MY BRAIN SHOOK inside my skull; then it stopped. I was asleep, but I was awake. Then it was shaking again. As the last veil of sleep lifted, I realized my phone was vibrating across the bed.
I brushed my arm around in a wide sweeping motion. I was alone in the big bed. It had been two days since Brandon was there. I hadn’t washed the sheets and could still smell the disruption he’d left to my own natural scent. He’d called a handful of times, but I didn’t pick up. I was nervous. I didn’t know where to go from there.
As my hand made contact with the phone, I assumed it was him again. When I lifted it to my one barely open eye, I saw who it was. The screen read: Dad.
My father never called. Literally, it was possible he had never called my cell phone once. Did he know I went to New York? Was he calling to explain himself, beg for me not to tell Linda? Was it possible my father would finally need something from me?
“Hello. Hello. Hello,” I practiced until my voice woke up. Then I answered the phone for real. “Hello.”
“Virginia, this is sick,” he said. “What were you thinking? Do you know how bad this looks for all of us?”
I forced my tired body into a sitting position. “What are you talking about?”
“The detective. This is so inappropriate. He’s going to lose his job, and people are going to think you don’t even care about Jenny. How could you do this?”
“Dad, just slow down. What about the detective?”
“You’re sleeping with the lead detective in charge of finding your sister’s killer. You see nothing wrong with that, I suppose? Well, that’s not how everyone else feels. It’s everywhere. Have you left the house, turned on the TV?”
“Just, hold on.” I put the phone on speaker and used it to search the Internet for my name. My father sounded frantic. There were no pauses in between his sentences. I had never heard him like this.
The search engine shot a million results at me, all of them explaining what my father was talking about. “Shit,” I said as grainy pictures of Brandon kissing me good-bye at my front door filled my screen. I wasn’t even wearing pants, just a long T-shirt that was a tad too short when I extended onto my tiptoes to kiss him, revealing the edge of my underwear.
“Virginia?” my dad said, sick of waiting on my silence.
“I’m here,” I said as I scrolled through the pictures, all taken within the twenty seconds I was outside. “I don’t even … How? The reporters left weeks ago.”
“It could have been anyone with a cell phone, but don’t worry, they’ll definitely be back now. They’ll be back on all of us. They’re going to question what kind of family we are. They’ll start digging again. I can’t believe you could stoop to this level.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. It isn’t like it seems.” But it was how it seemed. I thought a lot about the consequences of lying in bed with Brandon that night, but they were all personal, selfish consequences. I didn’t even think about Jenny. Brandon was supposed to be helping her, not me.
THE PLAN WITH BENJY had to move forward regardless of my public image or Brandon’s. He left me a message saying to come to the station at noon on Friday. I still wasn’t picking up the phone. Every good feeling he gave me triggered the memory of opposing heartbreak courtesy of Mark Renkin. When you burn your hand on the stove, you tend to avoid touching it again.
There were some lingering news vans waiting for any official or unofficial comment from the police or at least a sighting of Brandon so that they could swarm him and ask him about sleeping with me. I parked in the loading zone of the alley to the side of the building as instructed. I was out of sight and could slip easily into a door marked Exit Only.
I flipped down the visor and judged my appearance in the mirror, pulling the elastic from my messy bun and letting the long hair fall past my shoulders. I felt a foreign need to look presentable. I riffled through my bag until I found an old crusty tube of mascara. I applied a couple coats to my neglected eyelashes and was amazed by the exponential improvement. I wanted to be taken seriously. I had been branded a selfish slut by the media, but I was the one they needed. I was the one Benjy would talk to.
A YOUNG FEMALE COP manned the front desk. “How can I help—” She paused against her will as she glanced up and recognized me.
“I’m here to see Detective Colsen.” I used his formal title even though the whole world knew we were past that.
“Just a minute.” She jumped from her stool.
The officer didn’t return with Brandon. Instead, she brought a tall gray-haired man in a loose suit that did little to flatter his Lurch-like stature.
