The Familiar Dark(47)

NINETEEN


Follow the money? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? We didn’t have any money. Not me, not Junie, not Cal or my mama, either. No one in my family had ever had two nickels to rub together. That left Izzy. Her family definitely had more money, but they weren’t anywhere close to loaded. Hell, somewhere else they’d probably barely be considered middle class. And I somehow couldn’t picture Izzy involved in some grand scheme involving loads of dough. She was twelve, for God’s sake. More interested in nail polish, and texting, and nursing inappropriate crushes on idiots like Matt. But maybe there was something I couldn’t see because I wasn’t close enough. Something hidden within a family I only knew from the outside edges.

I’d managed to throw on some clothes and put my hair in a ponytail when Cal showed up, sweaty and smelling of smoke, his uniform torn at the sleeve and his shoes covered in ash. He wasn’t quite as furious as Jimmy Ray had been earlier, but he was close.

“What the hell, Eve,” he said, pacing my living room floor. Every step left tiny black soot marks on the worn-out carpet. “What were you doing out there? You could have gotten beat to hell or killed! And that’s before Matt’s place blew all to shit.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving the dirty strands standing on end.

“I already told you on the phone,” I said. “The guy messing around with Izzy. It was Matt.”

“So what?” Cal yelled. “Since when is it your job to go out there half-cocked? That’s what the cops are for!”

“Then why hadn’t you talked to him yet?” I yelled back. “Now he’s dead and it’s too goddamn late.”

Cal stopped pacing and turned to face me where I was curled up in the corner the sofa. “What makes you think we haven’t talked to him?”

That stopped me, what I was going to say next stumbling on the end of my tongue. “Why didn’t you say that when I called?”

“Because you hung up on me and went to confront him on your own like a nutcase!”

Cal and I hadn’t talked to each other like this in years. This was how we always used to interact when we were younger. Me, belligerent and impulsive and borderline self-destructive. And Cal constantly trying to undo the damage I’d done, trying to get me to see the error of my ways, frustration boiling over when I didn’t listen. But with Junie’s arrival our dynamic had shifted. Having a child made me vulnerable in a way I’d never felt before. Growing up, I hadn’t cared what happened to me. But Junie needed me. So I took Cal’s protection, his concerns, and cocooned both Junie and myself inside them like Bubble Wrap. I wondered if the other night, Cal drunk in the bar, slurring his words and speaking truths about our childhood, had knocked something loose between us. Grief spilling over and turning us back into the past versions of ourselves.

“What did he say when you asked him about Izzy?”

Cal sank down onto the couch next to me and threw his head back, closed his eyes. “Not much. He tried denying it at first, but we kept pressing him.”

“You and Land?”

“Mmm-hmm. Eventually he said they’d been flirting a little bit, but that it hadn’t progressed beyond the talking stage.”

I shifted to look at him. “You believe that?”

Cal opened his eyes. “No. But just because he was screwing around with her doesn’t mean he killed her.”

“What did you think, though, when you talked to him?”

Cal sighed. “Who the hell knows with a guy like that? He lied as easy as breathing. Pretty much every word out of his mouth was designed to cover his own ass.” He took a step closer to me. “We got the text messages off Izzy’s phone.”

“What? When? What did they say?”

“Slow down,” Cal said. “The only one that stood out came the day they died. Whoever it was texted her that morning. Told her to meet him at the park. Neither one of them mentioned Junie being there.” He gave a helpless shrug. “I’m assuming it’s a he, for now.”

“It was someone Izzy knew?” I asked. It should have been a relief. The line between a killer and his victims running straight through the Logans’ daughter and not mine. But I didn’t trust the feeling, my gut still churning, telling me Junie was a part of what happened, somehow.

“Apparently.”

“Did the text say anything about money?”

Cal’s brow furrowed. “Money? Like blackmail? What do you mean?”

I stood up, gathered a few dirty glasses from the coffee table. “I don’t know what I mean.” I walked toward the kitchen and set the glasses in the sink. “Someone mentioned maybe money was at the root of all this.” I concentrated on running some water, squirting a little dish soap.

“Who is someone?” Cal called, and I regretted saying anything because as soon as Jimmy Ray’s name left my lips, all rational conversation was going to end. “Who, Evie?” Cal asked again, getting up and looming in the doorway to the kitchen. When I didn’t answer, Cal smacked a hand against the doorjamb. “It was fucking Jimmy Ray, wasn’t it? That piece of shit. When did you talk to him?”

“He was here tonight, earlier.”

All the bluster went out of Cal, and he stepped closer, put a gentle hand on my arm. “Did he hurt you?”