Everything We Didn't Say(30)
Jonathan Baker, a suspect in a nearly fifteen-year-old double murder…
No one was ever charged…
Murderer remains at large…
Jonathan’s “accident” dredges up a lot of unanswered questions…
India had actually put quotation marks around “accident,” but it was unclear what she was trying to imply. Was there any way she could know about how history was repeating itself? About the little “mishaps” and thinly veiled threats that Mandy had whispered about only days ago? Even if she did, India’s insinuations read like a bad tabloid. She was clueless. Ignorant. She didn’t know anything. India’s faux friendliness—the way she had sidled up to Juniper at Mom & Tot Hour like an old friend—was galling.
Still. Juniper scrolled quickly through the site, looking for anything and everything even remotely related to Jonathan or the murders. Could India be behind the podcast? And if so, was she capable of persecuting Jonathan—and Mandy and the boys—in such a sinister, traumatizing way? It didn’t seem likely. India had come across as a little vacuous but friendly enough, and certainly not malevolent. Whoever was working on a podcast about the Murphy murders had a vicious vendetta against her brother. That bastard. It felt personal. And yet, India Abbot was definitely someone Juniper needed to watch.
She closed the browser and then tried to erase the search history before remembering that the function had been disabled—not that it mattered. If Barry was right, India’s little online rag got lots of attention. Surely it had popped up on the library’s computers many times before and no one who noticed it would think twice. Still, if Juniper had anything to do about it, India’s days as an amateur investigative journalist were numbered.
Before she had time to change her mind, Juniper plucked the business card from where she had tucked it in her phone case and punched in the number. “Officer Stokes?” she said when he picked up. “I think we need to talk.”
CHAPTER 8
SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Sullivan’s kiss lingers like an illness. It clings to my skin and makes me feel dirty, even after I’ve showered and crawled into bed feigning an unspecified sickness. Jonathan leaves me alone at the insinuation of “girl problems,” but I won’t be able to avoid him forever. He’ll insist on a play-by-play of my conversation with Sullivan, and I’ve never been able to lie to my brother. Not that I don’t try—he can just read me like an open book.
Curled on my side in bed, I squint at the stars outside my window and try to get my story straight. Sullivan talked about water. About sinkholes and pollution and not much else. It scares me a bit to remember how cavalier he was about Baxter, as if taking a life—even the life of an animal—was really nothing at all. And I have much more to learn about the ongoing feud between the Murphys and the Tates. I wonder what Jonathan knows.
Layered in with all that worry is the knowledge that Ashley will never forgive me if she finds out what I let happen. It wasn’t that big of a deal, of course. I know that. The logical side of me accepts that Sullivan kissed me and I backed away. But Ashley will never see it that way because she’s so head over heels for him. I’m pretty sure she’d forfeit our friendship over a misunderstanding. And isn’t the growing distance between us all my fault? I’ve made no secret about the fact that I hate it here. My automatic dislike of anything and everything related to this town rubs Ashley the wrong way, and now that I’m half-gone, I can see our relationship is hanging by a thread. I wanted more for us than this.
* * *
Law and Jonathan are long gone by the time I drag myself out of bed and stumble down the stairs in the morning, but there’s no way I can avoid Mom. No doubt, she’ll be waiting in the kitchen for me, and I get ready as slowly as I can without making myself late. I pull my hair into a high knot and throw on clothes that are already paint-splattered and worn. By the end of the day I’ll be a disaster, covered in smears of oil pastels and glitter glue if I’m not careful. I have the best summer job in all of Jericho—assistant to the Arts and Crafts Director at the community center—but it’s definitely not clean.
I skip down the steps two at a time, planning to eat on the run. But Mom is leaning against the kitchen sink, waiting for me, it seems. She’s not going to let me slip away so easily this time.
“Hey,” she says, peering at me over a mug of tea.
“Hey.” I can’t exactly back out of the room now, even though I’m still not ready to face her. “About the other day…”
Mom sighs. “Juniper Grace, you’re an adult. I’m not going to yell at you about grad night.”
“You’re not?”
“I don’t want you to make bad decisions, but you’re a good girl, June. Everyone is allowed a mistake from time to time.”
I’m all set to argue with her—to remind her that I’m responsible and a straight-A student and not the kind of girl who makes a habit of getting drunk—but then she smiles at me over the rim of her mug and I realize she’s already forgiven me.
“I thought you were mad. I’ve been avoiding you.” I pull out a stool at the island and Mom comes over to lift a loaf of bread out of the basket on the counter. When Jonathan and I were little, she used to make something different and wonderful for breakfast every morning. Pancakes and waffles, omelets with fresh eggs we gathered from the small coop out back, lots of thick, crispy bacon. I didn’t really appreciate it when I was a kid, the way Mom served us. I thought it was our right as her children, but I can see it now as something much different. An offering, maybe. A kind of tangible provision. Love.