“Hello, Virginia.” He extended his hand. “I’m Sheriff Franklin Sharp.” He put weight behind the inflection of his title and paired it with a forceful handshake.
“Hello.”
“Detective Colsen has filled me in on the situation. He thinks Benjy has information on another suspect and that you might get him to share.”
“Where’s Bran—Detective Colsen?”
The side of the sheriff’s mouth curled up, and he shot a glance at the young cop, who didn’t reciprocate his judgment. “He’s not here today. I’ll be handling this myself. It’s a sensitive situation, as I’m sure you can understand.”
I just nodded. I didn’t want to talk to this man anymore. I just wanted to get it over with. All of it.
BENJY SPILLED ON Gil just as I’d known he would. I told the sweet man that Gil may have killed Jenny, and he completely broke down. Benjy had a simple mind, but he comprehended guilt.
A press conference was held on Saturday. Brandon called several times that morning, but I ignored him. I watched the press conference alone in my apartment, the way I did most things. Sheriff Sharp walked to the podium, posturing with his shoulders back and his head held as high as it would reach. He had ditched his loose suit for a fancy official-looking sheriff’s uniform adorned with lots of pins and whatnot. Camera shutters filled the silence as he waited a dramatic moment before speaking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am Sheriff Franklin Sharp and we have called this conference to announce that the investigation into the murder of Jenny Kennedy has been reopened.”
Murmurs of shock rippled through the crowd. The sheriff waited for the chatter to subside before he began again. “At this time, we are only prepared to share that in light of recent events, Detective Brandon Colsen has been removed from the case. A viable suspect who was previously overlooked has emerged, and we are dedicating our full resources to investigating this further.”
I couldn’t believe it. Without Brandon, they wouldn’t even know Gil existed. The same man who chastised him for continuing to investigate a solved case stood in front of the cameras blaming Brandon for arresting the wrong man. I felt a strange tug at my stomach muscles. Was I somehow responsible for this? The least I could have done was answer the poor guy’s calls.
Members of the press began a barrage of overlapping questions. Some boomed louder than others.
“Who is the new suspect?”
“Did Detective Colsen ignore evidence?”
“Was he distracted by the victim’s sister?”
“Does she have other motives?”
The sheriff’s face reacted with a twitch in the direction of each question, but he didn’t answer any of them. “That’s all we’re prepared to share at this time, thank you.” With that, he stepped off the podium and back through the line of people that stood behind him.
I reached for my phone. It rang and rang and rang. My mind went to a bad place. I was sure Brandon had shot himself or was just lying in the bathtub crying and debating dropping an appliance in with him, ending it all.
“Hello?” he answered, pulling me back into the light.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“I’m guessing you just watched the press conference.”
“How are you doing?”
“Great,” he said.
“Do you want to come over?”
“Do you have alcohol?”
“Kind of.”
He laughed, which made me feel better. “What does that mean?”
“I have vodka, but I’ve sworn off the stuff. You can have it, though.”
“I’ll bring some beer, or wine, or turpentine, something.”
“And food, bring food. I have nothing,” I said. “I’m not being dramatic, maybe some ketchup packets, that’s it.”
“I remember.”
“OK.”
“OK,” he responded in kind, and we paused at an awkward phone impasse.
“I’m hanging up,” I announced and then did.
I OPENED THE DOOR to find a Brandon I didn’t recognize. His boyish face was the same with his big dumb smile, but his hair was all kinds of bedhead, poking out from a fitted baseball hat, and he wore jeans and a thin T-shirt that showed off definition in his arms that I hadn’t really noticed before, even the other night.
“You look rough,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said, making me feel only a little bad.
There were two news vans parked outside, and when I heard their doors open, I grabbed Brandon by his shirt and yanked him inside before they could snap any more pictures.
He set a six-pack of an amber beer down on the coffee table. There was something sweet about it only being six beers. He didn’t come over to get shit-faced and forget his problems. He didn’t come over to get me shit-faced so that he could fuck me. He was just a decent guy who was going through some stuff and needed a friend.
I flopped down on the couch and he joined me. “Any news on Gil?” I couldn’t help myself. It was just what we were comfortable talking about.
