Gun Shy(73)

Chris shrugs. “Probably from the guardrail from a previous accident. Or from the scrapyard. Honestly, it was clutching at straws anyway.”

“Wait,” I say, still utterly confused. “So Leo was trying to say the paint chips were from the night of the accident?”

Chris nods uneasily.

“From another car?”

Another nod. “Hypothetically, of course. Because I sent the chips off to a private lab, and they’re the ones who matched it to this make and model, but I can’t find a single car in the state of Nevada that has ever been registered in this color.”

“But if there were a car this color. Hypothetically. You’re saying this person may have caused the accident?”

Chris sighs. “Yeah. It’s possible this other car pushed Leo’s car off the bridge. At that angle, at that speed, it’d have to be somebody who knew what they were doing.”

I change the subject. I don’t want to appear too eager. I also don’t know if I trust Chris as far as I can throw him, even if he does seem like a lovely boy. He’s fiercely loyal to Damon, and so I cannot let him too close.

I have the information I need.

Now, I just need him to leave.

Sure enough, a 911 call comes in about an hour later. Chris tries to get me to accompany him, but I flat-out refuse. He calls Amanda and asks her to come over, and speeds off, sirens blaring. I know I have about three minutes before Amanda and her pitying fucking eyes arrive, and I use those three minutes wisely.

I make my way into the garage, quietly and efficiently sidling up to the car Damon still hasn’t gotten rid of. Well, I say car, but it’s a truck. Ray’s truck. I circle around to the front of the truck still parked in the spot Ray left it when he ambushed me, the night Damon blew a hole in his head.

I skate my hands along its metallic paint, looking for something.

It’s the right make.

It’s the right model.

It’s the exact color of the truck Chris showed me on his phone.

The elusive pickup with the dark red paint.

I remember Ray’s warning to me: Stay still or you’ll get what you deserve, just like your mother got what she deserved.

At the time I’d thought it nothing more than an empty threat, but maybe that threat was full and overflowing.

My brain does all sorts of calculations as I study the hard corners of Ray’s pickup.

I run my hands along its edges, and at the corner, I can feel these tiny raised spots as if someone has fixed up the paint job.

Usually you’d paint over rust spots, but these don’t feel like that. These are long strands, like gouges, but raised instead of indented into the metal.

Using my fingernail, I dig at the dark red paint. Whoever patched the car did a great job of matching the paint; it’s invisible until you’re looking specifically. I scratch at the little raised parts, the dark red flaking away in my palms. Midnight blue paint glints at me from underneath.

Oh, God. Oh God, Oh God.

I stagger back, glancing at the license plate. Registered in California.

Of course you’d never find this car on the Nevada database.

Ray made sure to register it out of state to cover his tracks.

But the bastard kept the truck, he kept the weapon he used to push Leo’s Mustang off the road.

He kept it as a trophy.

Because it wasn’t an accident at all, was it?

Damon wanted me, and Mom was obviously in the way. Leo was in the way. So they got rid of them both in one fell swoop. One sideswipe on an ice-covered bridge. One old car with no airbags, no roll cage, no safety.

Ray Linklater is the one who killed my mother.

Ray and Damon.

Brothers without blood.

Accomplices.

Murderers.

I hear Amanda’s car pull up in the driveway and blink back tears, hurriedly covering the truck again. I’m pulling the garage door shut and heading for the front door just as Amanda knocks.

I open it and she’s there, smiling, such a kind fucking smile. She must see the look on my face, utterly bereft, trying to unravel a decade of secrets and lies while trying not to fall to the floor.

“You look like you need a hug,” she says, closing the front door behind her, pulling me into her, holding me tight.

She smells like the cherry pie my mom used to bake, and I fucking lose it. I bury my face in her neck and cry. “Hey, come on,” she coos, stroking my hair. “It’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.”



* * *



Everything is not all right, Amanda. Everything is not fucking all right.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE





CASSIE





Grief is seasonal.



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Disbelief comes and goes, and leaves an aching pit of sadness for you to somehow carry around with you while you smile and nod and pretend you’re not hollowed out inside. Grief is useless. It’s like drowning in a sea of your own despair because you won’t grab onto the rope being offered to you. So you let yourself be sucked under, you let the rough waters invade your nose and your mouth and your ears and your eyes until you’re dead on the inside, hollowed out, a walking corpse. Grief makes you weak.



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