The Familiar Dark

by Amy Engel

  “Nah,” Jimmy Ray said, stood up and held out his hand. He hauled me to my feet. “I know as much as you do.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” I ducked my head to try and catch his eyes, his face averted from mine. Jimmy Ray who used eye contact as a kind of weapon, for seduction, for intimidation. He was a man who knew the power of his gaze. I knew it meant something that he wouldn’t look at me now.

  He turned away from me, limping a little from the knee to the groin earlier. Which, I admit, gave me a twinge of satisfaction. “You know what I always liked best about you?”

  I thought back to the compliments he’d given me over the years. “My legs?”

  He did look at me then, over his shoulder, eyes sliding from my hips to my bare ankles. “Always did love your legs. They still look damn good.” He smirked. “They’d look even better wrapped around my waist.”

  I was suddenly aware of my nakedness, how one quick yank would send my towel flying. A surge of excitement followed the thought, chased immediately by a flush of shame. What was wrong with me that a man like Jimmy Ray made my body react so easily, heat in my belly and wetness between my legs with only a few words? Especially when that same body knew the pain he could inflict? I took a step backward, away from him.

  “If not my legs, then what?” I tried to keep my voice brisk and businesslike, but I heard the huskiness in my tone. Jimmy Ray heard it, too, if the way his smirk had turned into a full-on grin was any indication.

  He threw me a wink to let me know I wasn’t getting away with anything, and then his expression turned serious. “I liked how smart you are. All the other girls I’ve dated”—he tapped his temple—“not much in the way of candlepower.”

  “I thought you liked it that way,” I said. “Less chance they’ll argue with you.”

  Jimmy Ray’s hand swiped through the air, swatting away my words. “Pay attention to what I’m saying. You’re smart, Eve. You’ve got stuff going on upstairs. It made you a pain in the ass to deal with a lot of the time, but you were never boring. I’ll give you that.”

  I thought Jimmy Ray’s attempt at a compliment was probably bullshit, had more than a sneaking suspicion that he’d called me a dumb-ass cunt a hundred times behind my back. I tightened my hands on the top of my towel. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it’s all right there.” He poked his temple again. “You can figure this out.”

  “What if I’m not as smart as you think?”

  “You are,” Jimmy Ray said. “But maybe you’re focusing on the wrong things.”

  “You mean Matt?”

  “I mean there’s only a few reasons people kill each other.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Sex, money, or pure rage.”

  I was getting frustrated now, unsure whether he actually knew anything or if he was screwing with me. “Which one was it, if you know so much?”

  “I’m not saying I know anything,” Jimmy Ray said. “I’m saying you may be going down the wrong path, is all.” Which sounded at least partly self-serving to me. Jimmy Ray wanted me out of his business and away from his compound. Matt was out of the picture, and now I needed to follow his lead.

  “Maybe you blew up Matt yourself to keep me from talking to him.”

  Jimmy Ray laughed. “Girl, you’ve been watching too many movies. I’m gonna go to all the trouble of setting up an explosion when I can walk up to the man and shoot him? A gun’s a lot quieter and doesn’t bring a bunch of cops down on my head.” He opened my front door. “Besides, what do I give a shit if Matt talks to you? I already told you I had nothing to do with your girl dying.” He paused in the half-open doorway. “From what I hear, there wasn’t any sex involved in the killings. And it doesn’t sound like rage, either. Not the way they were laid out all nice and neat. What’s that leave?” He looked at me over his shoulder as he closed the door, the pity in his eyes so completely foreign I wondered if even he knew it was there. “Follow the money, Eve. Follow the money.”

  NINETEEN

  Follow the money? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? We didn’t have any money. Not me, not Junie, not Cal or my mama, either. No one in my family had ever had two nickels to rub together. That left Izzy. Her family definitely had more money, but they weren’t anywhere close to loaded. Hell, somewhere else they’d probably barely be considered middle class. And I somehow couldn’t picture Izzy involved in some grand scheme involving loads of dough. She was twelve, for God’s sake. More interested in nail polish, and texting, and nursing inappropriate crushes on idiots like Matt. But maybe there was something I couldn’t see because I wasn’t close enough. Something hidden within a family I only knew from the outside edges.

