Come Find Me(50)

“That makes no sense. Come on. It was the same as every other night. There is no reason he’d get Mom’s gun just because. There has to be another reason. Maybe someone else was there, and he was protecting—”

    “Kennedy, stop. Everyone at the college…” Joe runs a hand back through his dark hair, but he doesn’t continue.

“Everyone at the college what?”

Joe sighs. “Everyone at the college noticed the tension between Elliot and your mom. They weren’t getting along. There are several witnesses who heard them arguing in her office in the days leading up to…Come on, you had to notice. That’s what people will say, if called to testify.”

“No, that’s not true,” I say impulsively. But what did I really know? Did they avoid each other at meals? Walk silently to the car in the mornings, with a telling gap between them? Did I hear Elliot’s voice cutting down my mom while I was talking on the phone with Marco?

I was busy with the things I thought mattered then, with Marco, too distracted to see what was happening in my own house. Literally alive, they say, because of this. Because I snuck out to Marco’s when everything turned upside down.

“So? So what if they weren’t getting along? Is that really a motive for killing her? For killing two people?”

He frowns. “You know how Elliot was taking one of Will’s classes?”

“Yeah, I know that already,” I snap.

“Well, he was failing the class.”

I shake my head. I keep shaking it as I back away, out of the room. It seems like the very stupidest thing to do, the worst reason to kill someone. Over a grade? An argument? Had he been fighting with my mother about that? Elliot is smart. I can’t imagine him bringing home anything lower than a B—but so what if he was failing? Was that really a reason? That, enraged, he would hear Will come inside, go into the linen closet, where my mom kept the gun hidden, and take it?

    But what was I expecting? A good reason? I can’t think of a single one.

“He wouldn’t,” I say from the hall.

“Except, Kennedy…” Joe trails off, not needing to say the rest.

The gun, the residue, the blood, Elliot running from the scene. I am testifying as a witness. The police have no doubts about what happened next.

I snuck out that night because my mom was going to a department holiday party with Will. She wore a black dress and a red scarf. I saw her readjusting it in the hallway mirror while she looked out the window, hearing the sound of Will’s car.

If I’m not home until after you’re asleep, good night, she’d said, swooping down for a quick kiss on my cheek.

Goodbye, Elliot, she called over my head. Had he responded? Did she frown?

I can’t recall it clearly. Instead, I had been counting the moments until she was gone so I could leave.

I assumed they wouldn’t be home until after midnight. And then I was held up by the storm, and Marco. I didn’t notice how late it had gotten, and I was worried she’d notice I was gone.

But she didn’t.

It was horrific, the simplicity. The police knew what time they’d left the party. They figured she’d only been home for a handful of minutes before everything went wrong.

    I didn’t know Elliot had a motive, albeit a terrible one.

This trial is not going to be what I thought—a chance for me to offer another explanation. They already have the details, the reason, and I’m just providing the proof.





Back at home, my parents and Agent Lowell are speaking in the kitchen quietly. I’ve had it with the ambushes, the looks, the hopes that will inevitably be shattered again. It’s just a photo, taken two years ago. Sent to Abby, not to us. What was she supposed to do with it?

I try to sneak by them up the stairs, but the second step squeaks, the traitor, and the voices in the kitchen abruptly halt.

Agent Lowell pokes his head out of the kitchen and announces, “Nolan. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I have finals next week. Kinda busy.” When the investigators for your brother’s case are in your own home, it’s hard to justify avoiding them. But this is the point I’ve reached. Invoking the lie that studying is currently more important than finding out what happened to my brother. If only they knew about my own search.

“Sit down.” It’s my father, then, emerging from the kitchen, and his voice is rough and unfamiliar. My mother, I can tell, has been crying. Her eyes are red and the skin is swollen underneath. She doesn’t look at me as she stands beside my father.

    My father gestures to a chair in the dining room, and I drop my bag and sit, as instructed. Something about his voice keeps me silent. Something about the way they’re standing twists my stomach.

My mother does not sit. No one else sits. And there’s nothing in front of me, no picture to look at, or clothing to confirm, just three adults standing over me. I start to feel sick, claustrophobic.

“We’ve traced the email with the photo,” Agent Lowell begins. Then he stops, as if expecting me to continue for him.

“Nolan,” my father prompts.

I hold my hands up, confused. What do they want from me?

“Your father tells me you work most weekend mornings at the Battleground County Library.”