“What difference does it make?”
He looks at me, his expression hard. “That’s an important question, Murph.”
I open my mouth to go off—but then I realize that he’s right. I try to realign everything I know about Alan, imagining all of our interactions without him knowing my part in our family’s history. Mom and I have never talked about it. Not even once. I remember struggling for better grades, as if getting an A on a test would somehow make up for my failure to keep Kerry and my father safe. Keeping my room perfect. Doing every chore. Staying out of her way.
I remember how she didn’t notice. How I stopped bothering.
By the time Alan entered our lives, Mom and I orbited different planets. I have no idea how much she told him about what happened.
Either way, I’m not sure it matters. I can’t undo what I’ve done. None of us can.
“I agree with your friend,” Melonhead says. “I think you should talk to your mother.”
That strips the smile from my face. “I don’t know what to say to her.” I glance at the clock on the dashboard. “I’m probably going to catch hell for being out past the time my community service ends.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Give me their number. I’ll call them and explain you’re working late.”
Another ounce of weight lifts from my chest. He calls, and that’s that. I’m not in trouble.
It’s so simple. I think of Mrs. Hillard staring down at me. If there’s a problem, you can just tell me. Or the way she accepted my explanation and let me complete the assignment in class.
“It was just one day,” Frank says when he hangs up. “But you can’t fix things with your mother or her husband if you continue on this path, right?”
At the mention of Alan, my thoughts darken. “I never wanted to fix things with them.” I pause, and my voice is very quiet. “I wanted out. I screwed up.”
“I don’t know, Murph.” We make the turn into the cemetery, and he hesitates, as if unsure of his next words. “I wonder if you’re just telling yourself that.”
I frown. “What?”
“I don’t think you wanted to kill yourself.”
I pull next to his car in the now-empty employee lot. “Didn’t you listen to everything I just told you?”
“Yeah. I did. Maybe you wanted to try to kill yourself, but I don’t think you wanted to actually do it.”
“What’s the difference?”
He opens the door and gets out, standing there, looking down at me. “You wore your seat belt.”
I lock my eyes on the darkened windshield. I don’t know what to say to that.
“Feel like helping me tomorrow night?” he says. “I’ll have to work double to get those two sections done.”
I like how he’s asking me. He’s not ordering me. I’m free to refuse.
I nod. “I’ll come right after school. We’ll get it done.”
“Thanks, Murph.” He swings the door shut, closing me in with a little less darkness than I started with.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
From: The Dark
To: Cemetery Girl
Date: Tuesday, October 8 09:12:44 PM
Subject: DM
What happened? Are you okay?
Dad knocks on my door at half past nine, and I’m tempted to pretend I’m asleep instead of sitting here, staring at my phone, deliberating.
My light’s still on, and if I don’t answer, he’ll come in here to check on me.
“Come in,” I call.
He opens the door a few inches. “Do you feel like company?”
No. I feel like crawling under my bed and sleeping there for a month. I sat in front of her grave for hours, trying to write a letter.
The words wouldn’t come.
I couldn’t figure out the right way to say I’m sorry for having a crush on someone who might have killed you.
My throat tightens before I’m ready for it. If fate were a person, I’d punch her in the face.
Dad peers in at me, his eyes concerned. “Juliet?”
I rub at my eyes. I know he means well, but I can’t do the father-daughter thing tonight. My emotions are shot, and my voice is, too. “I’m really tired, Dad.”
“Okay.” He nods. “I thought it might be too late. I’ll tell them you’re sleeping.” He begins to slide the door closed.
Them?
My first thought is Declan and Rev, and my heart skips to quadruple time. “Wait!” I scramble forward on my bed. “Someone is here?”
He frowns. “What did you think I meant when I asked if you wanted comp—”
“I didn’t understand.” I can’t get the words out of my mouth fast enough. I feel like I’ve taken a shot of adrenaline and espresso simultaneously. Maybe Declan is here to explain. To apologize. To convince me that there’s some plausible way his criminal record is unrelated to my mother.
I shouldn’t be this excited at the thought of him coming here, but I can’t help it. Guilt is stabbing me, but so is intrigue.
I am the world’s worst daughter.
I push the hair back from my face. It’s a tangled mess from the way the wind wove through the cemetery. “Who is it? What do they want?”
Now my father is looking at me like I’m nuts, and he’s not too far off the mark. “It’s Rowan, and she’s here with a boy. I think he said his name is Brendan . . . ?”
“Brandon.” Air rushes out of my lungs, deflating me before I have a chance to figure out whether I was enraged or excited at the thought of confronting Declan Murphy. “You can send them up.”
“Darn right we’re coming up,” Rowan yells from somewhere downstairs. “You can ignore my calls, but you can’t ignore Nachos BellGrande.”
They clomp up the steps, and Dad gets out of their way. Rowan is ethereal and glowing in a white gauzy shirt that hangs over yoga pants. She’s carrying a massive bag from Taco Bell. Brandon is wearing skinny jeans and an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a tee that reads Bacon Is Meat Candy.
They look like they’ve stepped out of the pages of a novel, an angel and her hipster sidekick.
