“I’m speaking to Grace Wolff, correct? Staunch upholder and defender of the law? Because you almost sound like you support the idea of citizens taking the law into their own hands.”
“I’m saying out loud what all of us are thinking,” I replied.
“Methinks I know of one person who isn’t thinking that . . .”
“Don’t bring up my dad right now. I don’t want to hear his speeches about justice playing in the back of my mind.” A car horn screamed behind me. “Does anyone else at the office know?”
There was a pause, the sound of a chair screeching in the background. “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume Watson is being told right now based on the expression on his face. You know that pissed, accosted look that makes his whole face go fire-engine red? Eyes close to popping free of their sockets?”
“Watson is a carbon copy of my dad. He’s going to try to make an example of whoever this person is if they manage to catch him or her.” I pondered who could have done it and for what reason. The list of both wasn’t short. “Let’s hope whoever it is, they didn’t leave any evidence.”
Connor was quiet for a moment. “You want a murderer to go free?”
The throb pulsing in my head made me wince. Did anything make sense anymore?
“I don’t know,” I breathed.
Seven
Skovil’s death had mutated from a suicide to a homicide in the span of a workday. Whispers had trickled through the office halls all afternoon, though I was still clinging to the last shred of hope that the preliminary ME report was wrong.
The garage was empty when I pulled into it later that night. Noah saw clients late into the evenings on Mondays and rarely made it home before eleven. If Andee was home, there were no signs of her. The first floor was dark, the only sound filling the space coming from the antique clock that had been Noah’s grandmother’s.
“Andee?” I called after tucking the take-out meal I’d picked up for Noah into the fridge, beside the handful of others I’d gotten him last week that remained uneaten.
When no answer came, I wandered up the stairs to her bedroom. A sliver of light was streaming from beneath her door, the scent of that musky incense she liked infesting the hall.
Knocking, I waited a moment before opening the door.
“This is my personal space.” Sprawled out on her bed, she didn’t glance up from her sketchbook. “You agreed to knock before barging in.”
“I did knock.” Holding up the take-out bag in my hand, I approached her bed. “Have you eaten?”
“It’s nine o’clock.” She didn’t check the time, but she was close enough. “I ate hours ago.”
“Then this can serve as Dinner: The Sequel.” I set the bag beside her and leaned in to see what she was drawing.
She tipped the notepad out of view, scooting back until she was leaning against the headboard.
“It’s your favorite. Spicy chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and a cherry turnover.”
“That was my favorite when I was, like, twelve.”
My shoulders became heavy; it was exhausting being wrong about everything when it came to your only child. “Well, what’s your favorite now?”
Her hand stopped moving over her drawing. “Is there something you want? Besides a merit badge for an attempt at providing dinner at nine p.m.?”
Kicking out of my shoes, I was about to take a seat on the edge of her bed when I changed my mind following the look she gave me. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About lots of things. To start, what happened at school today?”
She went back to drawing. “Lots of things happened at school today.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Because we have such a tight bond we can read each other’s minds?”
My mouth opened to snap something back, but I knew this dance. It didn’t end well if I let her ruffle me. “Principal Severson said this was it. Last chance. You attack a kid at school again, you’re out.”
Her eyes narrowed at her sketch, angling the pad a different direction. “There’s a promise to shed a tear over.”
“He’s serious, Andee,” I said.
“So am I.”
“What’s going to happen if you get kicked out of Prescott Prep?” I continued. “In the middle of your sophomore year of high school?”
“Probably what happens to the other kids who get kicked out of private schools. They enroll in public schools. The horror.” Her gaze cut my direction for a moment, as though she were checking for a reaction.
“If you care about your future, you’ll care about what school is listed on your college applications.” My attention trailed to the window, checking to see if it was closed and locked, estimating the potential for a certain boy to make the climb to get to it.
“My future?” Andee huffed. “What? So if I graduate from a school like Prescott Prep, then I can get into a fancy college and get some big, important job, settle down with the first guy to make me an offer, pop out a kid or two, and be just as happy as you one day?” This time her eyes stayed locked on me, relentless in their accusation.
My teeth ground together. “I am happy.”
“If this is happy, I’ll pass. Thanks for the concern though.” Andee’s voice broke toward the end, though her expression remained blank. “Add another merit badge for that attempt.”
I looked at my daughter on her bed. Really looked. Without all of the makeup and layers of clothing in some state of shredded or studded, she looked so young. Innocent. In her flannel pajamas, hair pinned back behind her ears, smudges of charcoal streaked across her face, it was easy to remember she was only a child fumbling her way through the entrance of adulthood.
“Principal Severson said he saw you volunteering at the shelter a few weeks ago,” I started, reading her eyes for a reaction. “Did you have plans to tell your father and me about that?”
“I’m sixteen and I spend most of my time outside of school unsupervised and you’re worried about me sneaking off to volunteer at some animal shelter?” Her charcoal strokes had slowed, although all of her concentration remained aimed at her sketch.
“All I’m saying is that it would have been nice of you to tell us that you were doing that.”
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Oh wait, he’s not here.” She looked up from her paper for a moment, her tone sarcastic. “I volunteer at an animal shelter once or twice a week.”
My hands wrung in my lap. “Is that something you can see yourself doing in the future? Working with animals? Going to veterinary school?”
She scoffed, shaking her head. “Do you really think I’d willingly sign-up for another seven years of school when I’m not sure I can make it through the next two-and-a-half years of hell?”
“College is a lot different than high school,” I assured her.
Her charcoal went back to work. “Different douche-bags, same game.”
“You used to be a straight A student. Trust me, you’d do great in college.”
“Used to being the key takeaway,” she hummed. “Now I’m more on par with solid D’s.”