Jared
Detective Anderson returned twenty minutes later, just after his father had slipped back into the room, and announced that they wouldn’t be pursuing charges at this time. He was going home.
Jared’s breath came gushing out, and for the first time in hours, he felt he could take a full breath to replace it. Apparently, it didn’t matter where he was safer. Home won over prison hands down.
“However,” she said, looking hard first at Jared and then his father, “we may re-approach depending on what turns up. Neither of you are to leave the area. We’ll certainly have more questions.”
“Neither of us?” his father asked.
“Sir, your wife is missing. As the estranged husband, it can’t come as a surprise that you’re a person of interest. If you have any information or have had any contact with your wife that can help us clear things up, please don’t hold back.”
“I’ve told the police everything I know,” he said.
“Well then, here we are.”
“Aaliyah?” Jared asked.
“Already released.”
“My phone?”
“Evidence.” She pulled a slightly crinkled business card from her pants pocket and slid it across the table toward Jared. “If you think of anything you want to get off your chest …”
His father intercepted the card, stopping it with a finger to the far end. “Thank you. We’ll call if we think of anything.”
Jared didn’t think Detective Anderson would hold her breath waiting for that call.
His father plucked the card off the table and put it into his own pocket, then told Jared, “Let’s go.”
There was nothing else to do. At least Aaliyah was free. Not that her father or his would probably ever let him see her again. With luck, she was already back home.
Home. It was about to become his prison, he was pretty sure. And that would be the best-case scenario given the pent-up rage he could feel steaming off of his father.
He didn’t want to get into the car with him.
He didn’t have a choice.
What did he really think his father was going to do? He couldn’t answer that. He wanted to think he wouldn’t dare do anything. Not with the police already watching him. The way he didn’t do anything to your mother? part of him asked. He tried to squash it like a bug.
His father stood to the side of the doorway, waiting for the detective and for Jared to precede him out. With Dad behind him, he couldn’t watch for clues about what he was thinking or feeling, how he was going to react.
They had some paperwork to fill out and then he was stuck in the car with his father, slipping glances at his profile for some indication of the trouble he was in, but afraid to look at him full on and kick it off. He didn’t believe in auras or force fields or any of that, of course, but there did seem to be some kind of storm cloud seething around his father, charged air ready to strike down any attempt he might make to talk himself out of things.
They were a third of the way home before his father spoke. His voice eerily calm, like he was the eye of the raging storm. “You’re grounded. That goes without saying. No more dates, no more runs in the park. For now, you do all your running at track. If I hear you skip even a single practice, you’re off that as well. It will be just school and home. Emily needs you anyway. She had a scare tonight, and you left her alone. I couldn’t even go to her because I had to come and get you. In jail.”
Jared didn’t point out that he hadn’t actually been in jail, because it had been a close thing, and anyway, it didn’t matter. Splitting hairs with his father would not go well.
“Okay,” was all he said. And then the part about Emily registered. “Is Emily okay?”
Dad spared Jared a quick, unreadable look before turning his attention back to the road. “She is. Some strange man showed up at the house. Someone from your mother’s past.”
Jared’s blood ran cold. “A strange guy? He didn’t … do anything, right? Why didn’t you tell the police about him?”
“If he’d done anything, I would have. But it was outside their jurisdiction and there was nothing to tell. He tried to talk to Emily. She ran to the Meyers’. Carla called me. End of story.”
If that was all there was to it, Emily wouldn’t have been spooked. But he could ask her later. He wasn’t going to push his father; he was already in enough trouble.
Things were quiet for a moment before his father asked, “What did you mean ‘you were asleep when it happened?’”
Jared’s blood ran so cold it formed ice shards that wanted to stop up the flow all together. He’d known this was coming; he should have been thinking about how to answer. He still didn’t know exactly what he’d heard. Probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his father … just in case. He had to deflect, but he was no actor. He gave it his best shot.
“I figure whatever happened to Mom had to have happened Friday night or Saturday morning, because otherwise she would have come for us. Emily, at least,” he said, giving Dad the side-eye, not wanting to seem as though he was studying his father for his reaction. “I know you said she’d changed her mind, but she would have changed it back. I know it. So, whatever happened, it must have been that night after she left, when we were all sleeping.”
There, that sounded likely. He might even be able to convince himself.
Dad side-eyed him as well, only not as furtively. “Jared, you’re thinking emotionally. But you’re almost a man now. You have to start thinking with your head. Nothing happened to your mother. She sent you a message on Saturday. Sometimes people are selfish. They let us down. Your mother … I want to tell you otherwise, but your mother has left. That’s it. No big secret. No mystery. Your aunt is a drama queen. I expected better of you.”
His dad was more convincing than he was. Maybe because he was right? Could this all be in Jared’s head? He really didn’t know what he’d heard. It could have been totally innocent, and he could be biased against his father because of the past. The law considered people innocent until proven guilty. It seemed wrong that Jared couldn’t apply that to his own father, who was currently the only parent he had.
Dad sighed heavily, and Jared felt miserable. He didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t know what to trust—his father or his instincts. Those same instincts had pushed him to drag Aaliyah into breaking and entering and had probably cost him his girlfriend. They didn’t seem so hot right now.
“We’re stopping for food,” Dad announced abruptly. “I’m not rewarding you for what you’ve done, but there’s nothing at home, and we need to bring dinner back for your sister.”
Jared got why his father mentioned not rewarding him when he saw they were pulling into a KFC drive-through. Kentucky Fried Chicken was his favorite. Well, maybe second to Popeye’s, but they didn’t have one of those close to home.
When they got the food, his father reached around to place it on the floor behind his seat and gave Jared the drink carrier to balance on his knees. They rode the rest of the way home in silent salivation. His stomach was apparently untouched by his turmoil.