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Kelsey
Brittany’s second call came in later afternoon, jolting Kelsey out of a restless nap. As soon as she realized who was calling, Kelsey felt the anxiety come rushing in. She took a useless moment to check her reflection in the screen of the shut-off television, fixing her hair as if it mattered. Finally, she took in a huge deep breath and answered her phone just before it went to voicemail. “Hello?” She hoped that she didn’t sound sleep-addled.
“Hi, it’s Brittany again. Do you have a second?”
Kelsey’s heart skipped. “Of course.” Nervously, she pulled her feet back up underneath her body, hugging her legs like a child. She faked a smile even though Brittany couldn’t see her, just to try and make her voice sound a little more natural. “What’s up?”
“I have some really good news!” Brittany said brightly. Kelsey could almost see her perfect white smile, the smile of a should-be anchorwoman. She continued on before Kelsey could say anything, perhaps sensing her nerves. “I spoke with the detective I mentioned earlier — his name is Emmett Wilde — and we are going to confer with the chief tomorrow about reopening Hannah’s case.”
Kelsey thought she was all cried out, but the sound of those words sparked another upwelling of tears. “Okay,” was what she managed to get out without sounding like she was about to bawl.
“I wish I could expedite this for you,” Brittany answered apologetically. “I really, really do. It drives me crazy sometimes that it can take so long.” She sighed softly. “But especially for cold cases, they tend to want to make sure it’s going to be worth it, you know? Allocation of resources and all that.” The tone of her voice made it clear that Brittany had some opinions about police resources, but she didn’t elaborate.
“So, I might have more for you tomorrow, or it might be a little while. We will definitely be on them about it, though. I can promise you that much.”
Kelsey laughed a little. “That’s all I ask,” she said. The tears in her eyes shimmered on the edge of her eyelashes, but somehow, miraculously, they did not fall. “I’ve been trying to get this done for over a year, so ... it’s almost surreal that it’s even starting to move again at all.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen these kinds of things stay put for decades,” Brittany said sadly. “I’ll do everything I possibly can to make sure that doesn’t happen here.”
“Thanks, Brittany.” Kelsey didn’t know how to articulate the bottomless depth of gratitude she felt toward this woman whom she’d only known for a matter of weeks, but who was now going out of her way to find the answers that had eluded Kelsey for so long. “I owe you one. Or two. Or a hundred.”
The other woman laughed. “You’re sweet, but this is my job. I’m so happy that I can do this for you.” She paused. “I should tell you that if and when the case is reopened, they’re probably going to want to redo some interviews, see if anything’s changed, re-examine some evidence. So be prepared for that.”
“Yes.” Kelsey agreed automatically, but a cold fist of apprehension had clenched hard around her spine. Stupidly, she hadn’t really thought about what reopening the case might mean for the rest of her family, or for her relationship with them. Would she have to go back and face the people she’d systematically cut out of her life months before? Would she have to explain herself? Her head spun until she felt faint and had to lie back against the arm of the sofa.
“That’s fine,” she heard herself saying, as if from a distance.
“I figured you’d say that. I just wanted to warn you, so you weren’t caught off guard.”
“I appreciate it,” Kelsey said. “I appreciate everything.”
A voice sounded in the background, and Brittany shuffled the phone. “Oh, shoot,” she said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you as soon as there’s an update.” Then she was gone, disappeared into the constant jet stream of media work. Kelsey remembered the feeling. Did she miss it? She didn’t know. There were a lot of things she didn’t know at the moment.
She closed her eyes and pressed her hands over her eyelids until she saw splashes of color in the dark. Her dizziness wound itself slowly down in conjunction with her calming heartbeat. Kelsey made herself breathe slowly, counting to ten in her head. The knot in her chest loosened up, and she felt her limbs relax. But every time she thought about returning to her family, that feeling of dread coiled up again, like a snake inside her ribs. Before, when Hannah was still alive, they’d been a dream family, a perfect representation of happiness. But her death had shattered all of that like a hammer to a mirror. And no one picked up the pieces.
In her mind’s eye, Kelsey could see herself behind the wheel of her car, speeding to her parents’ house in the middle of the night. She hadn’t been able to see much of anything on that drive, and at the time, she’d thought it was raining. It was only when she got there and her vision failed to clear that she realized she was crying. She remembered lying on the couch in their living room in much the same way as she was doing now, listening to her mother screaming. The issue of murder had come up almost immediately with the police. There was no doubt about it. Hannah had been killed. And from then on, Kelsey’s whole life was haunted. When the investigation began its slow grind to a dead halt, those leftover demons nagged at her brain. How could she, the big sister, just let this sit and gather dust? Hannah could not have died for no reason. She was too important. She was too loved.
