Paranoid(89)

“Did you do it?”

“Not yet. If I do, I have to wait until the last day that the grades go in, and even then . . .” He leaned back against the bed. “I’m so screwed.”

She didn’t believe that. Dylan always figured a way to weasel out of any kind of trouble. She thought about what he’d told her. This could be to her advantage.

“You said you wouldn’t tell,” he reminded her nervously.

“I won’t. But I want in.” She held his gaze. “I need an A in chemistry.”

*

Aware of the clock ticking, Rachel drove straight to her father’s house despite the fog that clouded her vision.

She couldn’t be gone long, but she needed to talk to him, and so she sped along the highway, nearly missing the turn onto the county road, and slowed just as she reached his lane. All the while she thought about the murders of people she knew, of the stupid articles in the paper, and of course of Luke and how she’d pulled the trigger and watched him go down.

Don’t do this, she silently told herself, hands tight over the steering wheel. She’d held it together for the kids, but felt herself unraveling.

“Get it together,” she told herself. Her Explorer shuddered a little on the bumpy, unpaved driveway to his house, where she spied his truck was parked near a shed. She switched off the engine and raced up the back steps, her usual entrance to his home.

As she stepped onto the porch she startled a cat, which scurried out from beneath a stepladder surrounded by a pile of paint cans and drop cloths. “Great,” she said, the black cat crossing her path to streak across the uneven yard just as she nearly stepped under the ladder.

With a quick rap on the door, she tried the knob and, without waiting for her father to answer, stepped into the kitchen. “Hey, Dad, it’s me!”

“Well, look who’s here!”

He walked in from the living room, a newspaper in his hand. “I was just reading about you in this rag.”

She rolled her eyes. “Mercedes won’t give it up.”

He tossed the paper into a trash can standing near the back door. “Try not to let it bother you. She’s just trying to sell papers.”

Reading glasses were perched upon his nose and he looked at her over the half lenses. “You okay?”

“What do you think?”

“Yeah.” He opened his arms wide and she fell into them, grateful for a second of his strength. She’d always relied upon him; probably always would. She squeezed her eyes shut, fought tears, and when she opened them again, looked through the window to spy the cat sitting atop a fence post, black tail curled around his feet, a mist rising around him, the whole scene eerie. “I think I scared your cat.”

“Not mine. Stray. I made the mistake of feeding him and now he thinks he lives here.... Well, come to think of it maybe he does. So, kid, how’re you holding up?”

“Not so good, and I can’t stay long. The kids are at home alone and that’s dangerous during the best of times. Now . . .”

“I hear ya. Do you have time for a cup?”

She noted the Keurig on his aging counter. “Sure. A quick one. Got decaf?”

He snorted. “That’s not coffee. Just black water. But yeah.”

“Okay.” He reached into a cupboard for the box of coffee pods, and as he did, he winced.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just getting old. Strained my shoulder . . . been painting and tiling the bathroom.” He found the pod, snapped it into the coffee machine, and pressed a button, only to rub his shoulder. “Gettin’ soft, I guess.” He rotated his shoulder, then plucked a bottle of ibuprofen from the windowsill and shook two into his palm before tossing the dry tablets into his mouth. “Probably a pinched nerve or arthritis or something. No big deal.”

The Keurig hissed and sputtered before he handed her the cup and made another. “Real coffee,” he pronounced, replacing the old pod with a new one, snapping it into place and tossing the old one into the trash.

“If you say so.”

“Decaf’s for wimps.”

“Sometimes I am.”

He snorted. “I don’t believe it.”

She heard the ding of a text coming in, then another, but seeing that they weren’t from the kids, she ignored them. She glanced at the clock over the stove, time ticking away, and took a swallow of the coffee as she took a seat at the kitchen table that Ned had refinished himself.

“How’s Harper?”

“Dealing better than I thought she would.”

He slid a glance over his shoulder as his cup filled. “Watch her. Sometimes it hits later, after the shock wears off.”

She was aware of that all too well, she thought, as she ran a fingertip over the old knots and scars of the tabletop.

“How well did you know the victims?”

“Just in school. You remember. Violet more than Annessa. She’d come over once in a while.” But as he turned to face her, fresh mug of coffee in hand, she realized he didn’t recall her high school relationships. How could he? He was a full-time cop at the time, often worked nights, and the family was breaking up at that point, splintering as he and Melinda were well on their way to divorce. “But I didn’t keep in touch. Even though they lived around here, I didn’t know them.”