe we can start with a few questions. If you can answer, answer. Maybe I can piece things together myself and give you some answers…to help…”
He didn’t know how he could help without knowing what he was dealing with. A feud? A prank gone wrong? She was involved with someone older? Something in her family? But of all the things that he felt like he wished he could ask, he started with, “Hey, why don’t we start with Alex Gamarra.”
“Start with him how?” Violet asked and her voice rose. She shifted back in her seat, suddenly distressed. “Why? How? That wasn’t me.”
“Okay, that name alarms you.” Joel leaned back, looked down at her a bit and waited for her to talk in the prolonged silence. She didn’t. He added, “I’m the counselor in charge of Alex’s expulsion, which we shouldn’t talk about, but…” it was public knowledge and he could use the information to build trust, “I wanted you to know that’s how I know to mention his name…”
She instantly calmed.
Her secret still intact.
Joel watched with both energy to find out what Violet knew and sadness for what the girl was carrying with her.
“Yeah, Alex,” Violet said. “Start with him threatening Claire? I don’t know anything about that.” She dismissed it, but her chin trembled. She knew.
“He mentions you in the letter,” Joel says. He knew she was well aware of what it said in the letter—it went around the school’s social networks like lit dynamite. “And I know you’ve read it.”
“Everyone’s read it. I don’t know what Alex was talking about,” she said with more confidence, increased dedication to the lie. It was like watching the walls being built—whatever she wanted to share with him was gone and she was shutting him out.
“Violet—” he said.
“Alex was angry that Claire wouldn’t date him. That’s all.”
“He’d liked her?”
“Yeah, I mean, yes. No. It’s complicated.”
“She liked him?”
Violet scoffed. “Um, no.”
“Seems complicated. I thought Alex was a good kid—”
“Yeah, well, he brought a loaded gun to school to kill my friend, and wrote a letter about it, so I think the facts match up.” She was entirely gone. He sighed and wondered where he’d gone wrong; where he’d fucked up and shut himself out. “That’s what happened and so. Yup.”
And so he had nothing to lose.
“Then do the facts match up about what he said about you?”
Her eyes slid over to him and the color drained from Violet’s face.
“I told you that I don’t know anything about what he said in the letter. He wrote it and he was crazy…that doesn’t mean what he said in it was true.”
“But it was true that he wanted to kill Claire?”
Violet knew she was cornered and she made a move for her bag, but Joel scooted his chair six inches closer and leaned down on his elbows. Before she could leave, he said, “You came in here because you were scared and I said I can help you and I can. But you have to tell me how.”
“I was wrong,” she said standing. “You can’t help. I’m sorry. I can’t—”
Carla knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response. She frowned at the crying Violet and extended her arms. “Oh, Violet, sweetie. Come here, I saw you and just had to come give you a hug. How are you holding up kiddo?” Their hug lingered and Carla shot Joel a look that meant, “I’ve got this.”
“Not well,” Violet said and wiped her nose on her hand.
“Okay. I have a chocolate bar and my office is nicer than Mr. Rusk’s anyway. Let’s chat before we get you back to class.”
Violet, uneasily, agreed.
Ten minutes later Carla was back with a chocolate bar for Joel, too. He accepted and put it in his desk—he thought it was brilliant of his co-worker to lure that girl into her office with the bribe of candy like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. He should’ve thought of that. He wrote a note to himself to buy a large bag of candy and keep it in his drawer for crying kids.
“You look smug. Cheap trick, candy. What did the sugar buy you?” he asked.
“That’s sexist and rude,” she said and rolled her eyes playfully. “Maybe I’m older than you and am better at the job?” she winked, but he felt appropriately reprimanded.
“Okay, okay,” he conceded. “She talked to you?”
“Yes, because I’m not a handsome counselor I have a crush on…I’m some mom type who fucking gets it.”
“I see,” Joel said. He leaned back in his chair, the sea mural at his back. A giant clownfish by his head. “You’ve solved the murder? Hooray!”
Carla shrugged and pointed a finger at him. “Is that what you were trying to do? Jesus, no. I was trying to listen to a teenage girl. I really am better at my job. Settle down, no, I have something you can take back to Alex as bait. Maybe something to get him to open up. If that’s what you’re interested in.”
“That’s a lame ass idea, Carla,” he said.
And he pondered it, not saying no.