“I’m kind of out of the loop,” he said.
“Then what am I doing hanging out with you?” I joked.
“This young deputy, Paulson, is supposed to let me know if anything happens. He’s my little spy.”
“They said you’re off the case. What does that mean?”
“I’m suspended.”
“For how long?”
“I have to go through the review board. I guess I didn’t really think how it would look, you and me. I guess I wasn’t thinking about much of anything else that night.”
“I get it.”
“Or for a while, really. I can’t deny that you’ve been a distraction. I told you a lot of things about the case that I shouldn’t have. I even took you to Gil’s apartment. That was stupid and dangerous.”
“Do you think it hurts the case?”
“What case? There’s no one in custody. Just a phantom pedophile that no one’s seen in weeks.” He sighed and twisted the bottle of beer around in his hands. “I don’t want to give up. I want to figure this out. I can’t just walk away.”
“Then don’t. I don’t want to give up either. I like this, feeling productive, having something to think about when I wake up in the morning, even if it’s a really fucked-up thing to think about.”
“Then we won’t give up.”
“I always liked you better when you were being a nervous renegade anyway. When you’re cocky, it’s really off-putting,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to tell me everything you think about me, you know? Just the compliments are fine.”
In that moment, I wanted to confess what I’d learned about my father. I wanted to vent all of the horrible memories I had, and I wanted to tell him I’d realized my father was lying, not just to me and to himself, but to the police.
When my father had called me that morning, he was freaking out. He didn’t want the police or the media looking at us again. It was obvious he was hiding something, but was he hiding something about Jenny? I couldn’t say anything to Brandon, not until I had more information.
LATER THAT NIGHT, when Brandon suggested he leave, I knew he wanted me to protest, but it was bad enough he was at my apartment again. More pictures of him doing the walk of shame in the morning would have been the nail in his coffin, and so I let him go.
I crawled into bed, praying for sleep. Tomorrow was a big day, Sunday dinner. That night I would follow my father to see where he really went during the week. As an added bonus, I would get to listen to him berate me all through dinner about my dalliances with Brandon, win-win.
I tossed. I turned. Sleep was not for me. That’s when I realized it was Saturday night and I was sober. I was proud of myself. I hadn’t even had one of Brandon’s beers. I wasn’t about to crawl to the freezer and pull out a bottle of vodka, but surely a celebratory drink was in order.
In hindsight, it was just an excuse to see if Hunter was at the pub again. Things with Mark had to be bad. It’s not that I wished her ill anymore, but I’d wanted this forever. I think I still wanted it. If Mark was single, what did that mean? I wouldn’t take him back. Never, right? But he could apologize and beg me to take him back and that would feel good and then I would say something like, “No, Mark. You suck.” It would be poetry.
I went straight to Monty at the bar and ordered two tequila shots. Not a lot of tequila flowing in that place based on the thickness of the dust that dispersed as Monty wrapped his fingers around the handle.
“I’m celebrating,” I whispered to Monty. He winked, acknowledging it was a secret.
I brought the shots to Hunter at the same table. She looked remarkably good for someone spending multiple nights a week at this pub.
“Hey” was all she said.
“Hey, shots,” I responded, presenting them to her.
She took hers down with spirit as I sat.
“What brings you here tonight?” I asked.
“The fucking ambiance,” she joked, calling back to our first night. She was quick and witty and too likable even during her downward spiral.
“Shouldn’t you be home calling my boyfriend?” she asked, answering one of my lingering questions. I could tell she’d already had a few drinks. It wasn’t a malicious question. It had the air of a person who was giving up.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I said. It was genuine. I was sorry I had done that, mostly because I didn’t enjoy finding out how pathetic and sick I was. “I didn’t even know I was doing it. I promise, it won’t happen again.”
I felt a ping in my chest warning me it was finally time for her to smarten up and treat me like the garbage I was. They were breaking up, and it was my fault. It was not a good feeling, but it felt good and that was not a good feeling.
