Twisted by Hannah Jayne(64)
“Tonight? Right now?”
There was a pause, the air in the cab of the truck heavy and electric.
“Come with me, Bethy.”
She blinked.
“Come with me. Tonight. Right now. We’ll find some town where no one’ll ever know us and become new people and live out our lives. Whaddya think about that, Bethy? I could be, I don’t know, called Howard or Matthew or something.”
“And we could work on your case.”
“Sure.”
It sounded like a good idea. But then Bex thought about Trevor and Laney and Chelsea, and everything else she was leaving behind. “I can’t go with you tonight. I have to say good-bye to someone.”
“Bethy—”
“Friday. It’s Back to School Night. I’ll leave with you on Friday.” She paused, then put her hand on his arm. “Then we can be a family.”
“If only your mother were here to see it.”
Bex felt like she had been punched in the gut. “Mom? Do you think…?”
His eyes were steady on hers, and her voice dropped to a low, terrified whisper.
“Do you think Detective Schuster was the reason Mom left? Do you think he…” Bex couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, to say the words, but a new flare of anger raged up inside her. It was Detective Schuster who had taken everything from her, who had started to dismantle Bex’s family before she was even old enough to read.
She thought of the way he’d removed the lightbulb on her porch and pummeled her, hand over mouth, his calves pinching her rib cage, tightening like a corset, just waiting for her bones to snap. An honest detective wouldn’t have had to trick her. A respectable police officer wouldn’t have wrestled her to the ground in her own home.
She thought about how she’d lain, chin pressed against the carpet, as he dropped the newspaper clipping in front of her. He said he kept it in honor of her. Was it truly a remembrance—or a trophy?
Thirty-Three
Pink fingers of sunlight were starting to scrape against the sky as Bex crept back into her house.
“Were you outside?” Michael was standing on the landing, hair ruffled, eyes bleary with sleep.
“Uh…” Bex stammered. “I woke up early. Couldn’t sleep.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “I thought maybe a walk would be good.”
Michael nodded, yawned, and brushed past her. “You want coffee?”
“I’m actually going to try to see if I can get back to sleep now. Get in another hour before I have to wake up for school.”
She padded up the stairs, the thunk of her heart mirroring the thunk of her footsteps. She peeled off her clothes and slid into bed, for the first time that she could remember, feeling light.
Bex’s phone went off before her alarm clock did.
“’Lo?”
“Bex?”
She sat up ramrod straight, all thoughts of drifting back into sleep-filled oblivion gone. “Detective Schuster.”
“You didn’t call me back last night. Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah.” She coughed into her hand. “I’m fine.”
“I want you to know that we’re protecting you, Bex. You’re not on your own in this. We’re going to find your father. So there still has been no contact?”
Bex gnawed on her lower lip, her heart speeding up and doing a breathless double thump. She thought about her father’s downcast eyes, the earnest way he pursed his lips when he was telling her—admitting to her—that he wasn’t guilty, that Detective Schuster was framing him. She shifted in her bed. “Uh, no. He hasn’t reached out.”
The detective blew out a breath. “Okay, well. Let’s keep each other posted.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, Bex?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re doing a great thing here. You’re helping to take a dangerous man off the streets.”
Bex hung up the phone without answering. She let a beat pass before pulling her laptop into her lap.
“Bexy?” Denise knocked, pushing open the door a half inch. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
Denise opened the door, sitting on the edge of Bex’s desk chair. “Everything okay?” Her eyes were searching.
“Totally. Yeah.”
“Michael said you were out really early this morning.”
A stripe of heat burned the tops of Bex’s ears. “Uh, I was just having trouble sleeping so I went for a walk.” She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “No big deal.”
“Not really, no.” Denise looked away, seemed to think better of it, then fixed her gaze on Bex. “It’s just that—I mean, I want to be cool and all, but I’m still your mom. Your foster mom. I’d like it if you wouldn’t just go out like that. At dawn. Or at night. They still haven’t caught Darla’s killer and…”
Bex nodded, wondering when Darla’s name would stop triggering that awful memory—her broken body on the beach, those milky, unseeing eyes. Then she thought of Detective Schuster suddenly showing up in town. Had he really been looking for her, or was he hunting for Darla?
Bex’s stomach started to churn, pinpricks of heat burning through her nightshirt.