“You’re hot for that mom. It’s not like you don’t want more time over at that house. Look, look, stop looking all fidgety and stern. She alluded to the idea that she and Claire were into the same types of activities that might be dangerous—”
“Prostitution,” Joel blurted.
“Yes, thank you, that would qualify…are you going to listen?”
His shoulders slumped and he held his mouth tight. “Go.”
“Not illegal, she said, she didn’t think…just pranks.”
“Yeah…she told me that, too…some pranks on some freshmen boys…Shit.”
“Yeah. You see where this is going?”
Joel rubbed his forehead and exhaled through his nose in a big burst of defeat. “I can imagine a million different ways this goes down and they are all bad.”
“She didn’t let me get that far…but far enough. Claire and Violet and God knows who else were pranking freshmen boys.”
“A great age to fuck with a kid,” Joel mumbled. “Okay. I can take that back to Alex.”
“I’ll mention it to Officer Wilde,” Carla said off-handedly and Joel put up a hand and made a face. She said, “What? Don’t?”
“Let me talk to Alex first. Please,” he asked and he knew she didn’t approve.
“Sure, but I’m giving you twenty-four hours because I love my own kids and I’m not going down for an obstruction of justice charge when I’m seven years away from collecting my state retirement.”
“Come on,” he said and rolled his eyes, but she was dead serious.
“You know we can’t sit on that. Don’t let whatever you’ve got going with that family cloud your morals here. It could be Alex or it could be any other freshman boy…”
“Narrowing it down to a cool two-hundred and fifty.”
“All of them very murderous, I’m sure,” she replied and clapped her hands. “Twenty-four hours and then I’m going to the police to make sure they knew about the pranking.”
“Deal,” Joel said and stuck out his hand for Carla to shake. “We sound like a Law and Order episode. Fast-talking at work about murder.” She ignored him and he threw up his arms. Holly would’ve liked the reference. Carla waved goodbye and mimed ‘twenty-four-hours’ outside his glass window before she disappeared into her own office.
Chapter Thirteen
He took her breath away standing on the porch with flowers and a bottle of wine.
“I’d have done something cool like played music or…wait, God, is your mother-in-law still here?” he looked inside and stood up straight, ready to bolt.
“No, she’s long gone. Come inside,” Holly said and invited her tall, gorgeous, flower-bringing (future boyfriend? What did she call him?) human into her house. The muscle memory of them together overpowered her and she touched him gently on the forearm and kissed him in the doorway before shutting the door.
They stood in the foyer. She knew it was clear to him that he’d walked into a type of war zone. The house was frigid, empty, and Holly knew was tiny and small in the middle of the chaos.
Upstairs Alex blared music.
It had become a violent war of sound.
She’d taken his phone and headphones as a punishment for him refusing to eat, so he’d unearthed an old speaker system and was going through a collection of his father’s abandoned CDs. The child seemed to be mindlessly blaring albums to annoy her. He was currently running through a two-hour Metallica phase. But yesterday, he went through all the Beatles albums in order. Holly knew she was grasping at parenting techniques that didn’t make sense, but she was beyond trying to make Alex’s situation make sense. It didn’t. Not his silence, not his involvement. Nothing.
“This is a surprise,” Holly said kindly, softly.
“Well, I hated having to rush out…”
“I’m so sorry about that,” Holly blushed. “I’m too old for that kind of bullshit. Or I feel like I am and then life keeps pushing things my way.” She laughed, tried to play down the growing distress. Joel was going to bolt the moment he realized how deep her baggage ran, that’s what ran through her brain. “Here let me get these in some water,” she said as she took the flowers and led him back to the kitchen. She floated around and grabbed a vase and shortened the stems and arranged the roses and daisies in a pleasing array. Fresh flowers were a luxury Holly never afforded herself. Joel made himself at home at the island, resting his elbows, watching her.
“How is he?” Joel asked and he pointed upstairs.
“Oh, I see,” she said and pointed to the wine with her pinky. “That’s for me while you have a session. I’m sorry for thinking the house call was just for me.”
“I’m happy to talk to him, but…I wouldn’t hope for much from me at this point.”
She nodded, understanding. “Right, but he’s a fourteen-year-old boy. He’s a disaster. It has nothing to do with whether or not we’re…seeing each other. Look. He’s not talking. Not to me. Not to anyone.”
