What Lies in the Woods(89)

“You thought Oscar attacked me and you didn’t do anything about it?” I asked, not bothering to hide my disgust.

“What was the point of saying anything? You were alive, and … well, that money could give you more of a future than I ever could.”

Oscar. I’d had the same thought, of course, but that was because I knew about Jessi. “Why would Oscar go after me? He was a psycho, sure. But it seems extreme,” I said leadingly.

“There was that thing with you and Cody,” Dad said.

“You knew about that?”

“I knew a bit,” Dad said. “Oscar was hassling you and Cody beat the shit out of him.”

I huffed a breath. “He deserved worse.”

“Worse would have killed him,” Dad replied matter-of-factly. “If Marsha hadn’t called Miller, I’m not sure Cody would have stopped before that boy was dead.”

“It wasn’t— That wasn’t what happened,” I said. Except I didn’t know, did I? Cody told me to run. I thought the fight was over by then.

“Cody was still on him when Miller got there,” Dad said. “Cody told us why he’d done it, but Miller talked me out of making a stink. Convinced me that Oscar got his comeuppance already. I told him I just wished I’d gotten to watch.”

I’d thought Oscar was just avoiding me after that. I smirked a little. Yeah, he deserved it. “Why wasn’t Cody arrested?” I asked.

“Big Jim pulled strings for him,” Dad said. “I think he could see Cody was starting to turn himself around. Had a chance to make something of himself—as long as he didn’t have a felony on his record. Anyway, Oscar going after you might’ve made some sense after that. If he blamed you.”

I nodded. There was violence in him, always. I had tasted it on his skin: salty sweat and bottomless rage at the world. I had felt it in his hands, his fingers when they gripped tight enough to dent my thighs, to bruise my arms. His was a violence of claiming. He could kill me. Every time I had set my teeth to the skin of his throat I had known he could and he would if he wanted to.

In the end, he’d found better ways to destroy me. To ruin the thing Cody wanted to protect.

And Liv? Could he have killed her, too? Absolutely, I thought—if he’d found out she was going to tell the truth about that day. But how would he have known?

I couldn’t shake the image of Ethan, pointing that gun at her head. It would have been so easy to lay all of this misery at Oscar’s feet, or Jim’s, but I couldn’t assume I was looking for one killer. Ethan’s reasons for being angry with us hadn’t changed.

“What’s the point in all of this, Naomi?” Dad asked. “You’re talking about ancient history. You deserve better than getting dragged around through this stuff again. You should get back to making pretty pictures of fancy people.” It was possibly the most supportive thing he’d ever said to me.

“You’re a really terrible father,” I said, matter-of-fact. “You know that, right?”

“Of course I know it. I’m dumb but I’m not stupid,” he said. “It’s not like you’re winning Daughter of the Year prizes yourself.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Same to you.”

I saluted him with my beer and took a long swig. It was already warming up in my hand.

Dad pursed his lips. “You know, I’ve been thinking. I could use some help around here. Tidy up a bit, you know. Just so that lady cop stops complaining.”

“You really think you can part with this stuff?” I asked.

“Most of it’s junk anyhow,” he grumbled. “There’s just too much of it to do it myself.” He inspected the carpet at his shoes.

“I can help. I will,” I said. “If you’re willing, I mean.”

“Maybe we’ll even find my #1 Dad mug in here somewhere,” he joked.

“Could be,” I allowed. I knew it didn’t mean anything. He’d said that sort of thing before, and it only ever lasted until the first trash bag came out. But saying it mattered. Wanting it mattered. “Dad, I don’t know what to do,” I confessed.

“You should rest,” Dad said. “I may be a shitty dad, but I know when a person’s too licked to stand. Take a goddamn nap or something. I’ll go get us some dinner.”

He stumped his way out of the room. The door didn’t quite close behind him, bouncing open when it hit the corner of a cardboard box.

I stood and walked to the window. It faced out back, toward the scraggle of trees, a trailer overgrown with blackberry vines, the rusted skeleton of a bicycle. I drank as much of the beer as I could stomach and set it on the sill, next to the brittle body of a dead fly.

The door creaked. “Did you need cash or something?” I said, turning. But it wasn’t Dad.

It was Ethan. My body tensed all at once with an instant awareness of the cage around me. Four walls, one door, the window too rusted to open easily. Ethan, rangy and tall, filling the only exit. Fear was a hand holding tight to the back of my neck.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. I shifted away from the window, trying to get an angle on the door. Like maybe I could run for it, get past him.

For a second, the expression on his face was puzzlement—then understanding washed over him. “You know, don’t you?”