You Will Know Me(70)

“Right.”

“And she’s the adult whose car was seen at the site of her boyfriend’s deadly accident, correct?”

“That’s a separate investigation, Mrs. Knox.”

“And as for talking to my husband, he wasn’t there when my daughter was assaulted. I was. And I will tell you again what you already know. What a dozen people saw.”

She felt something stirring powerfully in her, and the words just came, her finger poking at them like Coach on the floor, To stick it, you gotta grind those baby-girl heels of yours, hand on the vault punching every word. When it hurts you know you’ve landed it right.

“That twenty-three-year-old woman, half a foot taller with at least thirty pounds on my child, a woman with a history of instabilities and juvenile delinquency, tackled her, pounded her head into the floor. Wrapped her hands around my baby’s throat. That’s what matters. And that is why you’re here, isn’t it? Because we don’t live in a place where adults are allowed to beat on children.”

Watching her, Detective Renton jiggled a pen on his knee. One of their radios crackled.

It didn’t matter that there’d been no head pounding, no hands to throat. Not like some of the fights she’d seen, long ago, waiting tables at the Magic Stick the summer after high school, or even late nights at the Kiwanis fair. That woman who’d bushwhacked her mom in the parking lot for giving her phone number to the woman’s husband. Her keys had been between her fingers, ready to pounce.

With Hailey and Devon, it was more chaotic, a blur, all elbows and knees and squeaking sneaker soles. It was blood and nails and teeth. But Devon knew how to take hits, had been taking them most of her life, chin to beam, knee to mat. The red marks from Hailey’s hoodie cord embedded in her palm were no worse than any day’s gym rips, than anything that might happen to Devon, whose body was so constantly tested, battered, shocked.

“You should know that Hailey Belfour has always been jealous of my daughter,” she went on, her voice gaining still more energy. Hands gripping the back of that ridiculous chair, still smelling of Gwen’s tuberose. Gwen was everywhere. “Of Devon’s talents, the attention she receives from Hailey’s uncle, from everyone. You see, Hailey was never a real gymnast herself. She was too big, too graceless. Maybe she watched my daughter and saw what might have been ten years ago. If she’d been a less troubled girl. If she’d had the discipline but also the innate talent. The thing Devon has that makes her exceptional.”

“Mrs. Knox, I—”

“A grown woman so jealous of a child that she physically attacks her. Can you imagine the rage inside? What do you think a woman like that is capable of?”

She looked at them, they looked at her.

“But this is something we’ve dealt with Devon’s entire life. The envy of others.”





Chapter Eighteen



The detectives were still standing in her driveway, talking.

She watched from the window, watched how closely they stood, and how near the garage. Furey was nodding at everything Renton was saying, his mouth moving ceaselessly.

Then she saw them looking across her lawn.

To Mr. Watts’s fading ranch house. The driveway. Mr. Watts was there, the hood of his green Impala open, doing one of his endless repairs.

They walked over to him. They said something to him and he looked up, his old aviators flashing.

She imagined what he might say:

On the garage floor, Detective. The boy thought they were silverfish.

Yes, I showed them to Mrs. Knox.

Later I thought, Oh, paint from her husband’s car. Yes, it’s that color exactly.

She must’ve thought the same thing.

She watched as Mr. Watts shook his head, then shook it again.

Then they left.



“Mr. Watts,” she said, her feet still bare, soles sunk in dew, “were they bothering you?”

“Nope,” he said, wiping his hands with an oil-soft rag. “Were they bothering you?”

“But what did they ask you?”

He paused, looking at her, those aviators reflecting herself back in both mirrored teardrops.

“If I had a permit for my RV,” he said. “What’d they ask you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Someone’s been harassing Devon. It’s very upsetting and I’m…very upset.”

He nodded, folding his arms. “That is upsetting,” he said. “I hope they’re helping you. Your daughter’s in the paper so much now. That brings out the crazy.”

“Yes,” Katie said, catching a glimpse of her drawn face in his sunglasses. “It does.”

“I always try to keep an eye out for all of you. I still think about Devon’s accident. Things like that can do bad things to a family.”

Katie nodded. It had happened soon after they’d moved in, and they barely knew Mr. Watts. But he’d run over to help. Leaning down, he’d tried to talk to little Devon, What’s your favorite ice cream, anything to distract her from the blood and chaos. The smell of gas, the shrieking lawn mower.

“I’ll never forget seeing you at the screen door before it happened,” he said now, pointing up the driveway. “I was out there in my garage and saw you watching her run out to her daddy.”