by Ivy Smoak
I could feel the stress oozing off of her. The way she was behaving was starting to wear off on me, stressing me out too. “You know what? How about you stay here and relax this morning. I’ll take Zeke to school on the way to work.” I’d offered the other day, but that was before we’d slept together. Surely she trusted me enough now.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I can even pick up another lizard before I come back if you’d like.”
She shook her head. “No, I know that’s ridiculous.”
I didn’t say anything. There were a lot of ridiculous sets of three things in her house, but it didn’t feel like a good time to point it out.
“Were you going to show Damien the pictures of Joel?” she asked. “I want him to believe me too.”
“Yeah, I can show him.”
She removed her hand from beneath mine.
Last night had been great. This morning as well. But something seemed off now. I didn’t know if it was something I did or the stress of there only being two lizards. “I really enjoyed last night, Vi.”
“Me too.” Her cheeks flushed in the sexiest way.
We were good. For at least a few more hours. Until she realized she was a little fast to trust me. I needed to do something grand. Maybe I’d stop and get her some flowers before lunch.
Zeke came running back into the kitchen.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Violet asked, turning her attention back to her son.
“I’ll just eat cookies.” He grabbed the plate from the counter and shoved one into his mouth in record speed.
“Zeke, I can make you toast. Or oatmeal. Or eggs?”
“No thank you, Mommy.” He ate another cookie.
“You’re going to turn into a pile of sugar.” She grabbed the plate away from him a second too late. Zeke had already stolen a handful of them. He shoved one more into his mouth and put the rest into one of his cargo shorts pockets.
I wondered if it was the same pocket his new lizard had been in a minute ago.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked. He looked down at her slippers. “I thought you wanted to go early?”
“I’m going to take you, Zeke.” I said.
“Really?” He sounded so excited. “Can we drive with the siren?”
“I’m a detective, not a cop. I don’t have a siren.”
“Oh.” He still seemed excited. “That’s okay. It’ll still be fun.” He grabbed the lunchbox that Violet handed him.
She crouched down to be at eye-level with Zeke. “Be good, okay, little dude?”
He nodded.
“I love you.” She kissed the top of his head. “I’ll pick you up later today.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he hugged her. “By later do you mean late? Last time you picked me up you were late.”
She closed her eyes. It looked like she was in pain. “I won’t be late.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
The only escape is death. A chill ran down my spine as I remembered the engraving. Had she hoped to die at one point? She’d mentioned that she thought her mother might be suicidal. Maybe the engraving was about her. I’d ask her about it soon enough. I wanted a few more hours to remember how great last night was before I fucked everything up.
She kissed the top of his head once more before releasing him. Zeke ran toward the front door. We both followed, but I stayed back after he ran outside.
“Want me to pick something up for lunch?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll cook again.”
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” I reached out and lightly touched her cheek.
She melted into my palm, like our bodies were meant to be fused together. “Yeah. I’m just a little…tired. I woke up too early.”
“Maybe take a nap then?” I smiled at her as I tilted her chin up. I had waited to join Zeke outside so that I could steal a kiss.
“Sounds good.” She took a step back, letting my hand fall from her face. “I’m going to go do that. Thanks for taking Zeke to school.” She walked away, leaving me standing awkwardly in the foyer.
Last night had been perfect. This morning, on the other hand, she was acting so distant. What was going on with her? I went to open the door, but she immediately came back into the foyer.
“Actually. I need your opinion on something. Do you think people can change? Like if you hated apples because they made you throw up once as a kid? You’d like…give them another chance right? Now that you’re grown up? People can change. You might like apples now.” She was scratching the inside of her wrist as she stared at me.
I could tell that there was a certain response that she wanted, but I didn’t know what it was. Honestly, I didn’t think people changed. I hated to think about all the people that got locked away and then repeated the same mistakes once they were free. It was ingrained in them to be on the other side of the law. But something simpler like apples? I wasn’t going to shoot myself in the foot when it was clear she wanted a certain answer. The vaguer the better. “Maybe if I put some peanut butter on it or something to cover the taste? Then I could slowly acclimate myself.”
“Until you loved apples again.”
“To tolerate them perhaps. I doubt they’d ever be the same, but that’s the theory, yes.”
“I don’t care about theories. I want to know if you think people can truly change?”
“Inherently?”
She nodded.
“No, not really. In my line of work it’s a little hard to believe in second chances as optimistically as a normal citizen.”
“Right.” She started scratching the inside of her wrist again. “Okay, well have a nice day.” Her voice was oddly high-pitched.
“I feel like you set me up for failure there,” I said with a laugh. “What is all this about?”
“Nothing. We’ll talk later. Just…don’t say anything to Zeke yet.”
I tried to think about how the questions had to do with Zeke. I knew she was referring to not telling Zeke about my relationship with her. But was her question about him too? Was she worried he’d always be bullied? I cleared my throat. “I won’t. And you know what? I want to change my answer from before. I do think people can change. I mean, I was pretty different when I was little.”
