The Winter Sister(66)

“Okay,” I said, and I slid my hand into his.

We shook on it then, our eyes locked together, and in that moment, I couldn’t tell what was more powerful—the reassurance that, no matter what Tommy did, I’d be safe, or the feeling that, with Ben’s hand in mine, I was betraying Persephone all over again.





21




Tommy’s trailer was tidier than I’d expected. It was almost disarming how neatly everything was displayed. He didn’t appear to have much, but everything he did have—magazines, a few movies, a small bowl that cupped some change—seemed so meticulously placed that I feared what would happen if I accidentally disturbed something. Even the patch of laminate floorboards beneath his TV stand looked recently dusted, as if he’d known we were coming and had left no space untouched.

“Why do you think I killed Persephone?” Tommy asked.

He was rocking in a recliner that looked eerily similar to my mother’s, while Ben and I sat in the two remaining chairs in the room. I stared at him, my eyes growing wide. Her name in his mouth sounded wrong, misshapen. He lingered too long on the s, like his tongue was savoring the taste of each syllable. The sound paralyzed my vocal cords.

“You used to stalk her,” Ben jumped in, “and you just served a prison sentence for assault against a woman. It’s two plus two, Dent.”

Tommy crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “That girl was nothing,” he said.

A muscle in my eyelid spasmed. His flippancy jostled loose the words that had been crouching inside me.

“What did you do with my sister’s stuff?” I asked.

Tommy cocked his head. “What stuff?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I snapped. “My mother told me she gave you Persephone’s things. I want to know what you did with them.” Then, my voice wavering slightly, I added, “Do you still have them?”

He sucked in one of his cheeks and his eyes crept over my face.

“How is Annie?” he asked, practically purring my mother’s name, and as I flinched, another grin spread onto his face as greasily as butter in a hot pan.

“Answer the question, Dent,” Ben said.

Tommy looked at Ben, then back at me, and for a couple seconds, his head pivoted between the two of us. Then, with a sound that gurgled up from his stomach, he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Ben asked.

Tommy’s body pitched forward, his arm clutching his stomach, and he wiped his hands over his eyes in a theatrical display of amusement. “Oh, nothing,” he said. “It’s just—” He paused to allow for an aftershock of chuckles. “You’re fucking the little O’Leary now, too?”

Something flashed in Ben’s eyes, as clearly as a blade glinting in the light. His hands balled into fists.

“Hey, man, I get it,” Tommy continued. “She’s a good stand-in for Persephone, isn’t she? I mean, they don’t look anything alike, but there’s still something kind of similar there, don’t you think? There’s definitely an essence.”

Even though he was speaking to Ben, Tommy’s eyes latched onto my skin like a pair of leeches. I could feel him trying to drag the blood from my veins, keep me troubled and tense.

Ben was sitting at least four feet away from me, but I sensed how tightly he was wound. It was calming, somehow, to see his jaw clench. It reminded me that we needed to keep our cool.

“Look,” I said, cutting Ben off just as he opened his mouth to speak. “Our . . .” I searched for the right word, but after several seconds, I was still unable to find one that fit. “It’s none of your business. I came here today because I’m willing to make a trade. I hear you like those.”

I picked up the package from my lap and shook it, the necklace and lotion bottle rattling around inside. “I have some of Persephone’s things right here. If you just let me look through the stuff you have of hers, maybe we could make an exchange. You could have these new things, and I could have back some of the things that mean something to me.”

Tommy’s eyes swelled with interest.

“It’s just . . .” I softened my voice. “My sister and I were really close, and I never got to keep anything of hers. There are certain things that would be nice to have. Things I really loved.”

I could see him getting reeled in, his lips parting, just like a fish on a line. “Like what?” he asked.

“Like this necklace she had. It was gold and had a starfish pendant. It meant so much to her, and I’d do anything to have it as a way to remember my sister. Please. If you have it, just—at least let me see it.”

I looked away from him as desperation crept into my voice. When I glanced at Ben, I saw that he was already looking at me, nodding his head a little, a wince of pain in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to tell me something—that he knew that necklace, too, maybe, and that the thought of it was comforting and annihilating all at once, just as it was for me.

Tommy shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I never got a fish necklace.”

“Not a fish,” I corrected. “A starfish.”

“Never got one of them either.”

Disappointment sank into my bones, but I wasn’t really surprised by his denial. He was playing with me, and I had to keep at it.