Lowell pouts, his mouth pulling down at both corners. It’s a ‘sure. Maybe I can see that being true’ face. I want to make this fucker bleed. “Okay. After the incident, you said you went shopping for some items from the pharmacy?”
The expression slides off my face. Shopping? Fucking shopping? “I went to get the morning after pill, because I didn’t want to end up pregnant after three different guys forced their dicks inside me. I wasn’t stocking up on lip gloss and hair products.”
“Logical,” he says, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Very logical. I’ve dealt with a lot of rape cases. Most girls don’t show that level of forethought. They’re usually too distraught to think that clearly—”
The coffee maker pings, noisily bubbling away as it begins to pour the brewed coffee into the carafe. Meanwhile, a stunned calm has fallen over me. “Why are you really here, Jamie? What do you gain from questioning me like this? Zen was attacked. You’ve seen those photos, right? They don’t leave much room for conjecture. She’s given her statement, too. Jake’s already locked up for his involvement in his dad’s smuggling ring, not to mention breaking most of my ribs and trying to hang me in the school gym. Like I said, I gain nothing from reporting the attack now. Jake’s gonna rot behind bars for a very long time…”
Agent Lowell smiles broadly, looking down at the covered plate of cookies by the fruit bowl to his right. “Precisely.” He shrugs. “Apart from the fact that people are fawning over your friend. They’re very sympathetic toward her. Her hospital room looks like a high-end florists. But you…” He makes a show of looking around, hunting for the flowers that I haven’t been sent. “They’re less sympathetic to your story, Silver. People seem to think you might have had reason to target Jake. Some sort of high school vendetta. You used to have a crush on him, didn’t you?”
A high-pitched, endless tone rings in my ears, muting my thoughts. I can’t…he can’t really be…fucking serious? I scramble to form words, to refute the implications that he’s making, but I can’t even remember how to speak.
Thankfully, I don’t have to. “You’d better have a damn good reason for being in my kitchen, questioning my underage daughter without an adult present, Detective.”
I didn’t hear Dad pull up in the driveway. Didn’t hear the front door open, either. My father charges into the kitchen like a thunderstorm, exuding a dark fury that has Lowell pushing away from the kitchen island, the smug look on his face morphing into a mask of professionalism.
“Mr. Parisi. Silver agreed to talk with me. She’s a smart girl. She knows that if she’s got nothing to hide, she—”
Nipped launches out of his bed, hackles raised, barking loudly as he darts back and forth in front of the detective, showing him his teeth. Dad doesn’t say a word to call him off. I’d say I’ve never seen my father look so angry, but I’ve seen him riled like this too many times of late. He grabs Lowell by the shoulder, fisting his jacket, shoving him toward the hallway. “Nothing she just said to you is admissible. You do not have my permission to be in this house. Get the fuck out before I accidentally shoot you for trespassing.” He pushes Lowell, and the detective staggers back, nearly tripping over his own Nikes. He runs his tongue over his teeth, straightening out his jacket as he backs away toward the door.
“Not smart to threaten a DEA agent, Mr. Parisi. But not to worry. I won’t take it personally. I can only imagine how stressful it is, trying to raise a problem teenager on your own.”
Dad takes off his glasses, setting them down on the countertop. “I don’t give a shit who you are or who you work for. I swear to god, if you’re not out of my house in the next three seconds, you and I are gonna have issues.”
Lowell’s arrogant sneer doesn’t slip. Not even for a second. Glancing over Dad’s shoulder, he locks eyes with me and winks. “We’re not done, Silver. Next time, I’ll be asking these questions in an interview room, and there’ll be cameras pointed in your face. I’m sure the truth will come out then. Meantime, you two make sure you enjoy the rest of your weekend, okay?”
10
ALEX
“Let….me…OUT, you fuck!”
I know how to drive my Camaro, but Zeth puts me to shame. His car—a mirror of my own in nearly every way—is like an extension of his body as he drifts it around the bend, sliding perfectly in the snow, forcing the contents of the trunk to slam and loudly roll around. The hammering from the back gets louder as he jumps on the breaks at a red light so abruptly that I have to brace myself against the dash.
This whole thing, Zeth purposefully tormenting Monty, and Monty losing his shit so badly, would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that, best case scenario, my boss is going to fire me, worst case scenario murder me, and my little brother was lowered into the ice-cold earth twenty-four hours ago. Every time the fucker in the driver’s seat next to me coasts through the snow a little too recklessly, all I can see is Jackie’s supposedly extra-safe people carrier hurtling off the road and smashing into a tree, killing Ben in the process.
“Little tense?” Zeth asks, the suggestion of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Kind of surprising; I wouldn’t have thought the guy capable of such a thing.
I brush off his comment, pulling my pack of smokes out of my pocket. “What’s the big deal with this bag, anyway? I’ve seen everything inside it. Nothing irreplaceable.”
“I’m sentimental about my tools,” he replies. “Had some of them for well over a decade. And besides…” He drifts across the double yellow line, crossing onto the wrong side of the road as we hurtle through yet another bend. “It doesn’t matter what the bag contains, what it’s worth, or if it can be replaced. It’s mine. It belongs to me. I don’t let two-bit con artists from the middle of fucking nowhere steal my shit, kid. You let one person take something small one day, they’re trying to take that which you hold dearest the next. Bad for business.”
“Didn’t think you were a businessman.”
“I’m whatever the fuck I wanna be when the moment takes me, shithead. And you light that cigarette in my car without asking, you’re gonna wind up with a broken hand, you feel me?”
I’ve already sparked the lighter; the flame hovers two centimeters away from the end of the smoke that I’ve already put in my mouth. I consider holding the wavering yellow flame against the cigarette and pulling on it hard, just to defy him, but I meet his dark, flat stare and think better of it. “You mind?” I ask, laying the attitude on thick.
Zeth turns to look straight ahead out of the windshield again. “Be my guest.”
The smoke burns at the back of my throat, making me feel sick, but I pull on it hard again and again until I hit the filter. Shame I don’t have any Jack on me. I could really use a drink. Across Raleigh, Silver’s waiting for me to come over for dinner. Cam’s in the middle of making lasagna or some shit. There’s a girl who loves me, ready to hold me, and kiss me, and make all of this godforsaken shit feel a teeny, tiny bit better…but I’m happy to be headed in the opposite direction. I don’t want to feel better. I want to feel worse, because that’s what I fucking deserve, isn’t it? If I’d gotten my shit together a little sooner and not been such a fuck-up for so long, then perhaps I could have convinced CPS to give me custody of Ben early. If I hadn’t been so damn fixated on teaching Gary Quincy a lesson for treating me like garbage, then I might have been able to devote my energy towards the things that really mattered. Ben could have been living with me a goddamn year ago. Then he would never have been in that car with Jackie, driving through the night…