“Really?” She looked happy again.
I nodded. “I’ve made mistakes, I’ve grown…yeah, people can change.”
The exhale that escaped her lips sounded like it held the weight of the world. “Yeah. People can definitely change.”
“Zeke’s going to be fine, I promise.”
“Zeke?” She started scratching her wrist again. “Right, Zeke. I’m going to go take that nap.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t awkward when she left me standing there this time. But for some reason I still felt like I had just fucked something up. I shook my head and walked outside, closing the door behind me.
Zeke was standing by my car eating a cookie. He looked up as I made my way over. “We’re going to be late. We should probably use the siren.”
I laughed and unlocked the car doors. “I wasn’t lying to get out of using them. I meant I actually don’t have them.
We both climbed into the car.
“Oh.” He stared at the dashboard. “But what does that do?” He pointed to the volume button.
“Ejector seats. So make sure to buckle up.”
His eyes grew round. “Really?”
I nodded.
He immediately buckled his seatbelt. His feet didn’t reach the floor and he was kicking his heels against the seat. He probably should have been sitting in the back, but he looked so excited to be up front. I’d drive slowly.
Before I even pulled onto the main road he started firing questions at me.
“Do you like arresting people?”
“I like catching bad guys.”
He nodded. “W
hat about bad girls?”
I laughed. “Being bad has no gender.” I turned onto the main road.
“Have you ever arrested someone you wished you didn’t have to?”
I thought about the busts I had made. I prided myself on putting people away that deserved to be there. The streets were safer because of the work I did. “No.”
“You’ve never arrested anybody you loved?”
“I don’t usually hang out with criminals, Zeke.”
“Hmm.” He turned to look out the window. For a second I thought he was going to stop asking questions. But then he turned back to me. “But what if someone you loved did something really bad? Would you arrest them?”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. It wasn't something I never thought about before I’d found Violet’s gun. But I hadn’t turned her in. Technically I was a criminal too. Nothing felt as black and white as it had a few weeks ago. “I think it depends on what they did.”
“Do you love my mom?”
Shit. Violet had specifically asked me not to talk about this with him. I should have known he’d ask a question that would lead me into a hole just like his mom always seemed to. I cleared my throat. “We’re just friends.”
“Is that why you had a sleepover last night?”
“Why would you think that?”
“I heard her talking to you last night in her bedroom. She kept comparing you to God.”
Oh, God, Tucker. I had loved when she moaned that. Now? Not so much. Zeke had rendered me speechless.
“It’s okay. None of the kids invite me to sleepovers either.”
“That’s not…” my voice trailed off. How the hell could I turn this around? “It was a grown-up sleepover or else I would have invited you, little dude.” I realized it might be weird that I just called him that. It was what Violet always called him. It felt like I was crossing some kind of line and making the whole situation worse. Please don’t ask me what we were doing in her bedroom.
“It’s okay. I was glad she didn’t wake up in the middle of the night though.”
It was something a mother might say about her kid. Not the other way around. I wanted to just be relieved that he didn’t know what Violet and I had been doing. He didn’t know anything about the progression of my relationship with his mother. That was what Violet wanted. But I couldn’t just ignore what he’d said. I was too curious. “What do you mean?”
“She has lots of bad dreams. She screams a lot in her sleep. It always wakes me up and sometimes she comes and snuggles with me to stop crying. But she didn’t do that last night.”
“Oh.” His words were troubling. Was she having constant nightmares? Or maybe she was reliving something bad that happened to her. Horrible memories. “Well, maybe she was just more relaxed last night. Has she ever told you what makes her upset when she’s sleeping?”
“No.” He kicked his heels some more. “But I think someone was probably mean to her. Or else she did something really bad. I usually only cry when the other kids pick on me or I’m bad and I know it.”
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. I had witnessed the catty women around town. People were awful to Violet. And I had my suspicions that her home life growing up wasn’t exactly a great atmosphere. But I wanted to know if Zeke knew anything else about it. “Have you ever seen her do anything bad?”
He shrugged. “She’s bad a lot. She counts things. And forgets things because she can’t stop counting.”
“That’s not bad. She can’t help the counting.”
“Yes she can. Whenever I tell her she’s doing it she stops. Always.”
“But she needs you to remind her.”
He nodded. “That’s why I think maybe she did something else bad before I was here to remind her to stop.”
I pulled into the drop-off lane at his school. The line of cars inched forward as Zeke's words echoed around in my head. I was going to have a conversation with Violet later about all of this. I didn’t have to question her kid about it too. But it didn’t mean I didn’t want to. I glanced at him out of the corner or my eye. “What do you think she did?” I couldn’t help it. The words just poured out.
“Promise not to put her in jail? She’s the bestest mommy in the whole world. And she’s my only friend.”