“Then I won’t go up,” he said. “That’s fine. Any other news?”
“About the school stuff?” she said no and went to open the wine. He put a hand out and stopped her.
“A girl came and saw me today and we talked. She was a friend of Claire’s and I think that Alex might have been the victim of a prank.”
Holly froze and turned her face up to look at Joel. She exhaled slowly and took her hand off the bottle.
“A prank? Like what?”
“I don’t know, but if you want my guess?” She nodded and he continued. “My guess would be…Claire made Alex feel like she liked him and when he acted on it, he was publicly shamed. Or something like that. Something to make the eighth-grade boys feel all cocky before cutting them down.”
“That’s horrible,” Holly said in a near-whisper and she wanted to cry. All the ache of her own high school world tumbled back into a visceral memory of torment and confusion. Part of the reason she fell so hard for Francisco was because he was the first person to treat her like an adult, like someone beautiful and fun and capable of choosing things for herself. She was bossy at school because she rarely got to have any agency in her own life outside of school.
Except her life with him had been a lie and he didn’t really let her choose him—once Alex was growing inside of her, she belonged to Francisco forever.
She never regretted trying to grow up too fast. A baby gave her purpose none of her other friends had. She was twenty-two when she started her time at dispatch, and by then she’d already figured out the world was deep and dark and cruel.
Surround yourself with love and light, she thought, because everything outside of your bubble is a hellscape.
“It is horrible,” Joel agreed. “Look,” he looked down, “I think I can reach him.”
“Get him to talk and you’ll have my never-ending gratitude,” Holly sighed.
“I’ll do it for less,” he said.
Holly felt the flirting tone seeping through the tension. She relished it.
“Oh yeah? Name your price. On top of the twenty-five an hour, right?”
“You offered up never-ending gratitude which is lovely, but I was thinking of a night. With you.”
“A date.”
“A nice, scheduled, planned, real date. Outside in the real world. No family.”
“That’s what you want? If you can pull my son out of his self-imposed mental exile and get to the bottom of this bullshit…you want a night with me.”
“Yes.”
“If you must pull my arm,” Holly said with a playful smile. “I suppose I could do that.”
Without another word, Joel blew her a kiss and walked off toward Alex’s room, again. The words of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters played him upstairs and Holly finished opening the wine and poured herself a large glass to drink solo. The footsteps receded into the music and she closed her eyes and realized that last time she’d pushed Joel upstairs, forced him to play the role she couldn’t, and now he was going on his own—for her.
&nb
sp; No one had ever shown Alex or her that single amount of love.
Alex was an accessory to his father and grandmother—someone to shuttle out and take pictures of, posing happy moments, and ignoring the fact that he was a human being who required real time—not purchased time—and real love, not love for appearance sake.
He was a firstborn son and he had significance in the Gamarra house, but Holly was tired of doing all the hard work and missing out on the fun and the uninhibited acts of giving. She bit her tongue out of deference to her son, who would figure it out eventually on his own that they came in like whirlwinds.
She had never left.
There she was enduring Metallica.
She wanted a medal.
He’d been up there twenty, maybe thirty, minutes.
Holly was about to tiptoe and listen at the door, maybe knock and offer a snack or an ice-cream run; something about the interaction felt domestic and warm. Just having Joel in their house made it feel fuller, more alive. She hated to think of how much better it felt having him around because the implication was that she’d been wrong to deny herself a romance until now.
Or, she wondered with embarrassed honesty: maybe she was waiting for him. Maybe it was Joel all along and it wasn’t until now, this year, this time they could find each other again. Was it fate?
When her foot hit the top landing, she heard the knock on the front door. It wasn’t a timid knock of a neighbor or solicitor, someone trying to ascertain if someone is home, but rather a full and large pounding that rocked through the house.
Without hesitation, she turned back around, rushed down the steps, and opened the door before the person could knock again. If Joel and Alex connected, she didn’t want to interrupt that.
It was the police.
Two officers. Both female. She breathed a short sigh of relief and asked, “Hello. What can I help you with?”
“Hello, Ms. Gamarra, we’re from the Portland Police Department.”
Instantly, Holly’s arm hair stood on end and her hackles raised. It was expected, of course it was expected, but somehow this felt different. The women’s smiles were nonexistent and they stared at her with such anger and authority Holly knew right away they were not there to help her.
Dispatched Confessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 2) Page 14