The whole thing had come together to drive Kelsey just a little bit crazy. Just enough so that she started grasping at straws, trying desperately to find a path toward closure. It didn’t help that she wasn’t the only one cracking under pressure. After the numbness of their initial shock wore off, her parents’ grief gave way in large part to helpless fury, which ended up directed at each other. Within a matter of months, Mom and Dad were sleeping in separate rooms. By the time Kelsey joined up with Spike, her father had moved himself out. So, it was just Mom, alone now in that house that had once been for a family. Kelsey tried not to think about it, because every time she did, she ended up feeling as though she really abandoned her mom.
Not that her mother was perfect. Kelsey distinctly remembered the day she’d gone over to the house to clean, and found an empty pill casing while she was making the bed. She’d taken a picture and used it to search the internet, and that is how she discovered that 51-year-old Suzanna Jones had a burgeoning narcotics problem. At the time, Kelsey had been too shaken to confront her mother about it, nor had she wanted to get her father involved. It had seemed as though the death of their younger daughter was already going to cost them their marriage. Kelsey had seen no point in throwing something else on the fire.
Maybe I should have, she thought, somewhat bitterly. Maybe I should have just laid everything out on the table. But their lives had become fractured so fast, that it was like sliding down a mountain made only of gravel. Kelsey tried to picture her parents, once the epitome of an ideal marriage, now embattled in their own private wars. Did she owe it to them to return? Or did she owe it to herself to stay away?
This was the question she posed to Chopper when he walked through the door. It took him longer than usual to formulate an answer; Kelsey felt as though she might have abruptly brought him back from somewhere far away. Finally, he looked up at her and said, “It depends on whether or not you think you can help them.”
“What if I don’t know?” she said softly. “What if I have no idea at all?” Silence fell in the kitchen, and she noticed as she gazed into his gorgeous, sea-colored eyes, that he seemed horribly, heavily sad. Kelsey walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “Never mind,” she whispered. “You know what I really want to know? How did we get here?” He glanced at her quizzically. “Look at us,” she said. “We’re so hurt.”
Chopper turned in the chair and pulled her into his lap. “Yeah,” he said, the trace of an ironic smirk on his lips. “I guess we are, aren’t we?”
# # #
THERE WAS NO SEX THAT night. Kelsey was a little surprised when he got into the bed without reaching for her, but she was content simply to lie next to him and feel him breathing. His hand rested in the curve of her waist, his thumb tracing the line of her body. No one spoke. She swore she could hear his heart beating in his chest.
Then the spell was broken by a light in the shadows and a single clear tone from Chopper’s phone. Kelsey laughed before she could help it, and then he laughed too. She pressed her lips to his bare chest, thinking that perhaps it would be that kind of night after all, but he reached over to the nightstand and examined the message he’d received. A second later, he sat up.
“What is it?” She touched his arm lightly. Her fingertip skated along the bottom edge of his wrist.
He didn’t say anything right away. She watched him type out a response. Once it was sent, he leaned back into the pillows and looked sidelong at her. His palm settled against her thigh. “I sent Dean and the boys out to do some scouting for me,” he said.
“What are they looking for?”
Chopper gave her another little smirk. “Guess.”
Kelsey was about to say something when she was struck by a thought that drove all other things from her mind. It was something she had considered before, but not in a long time, and certainly not in all the context she had now. She chewed her lip. “Can I ask you something, Jesse?”
His face sobered instantly, as it always did when she called him by his given name. “Sure.”
Kelsey glanced at him. His eyes were very pale in the moonlight from the window, almost ethereal. She held that gaze as she voiced her question. “Do you think Spike killed my sister?”
He frowned. “I mean...it’s always going to be possible. But I would bet that if he did, you’d know by now — either ‘cause you found out, or because he told you himself.” It was a valid point. Spike Lawler was exactly the kind of person who would brag about murder. “Does it matter?” Chopper added. “I’m gonna get him either way.” Too late, he realized how callous that sounded, and he prepared to apologize.
But she didn’t even seem to notice. Her eyes glittered in the dark. “It matters to me,” she said softly. “Because if it was him, then I want to be there when he dies.”
Chopper blinked. “Are you sure?” he asked carefully. This was the girl who still had yet to return to the club compound, who hadn’t even gotten on the back of his bike since the warehouse. Her sudden embracing of violence worried him a little bit.
Kelsey nodded resolutely. “This isn’t a club thing for me. It’s personal.” She looked at him. “And when it’s over, I want to know it’s over for sure.”
Chopper’s phone pinged again. They both looked at it. A message from Dean.
“I think we found him.”