“We’re friends, Zeke.” It was the only thing I could think of to say in response. His words broke my heart.
“You have to promise.” He put his fist out in front of him, his pinky extended. “Pinky promise.”
When we had first started driving he had asked me whether or not I’d arrest someone I loved. And he wanted to know if I loved his mom. The kid knew something. “Pinky promise.” I wrapped my pinky around his.
A car behind us beeped. We had reached the front of the drop-off lane.
He dropped my hand and unbuckled his seatbelt. “She doesn’t like to leave the house.”
“Okay…” Was that the big reveal? I’d put a little too much hope in this conversation.
“I think it’s because of the truck she drives, not the mean peoples. She cleans it a lot more than anything else. The back of it the most. And she’s always hardest to get to stop counting when she’s cleaning it.”
I already knew she liked to do everything in multiples of three. Cleaning a whole truck bed three times would take a while. “That’s not bad, Zeke. It’s good to take care of things.”
He grabbed his backpack and lunchbox and opened up the door. “No, it’s different. Like she’s stuck cleaning up something on repeat. Over and over and over again.” He looked down at his lunchbox and then in a rush he spit it all out: “I think she murdered my daddy and hid his body in the back of it. And I’m only telling you because I don’t want her to kill you too.”
What the fuck? I thought about her old truck. With all the money she had, it didn’t make sense for her not to turn it in for a new one. But a lot of things she did were inconsistent with the inheritance she’d mentioned. Like the fact that they lived in that old house in the middle of the woods. The fact that she was unpredictable was part of the reason why I found her so alluring. Zeke was just confused. He was being manipulated by the rumors too. He didn’t give me a chance to correct him, though. He jumped out of the car, slammed the door closed, and ran up to the school.
Chapter 25
Violet
I thought back to yesterday in Tucker’s car. He said anyone who murdered someone was a monster. No ifs-ands-or-buts about it. No exceptions. Nothing. He was a detective for Christ’s sake. Of course he thought that.
And Tucker didn’t believe that people could change either. He’d finally altered his answer after I kept pushing it. But that didn’t mean he believed what he said. He was just trying to appease me. There was no chance at redemption in his eyes.
Ow. I looked down at my wrist. I had been scratching it so much that my nails had broken through the first layer of skin. There was blood dripping down my palm and embedded underneath my fingernails. Shit.
I went to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The water stung my skin as I washed away the blood. I stared at the pink stained water hitting the sink. What was I doing? I couldn’t tell Tucker. I couldn’t. I started counting down from three repeatedly, trying to calm myself.
Water splashing onto my thigh pulled me out of my trance. “God.” I turned off the faucet before the sink could overflow anymore.
I felt nauseous. I tried to swallow down the bile in my throat as I bandaged my wrist. It was easy to tell myself to calm down. It was another thing entirely to actually do it. I ignored my hands shaking as I finished up with the bandage.
It was hard to talk myself out of something after I decided to do it. I was going to tell Tucker this afternoon. But I needed a backup plan in case things went south. I needed a way out.
I was going to be sick. I grabbed the edge of the counter. No one knew the truth. Sometimes I doubted it myself. The rumors were ingrained in me. Manipulating my mind.
Air. I needed fresh
air. I changed out of my robe and ran down the stairs, my stomach churning.
I grabbed my new coat, a hat, and gloves, and shoved my feet into my boots. I pushed the door open and inhaled. The cold air was a slap in the face, but it didn’t calm me.
The lake always made me feel better when I was younger. I forced myself to not look at my truck as I walked past the driveway. I just needed one minute of peace. I needed my mind to stop. For just one second. Please.
“Big lies have big consequences.” My mother’s voice seemed to be echoing around the woods.
Stop.
“Consequences, Violet. There are consequences to big lies.”
Stop.
I took a huge breath. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one.
Coming out here was a mistake. The lake was a reprieve when I was young. Now? It was the key to my demise. But I couldn’t stop walking.
My pleas were answered when I finally reached the lake. It was frozen solid. My secrets were trapped beneath the icy surface.
“I’m sorry,” I said into the silence. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
Chapter 26
Tucker
I wanted to be relieved that Zeke didn’t know I was hooking up with his mother. But how could I be relived after what he said? The rumors were getting to him. The poor kid actually believed his mother killed his father. That was a heavy weight to carry around for a five-year-old.
And I hadn’t gotten a chance to explain to him that he was wrong. I’d seen the photos of Joel with my own eyes. His father was alive. An asshole, but alive. It was probably best that I didn’t get a chance to explain that. It wasn’t my place to talk about his dad.
Violet needed to know what was going on with Zeke. But I wasn’t sure that was my place either. We hadn’t even talked about what we were yet. I didn’t know how to handle situations like this.
I walked into the precinct and kept my head down low. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. For just a minute I needed to sort through my own thoughts.
“It’s a pretty shitty day to be late,” Damien said as I pulled off my jacket. “The captain wants to talk to us.”