I’m wearing pajamas, and I’m pretty sure makeup has dried in streaks on my cheeks.
Rowan drops the bag beside me on the bed, then climbs in next to me. “Oh, Jules. What happened? They said you fainted in the cafeteria. Why didn’t you call me? How did you get home?”
“I didn’t faint.” I rub at my cheeks, which feel a little crusty from tears. “Vickers said it was a panic attack. She let me do independent study for the afternoon.” It’s the most sympathy I’ve gotten out of Vickers since the school year started.
Brandon starts pulling food out of the bag. He hasn’t said anything, but he’s making himself useful. I like that he’s avoiding the fact that I’m basically a train wreck wrapped up in a comforter.
Considering which, I should probably put on a bra.
I swipe at my eyes and extricate myself from Rowan and the blankets. “I’m going to go put some real clothes on. I’ll be right back.” In a wave, the scent of the food finds me, and I realize that I haven’t eaten dinner—on the heels of barely eating lunch. “Thanks for bringing food. I’m starving.”
In the bathroom I wash my face and brush my teeth and twist my hair up into a clip. I grabbed clothes haphazardly, so I end up in jeans and a tank top, but it’s better than looking ready to do Ophelia’s mad scene.
When I return to my room, Rowan has made my bed, and they’ve got a buffet spread across the comforter. Soft music spills from my radio. Dad has brought up sodas.
I’m so blown away by their kindness that I want to burst into tears again. It’s been so long. I don’t deserve any of this.
“Your phone lit up a few times,” Rowan says.
I pick it up and press the button.
TD: Seriously. Are you okay?
I unlock it and type quickly.
CG: I’m okay. Friends over. I’ll write back
later.
Then I lock the phone and shove it under my pillow.
Rowan has a plate of nachos, and she’s watching me. “What was that all about?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I grab a plate and start piling it with chips and beef and cheese. “I don’t know.”
“Mystery boy?”
“There’s a mystery boy?” says Brandon. He’s taken my desk chair in the corner, and four tacos are piled in front of him.
“Sort of.” I shovel a chip into my face. The Dark didn’t answer my question from this afternoon—is that an answer in itself? Or was he just concerned and didn’t feel the need to answer?
Declan is so confrontational that I can’t imagine him dodging the question. When we were sitting in the cafeteria, he didn’t back down from the question about the date—why wouldn’t he face it head-on now?
Why wouldn’t he tell me?
Unless The Dark isn’t Declan Murphy at all. Which would also make sense. Sort of.
We all sit there eating quietly for the longest time. My radio continues cranking out tunes.
Finally, I speak into the solitude. My voice comes out very small but steady. “Declan Murphy wrecked his car on the same night my mother died. That’s why I got upset at lunch. I think he might have been involved. He was drunk, and he blacked out.”
Rowan stops with a chip halfway to her mouth. “Did you tell your dad? Did he call the cops?”
“I haven’t told anyone.” I hesitate. “I don’t . . . I don’t have all the details. What if it’s not the same time? What if—”
“Do you have a computer?” says Brandon. “I could look it up.”
I straighten. “You could look what up?”
“I have the password to the local beat crime feed.”
Rowan leans into me and stage-whispers, “He is so handy to have around sometimes.”
“You do?” I say. “How?”
“From my internship. I thought they’d change it or whatever, but they never did.” He shrugs. “It’s interesting. Sometimes I look. We could check it out. See if there are any details.”
I have my dad’s old laptop, so it’s slow, but it works. I dig it out from under the pile of books on my desk and hand it to Brandon.
He looks at me over the screen while it’s loading. “Do you want to get your dad?”
Dad seems to be slowly crawling out of the fog that still holds me prisoner. I shake my head. “Not yet. Not until we know something for sure.”
It doesn’t take Brandon long to log on to the system. “Date?”
My mouth is suddenly dry. Could this be happening? Could we solve her murder right here? “May twenty-fifth.”
He taps at the keys, then frowns at the screen. “I see a hit-and-run report, but the victim last names are Thorne and Rahman. Who’s Rahman?”
“She was taking a taxi home from the airport. Rahman would have been the driver,” I whisper.
Until today, I’ve never given a moment’s thought to the driver. Does he have a daughter somewhere, carrying around the same sense of loss that I feel?
Rowan takes my hand.
“The accident took place on Hammonds Ferry Road? In Linthicum?”
“Yeah.”
He frowns a little. “That’s weird. Hammonds Ferry Road isn’t on the way to the airport.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s sort of close to the airport. Maybe he had more than one passenger and had another stop first. Or maybe he went a long way to get a bigger fare. Maybe there was an accident on the highway so he took side streets—I don’t know, and we can’t ask him. It’s just not the most direct way between here and there.”
Weird. But like he said, not a complete anomaly.
Brandon is still talking. “It was after dark, and that’s a more remote part of town, so no witnesses, no cameras. When the paramedics arrived . . .” He hesitates, and his expression says he’s reading details I don’t want to hear read out loud.
He waves a hand. “Here. Let me see if I can find that loser’s police report, and we’ll see if anything matches up.”
