Burn Our Bodies Down(20)

“She’s come to our house before, but we never go to hers.” Tess fakes a full-body shiver. “Vera’s like Medusa if Medusa knew what a casserole was. You’ll see when you meet her.”

She didn’t sound like that on the phone, Gram. She sounded like something better than what I left in Calhoun. I ignore the cold fear that wakes in my stomach. She’ll be good to me. I know she will.

I watch as Tess fiddles with a stack of Post-its on Anderson’s desk. A few are already stuck to the drawers of his file cabinet, one with a last name on it that looks almost like mine. I lean in, anxious to get a better look, but before I can, Tess takes one of the Post-its and sticks it to my forehead with a smack.

“Beautiful,” she says. “Are they calling her for you? Vera? Or are your parents here? And God, how strong are Nielsen genes? You guys look like those ‘spot the difference’ pictures.” She purses her lips, considering me. “But a really hard one. Not the kind they have in those dentist office magazines.”

“Okay.” I snatch the Post-it from my forehead. “You can stop.”

She winces, and I immediately feel terrible. Eli can do that, can knock her back a little, because he knows her. Who the hell am I?

“What?” Connors says across the bullpen, finally opening the conference room door. Eli asks for a first-aid kit, ignores the looks the two of them give me. Whatever damage the fire did to my skin is the least of my concerns.

“So?” Tess says. “Your parents?”

For a second I have no idea what she’s talking about, and then I remember. Who will they call for me?

“My mom, I guess,” I say. “But she doesn’t really count.” Which makes sense to me but, judging by the look on Tess’s face, doesn’t to her.

“Why not?”

If there’s a good way to explain how we are, Mom and me, I’ve never found it. “It’s just not how we work,” I say. They’ll call her, sure, but it won’t matter. Mom couldn’t even tell me Phalene existed—no way would she actually come here, not even with the police reeling her in. “And I came here for my grandmother, anyway.”

Tess lights up. That’s what she wanted. An actual admission from me. Yes, that’s what I am. Yes, that’s who I belong to.

“My mom never told me about any of this,” I say. I mean to draw the story out of Tess, to unspool it inch by inch. But I don’t have to.

“Not much to tell, really. After the drought Vera ran Phalene into the ground. Pretty much everyone used to work for her. So you can guess how that turned out.” Tess starts using the Post-its to cover the screen of Anderson’s outdated computer. “And then the whole mess with the fire.” She pauses, cocks her head. “I guess we have to call it the old fire now.”

“What happened—”

“This,” she says, gesturing to me with one of the sticky notes, “being the new one.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I got that. What happened with the old fire?” If that’s what has everybody looking at me like I know more than I do, I need everything she can tell me.

But she just shrugs. “It’s like”—she puts on a voice that’s probably supposed to be an imitation of her parents—“something we don’t talk about. But the gist, as far as I know, is that there was a fire at Fairhaven and Vera lost her daughter.”

Lost Mom. So that’s why she left Phalene? A fire? That can’t be everything. She’s hidden this town from me my whole life—there has to be a bigger reason. For the secrecy, and for the way the police treat my last name like it’s a warning. “And that’s why Anderson thinks Nielsens are trouble?”

“That, and the fact that he’s an incurable asshole.” She grimaces. “And probably the dead body has something to do with it.”

Right. I wonder what the police think the truth is. Some of it is clear enough. Me and that girl out there together, setting that fire. But there’s my grandmother, too, hovering around every word like an echo. She has to know something. This secret has to belong to her. To Fairhaven. I just don’t quite know what it is yet.

“Anyway,” Tess says, “I’m sure Vera will be here in a bit to handle everything, and in the meantime you have me on your side. Anderson and Connors can say what they want, but I was with you this morning. I told them, and I’ll tell them again. They can’t do anything to you, okay?”

She sounds so certain. It’s never been anything but all right for her. But I keep thinking of the look on Anderson’s face as he loaded me into the cruiser, and I don’t think it’ll be all right at all.

“Okay,” I say anyway, and she leans across the desk toward me.

“Great. Okay, hold out your hand.”

“What?”

She nods to the computer screen, now fully covered in Post-its. “I need something else to do, don’t I?”

Bewildered, I stick out my left hand, palm up. Tess’s little smile breaks wide and she’s laughing as she grabs my wrist to turn it over. I watch her methodically tear a sticky note into little strips and start to fit one on each of my fingernails.

“I’m a genius,” she says grandly when she’s done. “I have such a future in nail art.”

“I’ll be your model,” I say, and Tess snorts. “Take me on tour.”