  I’d managed to throw on some clothes and put my hair in a ponytail when Cal showed up, sweaty and smelling of smoke, his uniform torn at the sleeve and his shoes covered in ash. He wasn’t quite as furious as Jimmy Ray had been earlier, but he was close.

  “What the hell, Eve,” he said, pacing my living room floor. Every step left tiny black soot marks on the worn-out carpet. “What were you doing out there? You could have gotten beat to hell or killed! And that’s before Matt’s place blew all to shit.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving the dirty strands standing on end.

  “I already told you on the phone,” I said. “The guy messing around with Izzy. It was Matt.”

  “So what?” Cal yelled. “Since when is it your job to go out there half-cocked? That’s what the cops are for!”

  “Then why hadn’t you talked to him yet?” I yelled back. “Now he’s dead and it’s too goddamn late.”

  Cal stopped pacing and turned to face me where I was curled up in the corner the sofa. “What makes you think we haven’t talked to him?”

  That stopped me, what I was going to say next stumbling on the end of my tongue. “Why didn’t you say that when I called?”

  “Because you hung up on me and went to confront him on your own like a nutcase!”

  Cal and I hadn’t talked to each other like this in years. This was how we always used to interact when we were younger. Me, belligerent and impulsive and borderline self-destructive. And Cal constantly trying to undo the damage I’d done, trying to get me to see the error of my ways, frustration boiling over when I didn’t listen. But with Junie’s arrival our dynamic had shifted. Having a child made me vulnerable in a way I’d never felt before. Growing up, I hadn’t cared what happened to me. But Junie needed me. So I took Cal’s protection, his concerns, and cocooned both Junie and myself inside them like Bubble Wrap. I wondered if the other night, Cal drunk in the bar, slurring his words and speaking truths about our childhood, had knocked something loose between us. Grief spilling over and turning us back into the past versions of ourselves.

  “What did he say when you asked him about Izzy?”

  Cal sank down onto the couch next to me and threw his head back, closed his eyes. “Not much. He tried denying it at first, but we kept pressing him.”

  “You and Land?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Eventually he said they’d been flirting a little bit, but that it hadn’t progressed beyond the talking stage.”

  I shifted to look at him. “You believe that?”

  Cal opened his eyes. “No. But just because he was screwing around with her doesn’t mean he killed her.”

  “What did you think, though, when you talked to him?”

  Cal sighed. “Who the hell knows with a guy like that? He lied as easy as breathing. Pretty much every word out of his mouth was designed to cover his own ass.” He took a step closer to me. “We got the text messages off Izzy’s phone.”

  “What? When? What did they say?”

  “Slow down,” Cal said. “The only one that stood out came the day they died. Whoever it was texted her that morning. Told her to meet him at the park. Neither one of them mentioned Junie being there.” He gave a helpless
shrug. “I’m assuming it’s a he, for now.”

  “It was someone Izzy knew?” I asked. It should have been a relief. The line between a killer and his victims running straight through the Logans’ daughter and not mine. But I didn’t trust the feeling, my gut still churning, telling me Junie was a part of what happened, somehow.

  “Apparently.”

  “Did the text say anything about money?”

  Cal’s brow furrowed. “Money? Like blackmail? What do you mean?”

  I stood up, gathered a few dirty glasses from the coffee table. “I don’t know what I mean.” I walked toward the kitchen and set the glasses in the sink. “Someone mentioned maybe money was at the root of all this.” I concentrated on running some water, squirting a little dish soap.

  “Who is someone?” Cal called, and I regretted saying anything because as soon as Jimmy Ray’s name left my lips, all rational conversation was going to end. “Who, Evie?” Cal asked again, getting up and looming in the doorway to the kitchen. When I didn’t answer, Cal smacked a hand against the doorjamb. “It was fucking Jimmy Ray, wasn’t it? That piece of shit. When did you talk to him?”

