Sweet Water(87)

We keep edging toward the door. Customers outside are reading the sign, deciding whether they should come in or not.

“How’s your other son? And how is he taking all this?” he asks, and I let out a shaky breath, panicked. Why is he asking about Spencer?

“He’s doing great. Spencer is at school right now, premed.” Josh smiles slightly, and it hurts. All of this hurts so much. “He called to offer his condolences to Finn, but he doesn’t know all the details.” I shake my head.

“I see.”

“He’ll be home for fall break soon,” I say, and Josh looks hopeful that everything will turn out okay. But this won’t. It can’t.

The new customers decide to enter, and the front door chimes.

“Be well, Sarah,” he says.

But in his language, it means “Farewell, Sarah.” And it’s for the best.

“Goodbye, Josh.”





CHAPTER 23

I don’t feel like I gained much more than I arrived with, except for an extra dose of self-loathing for letting Josh seduce me—again. There’s no more room for weakness.

I need to pull it together for Finn. For Yazmin.

Martin isn’t worried right now about Alisha going to the media with the missing journal, but that’s only because he thinks I paid her off. I’m very worried now after reading it.

She probably knows what’s in there, and she’s desperate to get it back for fear it will hurt Cash. It sounds like he’s been in enough trouble with the law.

Does Alisha know more about his involvement in Yazmin’s death than she’s telling?

I told her I’d look for it, and my silence is most likely perceived as an admittance of guilt, but I can’t give it back yet. Not until I figure out what really happened.

So now I call Jay.

I’m not sure how I’m going to pull off a believable act to buy drugs, but Josh made his dealer out to be a nonthreatening character.

Finn told the cops that he didn’t know where Yazmin got the drugs, and they believed him. Now the case is closed—girl from the Rocks smokes pot in the woods, gets super high, falls, and dies. Everything in the coroner report confirms the facts above. There’s no need for them to investigate any further.

It fits Yazmin’s profile. Monroe’s report said the few friends Yaz had at school confirmed that she smoked pot. The thing the cops don’t know is what was in Finn’s joint. Only Alton knows.

I have evidence that suggests other elements were at play, given the Ellsworths’ interference and Yaz’s journal, but there’s nothing concrete. The journal doesn’t have anything in it to tie anyone to a crime. I need solid proof.

I wonder if Monroe’s been to our house and if he knows I’m not living there anymore.

I texted Martin this morning to see if the detective had come to the house to further question Finn. He texted back:

Negative. I told you it’s done. Come home.

If he’d only acknowledge this isn’t a quick fix, I might feel obligated to text him back and tell him I’ll be staying at my father’s a lot longer. Dad thinks I’m still just angry about what happened with Tush, and it’s safer to let him believe that for now. The last thing I want to do is drag anybody else I love into this mess. One person at a time. I’m still confused as to why Alisha hasn’t made good on her threat to go to the press.

I’m guessing she doesn’t have any real proof either, with the journal gone. I also wonder if Finn told Martin that I questioned him about the journal and if Martin is trying to get me home so he can get it back. Finn lied about the drugs, and he lied about the journal. I can’t help but think he lied about his involvement in Yazmin’s death too.

“Oh no, Finny,” I say out loud to myself, because I have no one to talk to about this.

I think of the nail marks again and try to discern what Alton was trying to cover up by hanging on to the journal—that last page. I wonder what Martin’s reaction might’ve been to Finn disclosing that I’ve been looking for Yazmin’s journal. Did he feel deceived that I didn’t give him all the information?

What’s it like, Martin?

I pull up the picture I took of Josh’s corkboard with Jay’s number. What am I supposed to say to solicit a dealer?

I need to talk to you about getting some reefer.

Nah, people don’t call it that anymore, do they? Hell, they didn’t call it that when I was young. Josh called it “bud,” so is that what I’m to say?

“Crap.” I’m no good at this. I’m shaking in my knee-high suede boots because I’m much better at being the good girl than the bad girl. I’ve never bought drugs before. It was the way I legitimized doing them the few times I had in high school and college. As long as I didn’t buy them, I didn’t have a problem. It wasn’t a smart way to think then, and it isn’t a smart way to think now. Just because I didn’t lead the charge for the evil doesn’t mean I’m not a part of it.

After Martin got into trouble at his fraternity, he didn’t want to do them at all, and I was okay with that. I was supposed to be the good girl who kept him out of trouble, and I loved that responsibility, but it’s freshly horrific now that I know the real reason he stopped using them. The few times we did smoke were at concerts, usually Dave Matthews when the saxophone player would go nuts, and someone would pass one around. It was akin to pouring out a little liquor for our lost friend Tush, and I didn’t realize we were exonerating Martin a little more each time we did it, acting as if his death were just an average passing.