Sweet Water(73)

“Alton, I’ve gone along with everything, but I want that journal.”

“I don’t have it. And if I did, you wouldn’t want it, because I’m sure there’re things about Finn in there you don’t want to read.”

I close my eyes for a brief moment again and see those nail marks on my son’s neck. I’ve been trying not to think about them. They were superficial, likely healed by now. They may have disappeared, but I can’t let them go. Just like Yazmin might not have been able to let Finn go as he was attacking her.

Trying to pry her way out of his grasp, her long nails digging in.

My skin crawls at the mental image, Yazmin’s pale skin flashing forward, her dark hair that’d fallen over her head in a struggle. What other explanation could there be?

No. Not my son. My gentle son who takes the ladder. No.

I can’t breathe again.

I take a large gulp of air. “What do you mean, Alton?”

Alton sighs. “I mean Finn did not smoke pot once or twice; he smoked it regularly. That’s how he met Yazmin.”

“What?” I ask.

“Finn was smoking it with those two brothers he mentioned . . .” Alton is flipping through notes.

What? Finn, into drugs? It doesn’t make sense. When did this happen? How did I not notice? I am trained for this. I didn’t turn a “blind eye,” as my father suggested before, not to Finn. I just didn’t see it.

“The Coulsons.” And I’m annoyed he doesn’t know their names. This town is small, and Alton is lazy.

“Right, and I guess she got into their little group, took a liking to Finn.”

I look out the window as the sun streams inside, and I can’t believe my son not only does drugs but that he bonded with his girlfriend while doing them. And then I think I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world, because I did almost the exact same thing.

I bolt up from the desk. If the journal isn’t here and it was here, then somebody else in the family has it or it’s been destroyed. But they wouldn’t destroy it, because they had to have known that Yazmin’s mother would come looking for it and that she’d make a stink, maybe even go to the press. They couldn’t be so heartless that they wouldn’t think a mother would search to the high heavens and back for her child’s last words.

I would.

That means they have it in safekeeping until it’s no longer a threat—incriminating pages ripped out. I bet it will magically reappear once the case is shut.

It has to be either at Martin’s or William Sr.’s. Bill wouldn’t take it so close to an election, and Alton lives in an apartment. There aren’t a lot of places to hide it there, but being a cop, he probably wouldn’t want it on his person.

Martin.

Or Finn. Not Finn.

But maybe, because Finn lied about doing drugs, and this changes everything. He could be lying about this too. And everything else, for that matter. Where do the lies start and end?

The nail marks? How did they get there? I need to know.

Alton shakes his head and grabs his phone off the desk. “Sarah, let it go. The girl is dead. We’re doing our best to close out the case the right way.”

Anger rises in my belly. “Because you’ve done the rest of it the wrong way! It doesn’t make up for it, you know?”

He looks at me, dumbfounded. I charge out of the office and look back to see him furiously typing on his phone.

The blonde is tapping on the computer, pretending to work, when I stride past her. She glances up to give me a dirty look.

“You know he sleeps with all his secretaries, right?”

Her mouth drops open in shock, and I don’t care. I’m done with this town.

And if I find that journal, I’m done with Martin. I could let him explain, but why? His explanation will just be more lies.

I also realize I’ve made a mistake. The person Alton was likely texting is Martin. He’s letting him know I’m onto him where the journal is concerned, and now it’s a race to the house to find it. Martin’s office is in the city, in a new-age open-concept building in the strip, no cubicles, just a whole lot of space. There’s nowhere to hide anything; it’s the whole point of the design.

There are plenty of spots to hide it in Stonehenge.

And I know every single one of them.





CHAPTER 19

Stonehenge is a forgotten ruin when I return home. I leave the door open to bring in the crisp autumn breeze. We’ve all been closed in, and it’s time to air everything out—family secrets included.

My mind is still racing to catch up on all the information I never knew.

Life-altering information.

Finn lied to the cops, and he lied to us about using drugs. Sure, he may not have wanted to tell me about the drugs, but he put his welfare before Yazmin’s by not telling the cops, and now he can’t be trusted. He may really have had a part in Yazmin’s death.

I place my hand over my heart. It actually physically hurts to learn the people you love the most aren’t who you think they are. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the world is full of shit as long as they are real, and they’re not. They’re damn liars.

Martin obviously found something in that journal, and he’s done everything he can to hide it from me, and now I need to find it. It has to be Martin. And there has to be something in there implicating Finn. Tears burn my eyes.