It's One of Us(17)
She has half an hour before she needs to leave for school. Mom isn’t due home until 9:00 a.m. at the earliest, so she can log into Discord and check in with the group, see if any more people have popped up as matches.
Morning, she types in the small box to the right of her photo—a cartoon owl, a wise owl. She isn’t dumb enough to put her face on this profile. She knows there are creepers out there who love to chat up pretty teenagers. Even if she controls who enters this server, that doesn’t mean one of the halves couldn’t get hacked.
How’s everyone today?
Did you hear? comes an immediate comment from the other group moderator.
Hear what?
There’s been another DNA match to our dad.
Scarlett feels the adrenaline rush she always gets when a new kid pops up.
Who is it? Did anyone reach out?
Uh, yeah. The police. It’s at the crime scene of a dead chick. It’s all over the news.
What dead chick?
Cooke.
Beverly Cooke? Holy cow. She’s from here in Nashville, she’s been missing for a while.
What’s happening hits her. A DNA match.
Are you saying our dad killed someone?
No, comes the answer.
It’s one of us.
9
THE MOTHER
Darby Flynn, all five-feet-three of her, five-five with her curls loose, stands on the ladder in the nurses’ station, stringing the farewell sign for little Patti Finley, who is officially in remission and going home after months in the oncology unit. In that time, they’ve lost five kids to the insidiousness of cancer, but Patti is their success story, a darling six-year-old cherub who’s borne all her treatments with a smile and a kind word for the people around her, even when the medicine made her violently sick.
Patti has been a personal favorite of Darby’s simply because she reminds her of her own daughter at that age. Scarlett was—is—feisty as hell, full of deep questions, quick to smile and laugh. There is no physical resemblance, but their spirits are the same.
Patti is going home this morning, which makes this a wonderful day, the end of a cycle of ups and downs, of whipsaw emotions and terrifying physical scares. Patti is a strong kid; she’s going to do well back in the real world. She’s licked the cancer, and she told Darby earlier tonight she wanted to be an oncology nurse, just like her. Darby was beyond flattered.
Darby is tired. She’s at the end of her twelve-hour shift and her feet are sore, but she’s going to stick around to see Patti off before she retreats to her ten-year-old Honda Civic and takes the meandering path from the hospital back to the house for a few hours of rest before tackling the remainder of her day. She’s due back on the ward at eight tonight, and she needs to get in a stop at the grocery store for cupcakes and a birthday present for one of Scarlett’s classmates. A gift card will have to suffice. A small gift card. Scarlett may be attending Bromley West, but she’s on a full ride, and Darby doesn’t have change to spare to make a spoiled little rich girl happier than she already is.
“Darby?”
The shift supervisor and her boss, Eileen Warner, pops around the corner, startling Darby, who nearly falls off the ladder.
“Good grief, you scared me. What are you doing sneaking up on me?”
Eileen doesn’t smile. “Sorry. Can you step into my office for a moment?”
Uh-oh. Darby climbs off the ladder, annoyed that one end of the sign is a full two inches lower than the other. Could Eileen have not waited until she was finished?
Down the hallway, looking neither right nor left, Darby follows Eileen to the end, where her desk is situated in a little office—with a door, mind you, a luxury of privacy none of the other nurses enjoy—that has a wide window overlooking the quad. It is a lovely space, one Darby always likes to linger near, because after looking at the yellow walls and pained expressions of a ward of sick kids for twelve hours a night, any glimpse of trees, even those lit up by solar lights in the black of night, is worth a few moments of her precious time.
“Have a seat.”
Eileen’s voice holds a note of concern, enough that Darby goes on alert. A complaint? Did someone, a parent, a coworker, say she’s done something wrong? Darby is so conscientious, she can’t imagine—
“Darby, I’m sorry. We have to let you go.”
She freezes. “Excuse me?”
“Budget cuts. I argued against it, we can hardly afford to lose a nurse, especially now, especially one as good as you. But the orders come down from the administration, and it’s out of my hands. You’re the most expensive salary.”
“Eileen, no. You can’t. I’ll take a pay cut. You can furlough me for a few weeks.”
Eileen is shaking her head, her eyes sad. This isn’t happening. This just isn’t happening.
“What am I supposed to do? Scarlett, Peyton, they—”
“Darby, I truly am so sorry. I will write you a glowing recommendation, and the moment you find a new opportunity, you have them call me immediately, and I will tell them how wonderful you are. With your background, your skills, you’ll get picked up somewhere quickly, I just know it. In the meantime, there’s a small severance package, and you’ll be eligible for unemployment. HR has all the paperwork waiting for you, but I wanted to tell you myself instead of one of them dragging you out of here. I owe you that much, at least. You’re my best nurse.”