Everything We Didn't Say(101)

Fast-forward. Rewind. Back and forth, zipping to fragments she needed to relive and then flying past in her search for something. Finally, an imagined scene played out in front of the stove beside her. One of her mother’s cast-iron pots, a few chips in the indigo-blue enamel. Reb’s fingers tight on the handle, wrapped around a folded towel. Law turning her roughly. And then. Liquid bubbling over the edge and down his shirt, his jeans. Pooling between the laces of his boots, funneling past the tongue and seeping into thick socks, singeing his skin.

“What’s bone glue?” Juniper asked.

“What?” Reb lifted her tear-streaked face. “I don’t understand.”

“Bone glue. What is it?”

Reb raised both hands, gave her head a little shake. “I use it to repair cracks in instruments. When my students or…” she trailed off. Sliding from the stool, she walked in a daze toward the kitchen sink. She bent and opened the bottom cupboard, and after riffling around, presented Juniper with a small, clear sack of what looked like amber-colored pearls.

It was half-empty, and lighter than Juniper expected it to be. In the split second before she broke the seal and lifted the bag to her face, she contemplated walking away. Hugging her mother. Telling her that she loved her. And going back to the bungalow to pretend that nothing had changed at all. But it was too late for that.

When Juniper inhaled, she breathed in the night that Cal and Beth died. It was muscle and sinew, bones ground to dust. Dirt and stars, a storm rolling in, blood. The scent of death.





CHAPTER 26


WINTER TODAY



“Why?” The word slipped from Juniper’s lips unbidden, the first of many that queued up and jostled for attention amid the growing din inside her head. “Did you know? Did you suspect? I don’t understand…”

Reb tore the bag from Juniper’s hands, spilling the foul pellets all over the linoleum floor. “I shouldn’t have shown you,” she muttered, dropping to her knees to try and sweep them into a pile. It was no use. They had scattered far and wide, tiny spheres of what Juniper now knew to be a natural adhesive made from animal by-products. Such a distinct smell. Unforgettable.

Juniper crouched in front of her mother and took her by the shoulders. Forced Reb to face her, though the older woman was scowling through her tears and refused to make eye contact. “Why?” she asked again, and when Reb didn’t answer: “Mom, I was there.” At this, Reb’s eyes locked with Juniper’s for just a second, but she didn’t say anything, so Juniper went on. “I was at the Murphys’ farm the night they were killed. Do you understand what I’m telling you? There was a witness. Me. And I think Lawrence killed Cal and Beth.”

“No,” Reb whispered, but there was no conviction in her tone. Suddenly, she tipped sideways, off her knees and onto her hip. Juniper knew she would have kept going, but the cupboard was in the way, and her mother slumped against it, all the fight seeping out of her.

“It’s okay,” Juniper soothed, changing tactics. Whether her mother knew what happened that night was secondary right now. She had to get to Law, and quickly. So many things were locking into place at once that Juniper could hardly keep up. Had Law seen her crouching in the barn? Had he recognized her? Is that why he spared her life but convinced Reb to exile her only daughter? And did Jonathan know? The hospital marker board flashed in her mind’s eye: Dad. Had Jonathan been trying to warn her?

“It’s going to be okay,” Juniper said again, easing her hand from beneath where it was pinched between her mother’s arm and the cupboard door. “We’re going to be just fine.”

Her mother seemed to be in shock, or at least completely numb to the world around her. Sleepless nights, long days in the ICU, and now her entire life imploding before her eyes. What was going through her mind? Juniper had so many questions, but they would have to wait.

She grabbed her phone from her back pocket and unlocked it, then paused with her finger over the nine. Calling the police made the most sense, but what if Everett responded? Juniper couldn’t trust him. She also refused to call Cora, and didn’t know India or Barry well enough to drag them into this nightmare. Jonathan was in the hospital. She and Ashley were estranged. There was no one in Jericho that Juniper could call. A lightning bolt of longing made her heart sigh Sullivan, but she shoved the thought away before it could reduce her to tears.

Juniper was on her own.

The wind had started to howl, and Juniper instantly regretted her decision to forgo her coat and slip out the back door. But the barn wasn’t far, and Law was somewhere inside. Juniper ducked her head and ran, her feet sure from a lifetime of walking the path.

The Bakers’ barn was larger than the Murphys’, and much more modern. Cement floors, large doors for machines, rows of fluorescent lights so that Lawrence could work on engines and honey-do projects after sunset. When Juniper laid her hand on the pedestrian door, it was unlatched and the barn was bathed in darkness. Still, she was freezing, so instead of being careful, she yanked it open and stepped inside.

Juniper should have been grateful to get out of the incessant wind, but the second she crossed the threshold she was aware of only one thing: the scent of gasoline. It was so strong, she pulled her sweater up over her nose and mouth while she waited for her eyes to adjust to the silty dark. Even breathing through the thick fabric, she almost had to back out.