Cold Springs(116)

Jones hesitated, and Mallory knew something was wrong. “Leyland took them back to the lodge. Dr. Hunter asked me to come out and get you.”

“Why separate vans?” Olsen asked.

Jones peered over her horn-rims. “Weren't you supposed to hike back alone, Miss Olsen? Isn't that normal procedure?”

“Mallory's Survival Week hasn't been exactly normal. I wanted to stick with her.”

Mallory could feel the tension crackle between the two women, a quiet animosity that singed the air.

“Get in,” Jones said. “It's too damn cold out here.”

Olsen climbed in the shotgun seat. Mallory got in the back, disoriented by the smoothness of the upholstery, the pine air freshener, the heater going full blast. The doors rolled shut and the van headed away from the wilderness.

Mallory watched the live oaks go past, the cactus, whitetail deer raising their heads in the clearings as the van drove by. Morrison and Bridges would be waiting back at the lodge. There would be time to talk about their adventures. New privileges. All of Gray Level ahead of them. She didn't want to jeopardize that. She didn't want to tell her secret.

After a mile of slushy mud road, Jones said, “You tired of that bracelet?”

“A little,” Mallory admitted.

“I got a key I can sell you.”

In the rearview mirror, Jones' smile reminded her of Race's, on those rare moments he allowed himself to smile. She tossed Mallory a little metal rod that slipped into the bracelet's joint.

Olsen shot Jones a disapproving look. “Shouldn't you wait until we get back?”

“We're not following normal procedure, remember? She won't run. Will you, Mal?”

Mallory's hands trembled. She clicked the bracelet open, set it on the drink holder between the front seats. She rubbed at the pale skin of her wrist. She'd only worn the bracelet twenty-four hours, but taking it off made her feel exposed, the way she'd felt when she'd lost Katherine's necklace.

“I need to say something,” she told the two women. “Something important.”

Jones raised her eyebrows. “Doesn't bother me. Bother you, Miss Olsen?”

Olsen glared at her wristwatch, as if trying to contain her anger with Kindra Jones, the way she'd told Mallory to do on Thanksgiving, so long ago. Ten minutes without an outburst. Starting now.

Then she turned, tucked her left foot under her, forcing her attention back on Mallory with an insincere smile. “Go ahead, kiddo. What's on your mind?”

Mallory wanted to back out. She wanted to wait until Olsen wasn't angry, until Kindra wasn't around. The timing was bad. It would be easier to do nothing.

But that was the danger. It was always safer to do nothing—to curl up in the black leather chair, sit paralyzed with fear, stare at the doorway and hope no one died. If she waited until the lodge, she would get caught up in Gray Level. She would lose her courage to speak. Part of her would curl up in that chair and be six years old forever. She drew a shaky breath.

“The night Katherine Chadwick committed suicide, I saw a girl on the porch of the Montrose house. She talked to Katherine, handed her a brown bag, then went inside. It was only for a second, but I saw her. It was you, Ms. Jones.”

For a moment, neither woman reacted. Then Jones laughed.

“Me? You think I dealt drugs for Chadwick's daughter?”

“You're Race's sister.”

Olsen was watching them as if they'd just pulled some elaborate magic stunt. “What is she talking about? Jones?”

Jones said nothing.

They had reached the end of the mud road, the far edge of Hunter's kingdom, where a paved farm to market T'ed to the left and right, fields of corn and sorghum spreading out before them. Jones yanked the wheel hard to the left, throwing Mallory into the arm of the passenger's seat.

“What the hell are you doing?” Olsen snapped.

Jones cracked her window, threw out the GPS bracelet. “Relax, counselor.”

“That was a three-hundred-dollar piece of equipment. The school's the other way.”

“We're making a little detour.”

Olsen looked back at Mallory, asking a silent question.

In the rearview mirror, Jones' expression was hardening—making her look very much like Race, but not Race . . . like some other enraged teenage boy.

Mallory thought of the river somewhere behind them, her lost backpack floating down toward the sea, or maybe stuck to some frozen branch, water breaking around it in a velvety arc. She wished she could trade places with the backpack right now, take her chances with the rapids.

“You're the older sister,” she said. “I thought . . . when Race talked about his sister getting protected by Samuel, being sent away to live with her real dad, I thought he meant his pregnant sister in L.A., Doreen. But Doreen would've been a baby back then. He meant you. Talia's first husband—the guy's name was Johnny Jay. J for Jones.”

“That were true, Ms. Detective, what the hell am I doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on me, using me as leverage against my dad. You were blackmailing him. You forced him to steal the school's money for you. He did it because he knew you'd kill me if he didn't cooperate.”

“Man, I'm devious.”

“Is she right?” Olsen asked.