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?”
I shrugged, looked away. “Not as much as he wanted to. I think I broke his nose.”
A long low whistle from Cal. “Holy shit, Eve. Good for you.”
I laughed, a short exhale. “Between the two of us, we’re giving Jimmy Ray’s face a whole new look.”
Cal’s grin lasted only a moment before it dropped away and something more serious took its place. “You know he’s probably screwing with you, right? Winding you up?”
“Why would he do that?” I asked, but it was a stupid question. Jimmy Ray loved playing with people, loved having the upper hand and watching everyone dance while he pulled the strings.
“Because he can,” Cal said, exasperated. “Because it’s fun. Because he likes feeling powerful. Do you need me to go on?”
I left the dirty dishes soaking in the sink and grabbed a towel from the counter to dry my hands. “You’re saying he’s totally off base, money had nothing to do with it?”
“I’m not saying that. Up until now, we haven’t found that connection, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. But if it is, it would be a lucky guess on Jimmy Ray’s part. He doesn’t know shit about what happened, Evie. He’s trying to get inside your head.”
What Cal was saying made perfect, logical sense. It was Jimmy Ray’s modus operandi from way back. But still, I couldn’t quite let the idea go. I kept thinking of Jimmy Ray’s face when he’d spoken to me, the swift flash of tenderness I almost hadn’t recognized because it was so unexpected. The light in his eyes that burned with something close to truth.
Grief hadn’t put a damper on Jenny Logan’s green thumb. The flower pots lining her front steps were a riot of early spring colors: Pink, white, and yellow burst forth, tiny faces tipped to the sun. I wondered if looking at the flowers made her pain more bearable, hope sealing up some of the cracks in her heart. Personally, I wanted to rip the flowers out of the dirt and grind them to dust under my heels. But I figured that might get our conversation off on the wrong foot.
If Jenny was surprised to find me on her front porch, she didn’t show it. She ushered me in with a gesturing hand and a promise of coffee. I saw her eyes flit to the pale purple bruises Jimmy Ray had left near my collarbone, but her good manners stopped her from asking any embarrassing questions. Or maybe she couldn’t bring herself to care.
We settled at her small kitchen table, tucked next to a window that overlooked her backyard. It was wilder back there, weeds and crabgrass edging out her half-hearted attempts at control. I guess she only worried about the front yard, the place everyone could see. The whole house was shabbier than I would have expected. The rooms I’d passed were cramped and claustrophobic under too-low ceilings, the light from outside somehow failing to penetrate the dim interior. Maybe it had always been this way, or maybe the house was in mourning, too. There were still three chairs at the kitchen table, and I imagined Izzy’s empty seat howling at them during every meal.
Jenny seemed content for the two of us to sip our coffee, pick at the edges of coffee cake slices she’d set out on a plate. She didn’t seem in any hurry to know why I was there. Made no attempt at small talk or pleasantries. I was beginning to realize that Jenny Logan had one face she showed the world—put-together, sweet, unfailingly polite—and another for behind closed doors. This private Jenny was less concerned with what people thought. I wondered what this Jenny would have done if she’d found out that Junie was Zach’s daughter.
I set down my coffee mug, cleared my throat to catch her attention. “I’ve been thinking about motive,” I told her.
“Motive?” She said the word like she’d never heard it before.
“Yeah, there are only a handful of reasons why people commit murder.” I realized I was parroting Jimmy Ray and shut my mouth with a click of my jaw.
“People commit murder because they’re evil,” Jenny said, pushing the plate of coffee cake away like it had offended her.
“That’s what they are,” I agreed, “but that’s not why they do it. There’s a reason.” I paused. “Are you and Zach having money problems or anything?”
Jenny cocked her head. She didn’t look angry, only confused. “No. We could always use more, but who couldn’t?” She ran her gaze around her kitchen, the old appliances, the out-of-date tile. “People forget Zach only works at the dealership. We don’t own it. And Zach’s got a lot of great qualities, but schmoozy salesman isn’t one of them. What’s money got to do with anything?”
“Someone suggested to me that money might be at the root of this.”
“You think someone killed them over money?” Jenny’s head wagged side to side in denial.
“I don’t think anything. I’m just asking the question. For the record, my money problems are the same as they’ve always been. Not enough of it. But I don’t owe anyone, other than occasionally the electric company.” I gave a weak smile that Jenny didn’t return.
“What about your mother?” she asked after a moment.
My hand froze, the piece of coffee cake I was worrying slipping between my fingers. “What about her?”
Jenny shifted in her chair, but she kept her eyes on me, not looking away the way most people did when my mama was the subject of conversation. “Come on, Eve,” she said. “Everyone in town knows about your mama. The crowd she runs with. The kind of stuff she’s mixed up in. If this was over money, it stands to reason that maybe it involves her.”
“She didn’t even know Junie,” I shot back. “Someone hurting Junie wouldn’t matter to my mama.”
Jenny stopped fidgeting, hand grasping hard around her coffee mug. “We both know that’s not true. There’s two basic facts about your mama that are never in dispute: She runs with a rough crowd, and you don’t mess with her family. Any of her family. If someone wanted to teach her a lesson, I imagine that’s where they’d start.”