He’s not a loser. I almost say the words, thinking about my conversation with Declan about how people misperceive him—but considering what we’re researching, I don’t say anything at all.
Brandon taps at a few keys, reads, then taps at a few more. We’re all so quiet that I can hear three even breathing rhythms over the music.
After a minute, Rowan says, “You’re killing us here, B.”
“I know, I know. I just want to be sure. There’s a report that might be Declan Murphy, but all the names have been obscured. That happens when the perp is a minor. This covers the whole state, so give me a second.”
The perp. I almost smile. Brandon’s life map is firmly intact, not lying in shreds like my own.
After another agonizing minute, Brandon looks up at me. His expression looks sorrowful. “I don’t know if this is good news or bad news.”
My fingers grip Rowan’s hard. It’s a match. It has to be. I’m breathing so hard I’m going to hyperventilate. “Tell me. Just tell me. It’s him. It has to be him.”
Brandon shakes his head. “It’s not him.”
What?
What?
He turns the computer around. “Look. The first call about your mother’s accident came in at seven forty-six. According to Declan Murphy’s police report, he didn’t get behind the wheel until eight-oh-one, and he didn’t crash into that building until eight sixteen.”
It’s not him.
I’m relieved. I’m devastated. I don’t know what I am.
I feel like I’m going to throw up the nachos. I clutch my hands against my stomach.
“I’m so sorry,” Brandon whispers.
Now I understand what he meant about not knowing whether this was good news or bad news. It’s not Declan—but the crime is still unsolved.
“Just—turn it off. Okay? Turn it off.”
He does, and I spend a minute talking myself off the ledge. I’m in the same place I was yesterday. I haven’t lost anything.
And even if Declan were guilty, that wouldn’t have brought my mother back.
“Is that your mother’s gear?” Brandon says, nodding at the pile in the corner. My morbid little shrine.
I have to clear my throat. “Yeah. Her editor keeps trying to buy it back from my dad, but . . .” I let that thought trail off.
Brandon’s expression shows no trace of recognizing the sentimentality. “Did the cops search her memory cards?”
The question is so unexpected that it shakes off some of my sorrow. “What? No. Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But I remember reading about a murder case that was solved because they found photos a woman had taken on her cell phone. Apparently she started taking pictures as the guy was stabbing her, and they were able to find him based on that. Like . . . what if your mom was able to take pictures of the vehicle getting away?”
Rowan is making slashing motions against her neck, kind of like, Stop talking about murders while my friend is suffering, but my mind is revving up to normal speed.
“Do you think that’s possible?” I say.
He glances at the equipment again. “Maybe?”
“No,” says Rowan.
We both look at her, and her eyes are a little wide. “Do you realize how implausible that sounds? That someone would be alive enough to take pictures as someone is speeding away, but to be . . . to be . . .” Her voice trails off as she looks at me.
“To be dead by the time the ambulance gets there,” I finish.
“They wouldn’t necessarily be speeding away,” says Brandon. “It says the car would have sustained some damage. It’s possible someone stopped to check their own vehicle. Or it took them a minute to back up and keep driving. This wasn’t a simple sideswipe.” He pauses. His expression is pained.
“Say it,” I tell him. My voice is hollo
w, but I’ve imagined her death hundreds of ways—he’s not going to tell me anything surprising.
“She didn’t die on impact,” he says quietly. “It says internal bleeding. Probably from the seat belt. There’s nothing in here about a head injury.” He swallows. “So . . . there might have been time. Especially if she had her wits about her.”
There might have been time. If she had her wits about her.
My mother, the woman who strolls through war zones in an effort to bring worldly reality to the American dinner table.
Has the clue to solving her murder been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for the last four months?
Holy crap.
I stride across the room, pick up the bag with her digital cameras, and practically bash them against the wall to get the memory cards free.
“Easy. Easy.” Brandon stops me, prying the cameras from my shaking fingers. “Let me do it.”
He works the latches with practiced ease, sliding the cards free, and we return to Dad’s laptop.
We wait for his photo program to load, and it takes so long that I almost want to go down to the basement and fire up the high-powered Mac Mom uses—used—for photo editing. It hasn’t been turned on since she died—mostly because I know the screen backdrop is a photo of me as a baby, snuggled into her neck.
My eyes fog, and I tell them to knock it off. We have a mission here.
The program finally loads, and the pictures on the memory card appear in thumbnails across the screen.
“Whoa,” whispers Rowan.
The photos are horrific. Dead children in the streets. Bloodied doorways. Dust and dirt and sweat and tears everywhere. Wailing women. Men with injuries so terrible that these pictures should never be seen at anyone’s dinner table.
Brandon scrolls through them steadily, but he looks a little green, too. “These are amazing. Your mom was a badass.”
I know exactly how talented she was. “Those are all work shots. Check the other memory card.”
He ejects and inserts, and again we wait.
Anticipation writhes in my chest. This will be it. There will be something there.
I don’t know why I’m such a glutton for punishment. It’s a blank memory card. There’s nothing there.
Nothing.