  “He was here tonight, earlier.”

  All the bluster went out of Cal, and he stepped closer, put a gentle hand on my arm. “Did he hurt you?”

  I shrugged, looked away. “Not as much as he wanted to. I think I broke his nose.”

  A long low whistle from Cal. “Holy shit, Eve. Good for you.”

  I laughed, a short exhale. “Between the two of us, we’re giving Jimmy Ray’s face a whole new look.”

  Cal’s grin lasted only a moment before it dropped away and something more serious took its place. “You know he’s probably screwing with you, right? Winding you up?”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked, but it was a stupid question. Jimmy Ray loved playing with people, loved having the upper hand and watching everyone dance while he pulled the strings.

  “Because he can,” Cal said, exasperated. “Because it’s fun. Because he likes feeling powerful. Do you need me to go on?”

  I left the dirty dishes soaking in the sink and grabbed a towel from the counter to dry my hands. “You’re saying he’s totally off base, money had nothing to do with it?”

  “I’m not saying that. Up until now, we haven’t found that connection, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. But if it is, it would be a lucky guess on Jimmy Ray’s part. He doesn’t know shit about what happened, Evie. He’s trying to get inside your head.”

  What Cal was saying made perfect, logical sense. It was Jimmy Ray’s modus operandi from way back. But still, I couldn’t quite let the idea go. I kept thinking of Jimmy Ray’s face when he’d spoken to me, the swift flash of tenderness I almost hadn’t recognized because it was so unexpected. The light in his eyes that burned with something close to truth.

  * * *

  • • •

  Grief hadn’t put a damper on Jenny Logan’s green thumb. The flower pots lining her front steps were a riot of early spring colors: Pink, white, and yellow burst forth, tiny faces tipped to the sun. I wondered if looking at the flowers made her pain more bearable, hope sealing up some of the cracks in her heart. Personally, I wanted to rip the flowers out of the dirt and grind them to dust under my heels. But I figured that might get our conversation off on the wrong foot.

  If Jenny was surprised to find me on her front porch, she didn’t show it. She ushered me in with a gesturing hand and a promise of coffee. I saw her eyes flit to the pale purple bruises Jimmy Ray had left near my collarbone, but her good manners stopped her from asking any embarrassing questions. Or maybe she couldn’t bring herself to care.

  We settled at her small kitchen table, tucked next to a window that overlooked her backyard. It was wilder back there, weeds and crabgrass edging out her half-hearted attempts at control. I guess she only worried about the front yard, the place everyone could see. The whole house was shabbier than I would have expected. The rooms I’d passed were cramped and claustrophobic under too-low ceilings, the light from outside somehow failing to penetrate the dim interior. Maybe it had always been this way, or maybe the house was in mourning, too. There were still three chairs at the kitchen table, and I imagined Izzy’s empty seat howling at them during every meal.

  Jenny seemed content for the two of us to sip our coffee, pick at the edges of coffee cake slices she’d set out on a plate. She didn’t seem in any hurry to know why I was there. Made no attempt at small talk or pleasantries. I was beginning to realize that Jenny Logan had one face she showed the world—put-together, sweet, unfailingly polite—and another for behind closed doors. This private Jenny was less concerned with what people thought. I wondered what this Jenny would have done if she’d found out that Junie was Zach’s daughter.

  I set down my coffee mug, cleared my throat to catch her attention. “I’ve been thinking about motive,” I told her.

  “Motive?” She said the word like she’d never heard it before.

  “Yeah, there are only a handful of reasons why people commit murder.” I realized I was parroting Jimmy Ray and shut my mouth with a click of my jaw.

  “People commit murder because they’re evil,” Jenny said, pushing the plate of coffee cake away like it had offended her.

  “That’s what they are,” I agreed, “but that’s not why they do it. There’s a reason.” I paused. “Are you and Zach having money problems or anything?”