My heart thundered in my chest. I wanted to lash out with self-righteousness, scoff at her claims and force an apology. But not a single false word had left her lips. Hadn’t I known, deep down, that this was always going to come back to me, to my family? I’d tried to pretend like Izzy might be the key, but I knew she wasn’t. It was Junie. It was me.
But I couldn’t roll over and take it. Because admitting it out loud was a step too far. It was one thing for me to know; it was another to lay myself bare to Jenny Logan. “What about Izzy and the older guy she was seeing?” I heard myself ask, hating how easily the question left my mouth. Jenny’s head snapped back like I’d slapped her, her eyes wide with surprise. But not shock. She’d known about Izzy, I realized, but not that I was in on the secret, too. “When did you find out?” I asked.
“When Land told me. A few days ago.” She shook her head. “Not before that.”
“You’d never seen her with Matt?”
“No. I would have put a stop to it if I’d known.” Spoken like a woman who couldn’t imagine a defiant, sneaky daughter. Who knew nothing of the myriad ways girls will find to circumvent their parents’ rules: broken window screens and bedsheet ladders, secret notes and messages passed from friends, yes ma’ams followed just as quickly by a rolled eye and a hidden smirk.
“I would have liked to hear what Matt had to say about it. See his face while I asked him some questions.”
Jenny’s mouth twisted, her eyes going distant and hard. “Yeah, well, he’s dead. He won’t be saying much of anything anymore.”
I stared at her across the table, and she stared back. She didn’t look like polished, polite Jenny Logan anymore. She looked like a mother whose daughter had been wronged—the scariest creature in the world. After the murders, I’d made the easy assumption that her tears meant weakness, but I was learning that nothing about Jenny Logan was weak. I heard again the eerie, whooshing silence the moment before Matt’s trailer exploded. Heat and light and sound slamming in to me, bowling me over like a runaway truck. Did Jenny Logan have it in her to light that match, flip that switch? Looking at her face right now, I didn’t doubt it for a second. For the first time, I felt a kinship with her. Suffering the same loss hadn’t bonded us, but maybe fury would.
I opened my mouth to say something, some acknowledgment of what I read in her eyes, but as I began to speak, her face cleared, rearranging itself back into bland, agreeable Jenny Logan. “There you are,” she said, looking at something over my shoulder. “Coffee?”
I turned in my chair, already knowing who I would see and dreading it. Zach stood in the doorway, his plaid shirt half unbuttoned, white T-shirt peeking out. He wore jeans and his feet were bare, hair still damp from the shower. My stomach slid downward at the sight of him, remembering the feel of his skin against mine. His eyes shifted from his wife to me, lingered until I wanted to cross the room and slap him, force him to turn his head in a different direction. I shifted away instead, turned my gaze back to my own coffee cup.
“Hey there,” Zach said, his voice moving closer. “What did I miss down here?”
Jenny was bustling away at the counter, pouring coffee and adding a splash of milk, the well-practiced movements of a wife who no longer has to think about what her husband might like. His wants as ingrained as her own. “Nothing,” she said. “Eve wanted to see how I’m doing.” She turned, held out the mug to Zach.
I slid my chair back, and it screeched against the floor. “I should get out of your hair. Thanks for the coffee.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Zach said.
“No, finish your coffee, I’m fine.” I cut across the kitchen toward the front hall, and Zach drifted along in my wake. “What are you doing?” I whispered to him, jerking my arm away when he put a hand on my elbow.
“You didn’t come here to see Jenny,” he said, voice pitched as low as mine.
I laughed, short and sharp, turned to face him. “Yeah, I did, actually.”
His hand found my collarbone, smoothed hair back over my shoulder, fingers skimming my bruises. His brow furrowed. “What happened here?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
His fingers lingered, raising goose bumps on my skin. “I think about you. All the time.”
I slapped at his hand. “Are you insane? We’ve gone more than a decade without saying ten words to each other, and suddenly I’m all you think about? How stupid do you think I am?”
“Not stupid at all,” Zach said, face serious. “And it’s not sudden.” That’s what made it almost impossible to stay mad at him, to even be mad at him. His earnestness, his absolute belief in whatever it was he was telling you. You might know it was bullshit, but Zach never did. Which in some ways made him even worse than Jimmy Ray. At least with Jimmy Ray what you saw was always what you got.
I wrenched open the front door, shot Zach a look over my shoulder. “Stop it,” I said, as loud as I dared. “It was sex. And it was good. But it didn’t mean anything. Get back in that kitchen and have coffee with your wife. I am not what you want. Trust me.” Even now, sparing his feelings. The way women are taught to behave. Making it about what was good for him instead of what was bad for me.
“What do you want?” Zach asked, like he actually thought the answer might be him. It almost made me pity him for being such a child. He still didn’t understand that what this might have been once upon a time made no difference anymore. One-night stand lust, potential true love, lifelong friendship. All the possibilities ceased to matter the moment Junie died.
“I want to wake up tomorrow and have a daughter again. Or I want to wake up the day I met you and call in sick to the diner. Rewrite history.” I shrugged. “I want this pain to go away. Can you make that happen?”
Zach shook his head, his eyes ancient. “No.”
I stepped out onto the porch. “Then grow up, because you don’t have anything I need.”