You Will Know Me(72)

“‘Joe felt a stab of pain,’” Drew continued, “‘as the tattoo artist crouched over him and the needle pricked the skin on his chest.’”

“Drew—”

“‘“First, I prick the design. Then comes the dye.”’” Drew flipped a page, found another highlight. “‘“The mark will stay with you for life,” cried the pirate.’”

“Drew, honey, listen to me. I’ve got to go see Coach T. for a little while.”

“Mom, the tattoo ruins your life,” he said, looking up. “Once he puts it on you, you have bad luck forever.”

She could ask Mr. Watts to watch him, but she didn’t want to. (What had he meant, anyway? That she’d been standing at the screen door before the accident. That she—)

“You have a tattoo, Mom.”

“I do,” she said. “Not a pretty one.” Fight Like a Grrrl on her left thigh. She’d done it stick-and-poke style, with a sewing needle and an ashes-vodka slurry when she was Devon’s age.

Placing her hand on the top of his head softly, she said, “Pal, you think you’d be okay here for a few minutes by yourself?”

“I saw it when we went swimming that time.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, “so the curse must be over.” A funny hitch in her voice.

“And a pirate didn’t give it to you.”

“No,” she said. “I gave it to myself.”



Drew’s always-sticky phone in her hand, checking the battery charge, she explained again how to reach her, as if he hadn’t called her hundreds of times.

“It’s only nine blocks,” she said. “And Mr. Watts is next door if you need anything. Or if you just get lonely. But I’ll only be gone a half hour. I’m just at Coach T.’s.”

“Okay,” he said, the book still between his fingers, his other hand scratching his temple, the rash peeling now, like an overripe plum.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she said, opening the front door, car keys clutched in her hand. “It’s just nine blocks.”

“I think this is going to be my favorite book,” he said.

“That’s good. It’s nice to have a favorite book.”

“Ryan had a favorite book,” he said. “He kept it in his back pocket all the time.”

“Did he?” She looked outside, at the quiet street. No sign of Mr. Watts or anyone at all.

“You know he did,” he said.

She turned and, for the first time ever, he looked at her like he knew she was lying. Which she was, though she wasn’t sure why. But in that look, his eyes dark and sad, she knew something had ended, that great parental loss, the moment they realize you’re not perfect, and maybe even a little worse.

“In his back pocket,” he added, watching her, squinting. “You know it.”



She sat in her car for a minute, staring up at the sprawling house, bright yellow with white trim, like a slab of coconut cake, layers piled high.

The new cedar deck stretched twice the length of the entire first floor of the Knox house.

No sign of the detectives’ unmarked black Dodge.



Katie smelled her shampoo first. Like Love’s Baby Soft.

Then, walking across the softly carpeted living room, she saw her.

Knees together, hands folded, Hailey posed. Swimmer’s shoulders hidden in a blush-pink oxford shirt, her face was paler than her usual golden-girl glow, but she was meticulously groomed. Katie pictured Tina leaning over her niece, brushes and wands and implements, incanting some kind of brisk Southern sorority-girl magic. Jerking Hailey’s curls into a long ponytail that looked as shiny as a girl’s favorite doll, soft and staticky and overtended so Katie could see every brush mark.

But something was wrong. One sandy spiral hung down, a forelock that didn’t belong. A big hank of her hair got torn out. Artfully positioned to cover a bare patch, pink puckered. Her scalp opened up where she hit the floor.



“Okay,” Katie said. “Why am I here?”

All three of them, sentried together on the sofa, heavily upholstered in bold plaid, her uncle and aunt didn’t look at Hailey, and she didn’t look at them.

They all looked only at Katie, their eyes clear and inscrutable.

“Eric wouldn’t come?” Teddy asked.

“I told you he’s at work. You’re going to have to deal with me.”

Teddy nodded, then Tina too, watching Katie closely, with twinkling eyes.

“Katie, we are thanking the heavens that Hailey’s name has been cleared.”

“Has it, Tina?” Katie said, straightening herself. Readying herself. “Because my daughter’s battered body suggests otherwise.”

Teddy’s head bobbed in dramatic assent. “I know that none of this takes away what Hailey did, laying her hand in anger on our Devon,” he said, pointing at his niece as though she were set in a pillory, face winsome and pleading. “But Katie, can I ask you, do you know, truly, how you might behave if you lost the person who mattered most to you?”

“And you were the one blamed?” Tina burst in. “That you not only lose your true love in a horrific accident, but on top of it you face this smear campaign—suspicion, rumors, dirty digs—”