  Jenny cocked her head. She didn’t look angry, only confused. “No. We could always use more, but who couldn’t?” She ran her gaze around her kitchen, the old appliances, the out-of-date tile. “People forget Zach only works at the dealership. We don’t own it. And Zach’s got a lot of great qualities, but schmoozy salesman isn’t one of them. What’s money got to do with anything?”

  “Someone suggested to me that money might be at the root of this.”

  “You think someone killed them over money?” Jenny’s head wagged side to side in denial.

  “I don’t think anything. I’m just asking the question. For the record, my money problems are the same as they’ve always been. Not enough of it. But I don’t owe anyone, other than occasionally the electric company.” I gave a weak smile that Jenny didn’t return.

  “What about your mother?” she asked after a moment.

  My hand froze, the piece of coffee cake I was worrying slipping between my fingers. “What about her?”

  Jenny shifted in her chair, but she kept her eyes on me, not looking away the way most people did when my mama was the subject of conversation. “Come on, Eve,” she said. “Everyone in town knows about your mama. The crowd she runs with. The kind of stuff she’s mixed up in. If this was over money, it stands to reason that maybe it involves her.”

  “She didn’t even know Junie,” I shot back. “Someone hurting Junie wouldn’t matter to my mama.”

  Jenny stopped fidgeting, hand grasping hard around her coffee mug. “We both know that’s not true. There’s two basic facts about your mama that are never in dispute: She runs with a rough crowd, and you don’t mess with her family. Any of her family. If someone wanted to teach her a lesson, I imagine that’s where they’d start.”

  My heart thundered in my chest. I wanted to lash out with self-righteousness, scoff at her claims and force an apology. But not a single false word had left her lips. Hadn’t I known, deep down, that this was always going to come back to me, to my family? I’d tried to pretend like Izzy might be the key, but I knew she wasn’t. It was Junie. It was me.

  But I couldn’t roll over and take it. Because admitting it out loud was a step too far. It was one thing for me to know; it was another to lay myself bare to Jenny Logan. “What about Izzy and the older guy she was seeing?” I heard myself ask, hating how easily the question left my mouth. Jenny’s head snapped back like I’d slapped her, her eyes wide with surprise. But not shock. She’d k
nown about Izzy, I realized, but not that I was in on the secret, too. “When did you find out?” I asked.

  “When Land told me. A few days ago.” She shook her head. “Not before that.”

  “You’d never seen her with Matt?”

  “No. I would have put a stop to it if I’d known.” Spoken like a woman who couldn’t imagine a defiant, sneaky daughter. Who knew nothing of the myriad ways girls will find to circumvent their parents’ rules: broken window screens and bedsheet ladders, secret notes and messages passed from friends, yes ma’ams followed just as quickly by a rolled eye and a hidden smirk.

  “I would have liked to hear what Matt had to say about it. See his face while I asked him some questions.”

  Jenny’s mouth twisted, her eyes going distant and hard. “Yeah, well, he’s dead. He won’t be saying much of anything anymore.”

  I stared at her across the table, and she stared back. She didn’t look like polished, polite Jenny Logan anymore. She looked like a mother whose daughter had been wronged—the scariest creature in the world. After the murders, I’d made the easy assumption that her tears meant weakness, but I was learning that nothing about Jenny Logan was weak. I heard again the eerie, whooshing silence the moment before Matt’s trailer exploded. Heat and light and sound slamming in to me, bowling me over like a runaway truck. Did Jenny Logan have it in her to light that match, flip that switch? Looking at her face right now, I didn’t doubt it for a second. For the first time, I felt a kinship with her. Suffering the same loss hadn’t bonded us, but maybe fury would.

  I opened my mouth to say something, some acknowledgment of what I read in her eyes, but as I began to speak, her face cleared, rearranging itself back into bland, agreeable Jenny Logan. “There you are,” she said, looking at something over my shoulder. “Coffee?”