JANE TIPTOED PAST her sleeping mother, put the unloaded gun back in the safe, and shut it softly. Then she went and sat on the side of the bed.
“Mom, wake up.”
“Um. Yes.” Laurel awoke with a start. She blinked at Jane. “How was your party, sweetheart?”
It was great. I found out I was once pregnant and you never told me. She wanted to scream that into her mother’s face, hit her with the pillow, demand an explanation. Instead she took a deep breath—forming the words was so hard—and she said, “Where were you tonight?”
“Tonight? Oh. I went to a movie at the art house up at the Arboretum. Then I drove around, listening to Beethoven.”
“You drove around, listening to Beethoven,” Jane repeated in disbelief.
“It clears my head. I have to get out of this house sometimes. Why?”
It occurred to her how lonely her mother might be. She thought of the too-many wine bottles in the refrigerator she’d found when she first came home. “So no one saw you.”
“No one I knew. Why are you asking?”
“I just don’t know where you spend your time. Where did Dad’s computer stuff go after he died?”
“Two questions, goodness. What do you mean?”
“His computer gear. His laptop, his flash drives. That kind of stuff.”
“That’s what you woke me up for?”
“No, I woke you for something else, too, but I want you to tell me where Dad’s computer stuff is.”
“I…I don’t remember at the moment. Um, his laptop. I wiped it and donated it to Goodwill, I think. I gave his spare gear—backup drives, flash drives, all that to David. You know how Perri complained he was always losing his backup flash drives at school.”
“I don’t, but OK,” Jane said. David. If David had come into possession of the hacker-kit drive, what did he do with it?
“Why would that matter in the middle of the night?”
“It doesn’t. I just wanted to know.” She took a deep breath. “Amari Bowman and Matteo Vasquez were attacked tonight. They’re in the hospital.”
There was a long pause. Laurel blinked and seemed to process the news. “Goodness. I’m sorry to hear that.” But the unchanged smirk said, Karma, such a bitch.
“Where were you tonight, Mom? I want to see the movie ticket.”
“I threw it away when I left. I don’t care for your tone, Jane.”
“They were attacked with a crowbar. How long do you think it will be until the police find out Matteo’s writing about me, and these other people who have been harmed, and that a crowbar features in both stories? With this video of Perri attacking me going viral, this is just fuel on the fire. Some reporter will tie it all together.”
“Go back to bed, darling. I think your imagination is out of hand.”
“Mom. Five people now. Five people hurt by someone who is mad about the car crash.”
Laurel stared at her. “Are you accusing me? I’m your mother. I run a charity. I am a good person.”
“I know you are. But you just seem to be taking real pleasure in Perri’s misfortune.”
“She attacked you and now she’s getting what she deserves. She showed us who she is on that video. The police should question her.”
“You think Perri Hall took a crowbar to two people.”
“You don’t remember what she could be like. I think that Matteo maybe was going to write about her now. Her, not us. I heard from Gloria…”—Gloria was an across-the-circle neighbor—“that reporter was talking to Perri and some young guy out on the porch last night. She texted me while I was at the movie. She recognized the reporter from the times he came around here when you were so sick.”
Sick. Like the amnesia was a past malady she had recuperated from.
“Mom. People could blame us.”
“Or blame you again,” she said. “A lot of people think amnesia could make you a little crazy. Frustrated. Angry. Like you hurting Kamala in school.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know. If you’d just let me help you more…”
“By ‘help’ you mean what? A facility? A hospital?” She hadn’t meant to say anything about that topic, but it had slipped out.
Her mother’s gaze narrowed. “I just want you to be better. That’s all. You’ve been on the streets. You’ve been living a lie at the school—I know about that, Jane. At least Adam would keep you safe. But that is no long-term solution. You refuse to live here, you balk at real therapy, and you won’t try to fix your life. So yes, I think you belong in a facility until you learn to cope. But I’m not going to lock you in one and throw away the key.”
Jane stifled all the other accusations she could make. She thought of the pregnancy that was kept from her, the lie about the deer in the road, her mother paying off Kevin. And she wanted to give in to the rage. But no. She would wait until she had witnesses: Kevin, whom she could bend with shame and threats about ethics, and Trevor. Her mother couldn’t ignore her, couldn’t dismiss her in front of other people, couldn’t airily go on her way. So she pushed down the anger.
She needed to find that drive that Adam had given her father.
“I know. I will,” she said, to placate Laurel. “I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.” She hugged her mother. She was furious with her, but she still loved her and so she banked the anger for when it would do the most good. Once Trevor and Kevin saw what had been done to her, what her mother was like around her, she could move forward. Facing Kamala and learning the truth about the note, talking to Trevor, being friends with him again, had given her a new strength.
She went back to her room and closed the door. She did not see her own mother staring down the hall at her, trembling slightly. Laurel only went back to bed when Jane turned off her light.
Jane lay in the darkness, thinking about what she would have to do. She had no choice. She’d have to make a temporary peace with Perri.