“Does it have anything to do with the new guy?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said honestly. She had the right to ask me as many invasive questions as she wanted to.
“You guys looked good in the paper. It was kind of hot really. Scandalous.”
“It was a mistake,” I said.
“I met him. He came to the school and talked to everyone who knew Jenny. He seemed nice. Well, he seemed kind of full of himself, but he was polite.” She laughed, then fell silent for a beat. “I don’t think I am coping well. Do you think I’m coping well?”
“With what?” I asked, begging for all the juicy details of her crumbling relationship.
“Jenny.”
Shit, how did this happen again? I was such an asshole. She wasn’t thinking about Mark. She was thinking about the vicious murder of a little girl who she felt a sense of responsibility for. I was thriving in the wake of Jenny’s murder like some sort of demon. My lip started to quiver. Oh my God. Oh my God.
“Are you OK?” she asked, not sure what was happening.
“I’m an asshole. I’m just really a selfish asshole. I’m not even thinking about Jenny. Honestly, I think I’m over it.” My voice cut out at the end as tears started streaming from my eyes. “I didn’t even know her, not really. And now, now I’m trying to act like some crusader that cares more about her than anyone else. It’s bullshit. I never even cried once and not because I was trying to be strong or because I was in denial. I think I didn’t cry because it didn’t mean anything, not really. It was just another shitty thing to happen in a long line of shitty things that happen.” I wiped tears from my face and sucked in my bottom lip to compose myself. What just happened? I was embarrassed, and I stood to leave.
“Don’t leave,” she said, taking my hand until I agreed to sit back down.
Monty brought another round of shots that we both threw back. It was going to be a long night.
“Do you feel safe?” she asked, picking at her beer bottle again. The question was somehow disarming, as if I needed to be further disarmed. “I think all the time, what if it wasn’t just some pedophile from out of town obsessed with Jenny? What if it’s someone who lives in this town and he’s going to do it again?”
Shit. I hadn’t really thought about it like that. I was the champion of it could have been anyone, but I’d never considered what that would actually mean. I always assumed Jenny would be the only victim in this town, that somehow she was so perfect she had a monopoly on tragedy.
“I have a gun,” she said like she’d been building up to it, like maybe I would judge her. “I’ve had it forever. My father bought it for me when I graduated college. I keep it in my nightstand now. Not that I even know how to use it,” she scoffed. “Pull the trigger, I guess.”
“If I had a gun, I would probably just end up shooting myself,” I said in a way that left it vague whether I meant by mistake or intention. She didn’t push. It made me so happy.
Many shots later, there was no pretense that Hunter would drive home. We would both be lucky to stay on our feet back to my apartment. At some point soon after my little breakdown, I began outpacing her, enough for both of us to enjoy the same level of intoxication without her dying.
The gravel along the road crunched beneath our feet as we shuffled down the street. “The rape is the hardest part,” Hunter slurred out. “I don’t like to think about it, but it just pops in my head all the time. I haven’t had sex since, you know? That’s how fucked up I am. See, not coping.” She tried to laugh.
I thought about Mark being so aggressive the day I went looking for Jenny’s bag. It made more sense now, but screw him for holding it against her. And super screw him for the things he said before kissing me in the road. He didn’t care about me. It was just primal horniness.
We stumbled into my apartment, and I made a mad dash to the bathroom. The amount of urine that had gathered in the five-minute walk from the bar defied the laws of science.
When I emerged, I found Hunter lying in my bed. She was still conscious, but didn’t look to be capable of movement. I looked at my small couch. It was a good little couch that I had napped on a million times, but I didn’t go there. I went to my bed and lay down next to her. We both stared at the ceiling. I wondered if it was spinning as violently for her.
“What if Mark could see us now?” she whispered.
“We deserve so much better than him,” I admitted, finding a hint of clarity.
“Maybe we don’t,” she said.
She reached over and grabbed my hand. We stayed there for what could have been hours or seconds, but it was enough time to reflect on the fact that I was attracted to Brandon and obsessed with Hunter. Two people. Two people I could feel. Together, they might be enough to free me from Mark.