Real Bad Things(35)
“You know him?” Jane’s focus remained on Diane and Gerry. Georgia Lee hadn’t forgotten how quickly those twin pangs of Diane’s neglect and rejection could darken Jane’s mood.
“Gerry Hardgrove. Works at the dam. He found Warren.” She didn’t mention that she’d seen them together at the liquor store.
“Awkward,” Jane said, so softly she might as well have been talking to herself.
“Are they dating?” Georgia Lee asked.
Jane shrugged. “Never seen him before today.” Finally, she faced Georgia Lee. “What are you doing here?”
Georgia Lee hadn’t prepared for the question. “I thought I might see you here.”
“Well,” Jane said. “Here I am.”
Georgia Lee paused. Longer than she realized, apparently.
“Okay then,” Jane said and looked around. “I need to find a ride home.”
“Sorry. I don’t know where my head’s at.” Georgia Lee tried to laugh off her awkwardness. “I can give you a ride.”
Georgia Lee reached out to touch Jane’s arm, a friendly gesture. But something woke within her. A tiny glimmer. A vestigial bit of ancestral code, unlocked. A pebble, really. But big enough to upset her balance, to render logic and reasoning out of her control. Something her teacher had mentioned in middle school when he separated the boys from the girls and a film clicked on, talking about babies and hormones and how their bodies might start feeling, looking different soon. That teacher didn’t talk about what Georgia Lee had felt when she talked to Jane for the first time. When she saw her now.
Eleven
JANE
As soon as Georgia Lee’s fingertips hit Jane’s skin, it was like mainlining lost memories.
“What the fuck?”
Georgia Lee and Angie and Jason had begun to talk at once, launching words at Jane. She couldn’t focus. Her brain bounced all sorts of things off her skull. Random words that didn’t fit into any logical sequence. She was scared. Scattered.
Water rushed through the dam in the distance. Tree limbs reached out toward them like hands, snatching at their hair with the uptick in wind from the impending storm. Angie and Jane had left the house for twenty minutes to talk. Another dumb fight about Georgia Lee that ended with another earnest promise to spend more time together before they walked back to the trailer and noticed the door wide open, shit knocked to the floor, and neither Georgia Lee nor Jason anywhere to be found.
And now Warren was at their feet. Blood clotting the dirt beneath his head.
“What the fuck?” Jane asked again. The only words she could think to say.
Words spilled out of Georgia Lee’s mouth, frantic. Something about Warren coming home, them having words, Georgia Lee running out of the house, Warren’s hand around the arm that Georgia Lee rubbed, the same way Jane had sometimes caught herself rubbing her neck from where he’d grabbed her.
“What did he do?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t hit me. Jason . . .” Georgia Lee stopped. Her face went ashen.
“What about Jason?” Jane turned to him. Blood covered his hands.
He held out his hands as if he was worried she might rush him. “I didn’t mean to.”
“What the fuck!” Jane’s voice reverberated through the woods and across the water.
Angie clasped a hand to Jane’s mouth. “Keep your voice down.” Panic edged her words.
Jane should’ve kept her mouth shut. But she had to say things, do things. Antagonize Warren beyond the point where it was okay or safe. Finally, Angie removed her hand.
They stood and stared at Warren’s body as if an answer would come to them.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jason asked. He could barely stand still. He twitched head to toe, like something had gotten inside his skin.
“We?” Angie asked. Even in the shadows, Jane noted the flush on her skin. “No. No, no, no.”
“Angie, please.” Jane gripped her hand. “You can’t leave.”
Angie shook her head, not looking up from the sight of Warren on the ground. “I can’t have anything to do with this.”
“You can’t unsee a dead body,” Georgia Lee said. She stood rigid, hands at her sides, slightly shaking as if from a chill. The perfect picture of a horror-movie heroine with her makeup askew, hair in her face, and blood on her shirt and hands.
Angie didn’t have a retort for Georgia Lee, maybe for the first time ever.
While they stood and stared at Warren’s body, Jane banged her head against every option but kept landing on the only one that made any sense. The only option that would keep the cops from taking Jason in.
“Grab his arms,” Jane said.
“What? No.” Angie leaned in to whisper to Jane, casting a glance at Jason first. “Don’t you think we should call the police?”
“No,” Georgia Lee said. She slowly turned to Jason, who was staring at her. He faced Angie and Jane.
“No,” he said. “We can’t call them.” What the fuck, Jane kept repeating in her head.
“But it was self-defense,” Angie said, her words rushed. “Right?”
Jason stared at Warren’s body some more and then at Angie. “They won’t help us,” he said to Angie. “You know that.”