Thicker Than Water (25 page)

“Liar.”

“It feels wrong. Playing with someone’s emotions. It feels wrong.”

“Is eating wrong? Having sex? Sleeping? It’s part of your makeup, Tommy. It’s not wrong. You didn’t hurt him.”

“I think we’re splitting hairs a little too finely.” I glance at him. “Is that why you do this? Do you get off on the fear?”

“I don’t play with them like that. If I got off on fear, I wouldn’t pick this occupation. I only did
that
to show you what I meant.”

“Effective.”

“I know.” He pauses. “Nothing is ever one hundred percent, though. I want to make sure you understand that. People have free will. They can surprise you.”

“So I could have shot that guy.”

“Probably not.”

I glance in the backseat, where Mark Duplessy has finally given up; he’s staring out the window with gritted teeth. I can still feel the remnants of his fear coursing through me. “But I could have. Just like what you think I did to my mother. Or to Charlotte. Is that another point you’re trying to make?”

“Just like that, Tommy.” He pats my shoulder again, but this time it’s more sympathetic. “Just like that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
hat night, I dream of Lilly again.

As much as I wish this dream would start where the last left off, it doesn’t. It starts at the beginning. We revisit the emails, her mother’s intrusion, the playing dress-up in front of her mother’s mirror.

In a way, that’s a good thing. It allows me to watch for clues.

In another way, I know this is ridiculous. This is a dream. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see this. This is my subconscious feeding me someone else’s imaginary memories.

But because it’s a dream, I’m along for the ride.

His initials stick in my head.
AS
. I don’t know what they stand for, and it’s got to be arbitrary. I don’t know anyone with those initials.

The selfie he sends her . . . What kind of car is it? What’s he wearing? What’s in the background?

I can’t tell. She only looks at it for a moment, and I can’t tell. The background is too dark, and I don’t know enough about cars to pick one out from the seatbelt mounting.

So far, I’m a pretty crappy dream detective.

When he knocks on the door, I’m worried I’ll be knocked out of the dream again, but this time I’m with Lilly as she throws it wide, smiling shyly at her visitor.

Through the whole dream, I’ve had this feeling of anticipation, that she’d open the door and I’d have this huge
Aha!
moment, that I’d wake up from this dream and be able to solve the crime.

But no. I have no idea who this guy is.

He’s not quite as old as I’d feared. I’d thought she would be opening the door to some thirty-five-year-old skeeze in a polyester suit. This guy is college age, with dark, softly curling hair, and warm brown eyes. Too old for Lilly, but maybe he gets a pass if she lied about her age. As I’d guessed, he’s not white: he’s Hispanic, or maybe Middle Eastern.

His eyes light up when he sees her. “Wow,” he says, laughing under his breath. “I thought maybe you’d sent me a fake picture.”

She blushes, pleased. “Thanks.” We look up at him through her lashes. “You too.”

He hesitates, then holds out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you in person, Lilly.”

She smiles and we shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Alex.”

Alex! We have a first name. His palm is warm and dry. I’m screaming at her to shove him out the door, but at the same time, I’m not getting a creeper vibe off him. Going off first impressions, it’s hard to believe this guy would strangle her.

Then again, look at my first impressions of Thomas.

When she goes to pull away, he doesn’t let go of her hand. We hold our breath, but he leans in conspiratorially, his voice gently teasing. “I don’t think you’ve been honest with me.”

She pouts. “What makes you think that?”

STOP FRIGGING POUTING,
I want to yell.

His smile widens. “This place has mom-and-dad written all over it. You didn’t have to lie to me. I’ve only lived on campus for the last year. You think I’m going to bolt if I know you live at home?”

Campus. Good. He’s probably twenty-two. Or younger.

Lilly’s response is smooth as butter. We look away shyly. “Usually when I tell guys I still live at home, they don’t even write back. It’s so obvious what they’re after.”

He gives her another up-and-down. “Their loss.”

We blush hotly.

“Do you want to go out?” he says. “Or did you want to stay here?”

Her heart trips and stumbles at the suggestion. It would be safer to go out, but she doesn’t want to risk being seen with him.

“We can stay here,” she says softly. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Sure,” he says. “You have any beer, or would your parents freak?”

She almost falters, but I can hear in his voice that it’s an innocent question. He’s a college student and thinks she is, too. “Sure,” she says. “They’re cool. They won’t care.”

Inside, her heart is thumping along. Her parents will care. She’s figuring out how to cover for missing bottles later. But she fishes two bottles out of the refrigerator and finds a bottle-opener without too much trouble.

He asks if she wants to watch a movie or if she’d rather talk. She decides on a movie, and they sit on the couch and look at each other shyly.

Honestly, as far as first-dates-ending-with-murder go, this is starting off pretty boring.

Then the front door opens and closes. Lilly—we—jump a mile.

“It’s all right,” says Alex. “He’s a friend.”

 

I wake up to a hand on my arm and a man leaning over me in the darkness.

I don’t think. I react. My hand flies out, and I hear a startled cry.

He jerks back. “Holy cow, Charlotte! It’s just me!”

Matt. I tell my heart to turn off the alarm.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Now I’m sorry I taught you to go for the eyes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice is husky. “Yeah.” When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can see him rub at his eyes. He shakes his head. “No. I’m lying. I’m not okay.”

I sit up in bed. “What’s wrong?”

He gives a startled laugh. “What’s wrong? That kid practically killed you in front of my daughters, and you want to know
what’s wrong
?”

My brain is finally starting to work. I swallow. “I am so sorry, Matt. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “The worst part is that I can’t even be pissed off at you because you got hurt in the middle of it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He takes a long breath, then sits down on the edge of my bed. I can barely make out his expression in the darkness, but his unhappiness practically fills the room. “How could you listen to me last night and not say anything?”

I reach out until I find his hand. “I didn’t mean to put them in danger, Matt.”

“I know you didn’t. I don’t want you to put yourself in danger either, Char.”

“I know.” I crawl across the bed to hug him. At first, his body is stiff, and that, more than anything, is a sign of how pissed he is. But then he yields, and he sighs and hugs me back.

I feel leather crossing his shoulders, and I draw back. “Are you wearing a gun?”

“I’d rather be safe than sorry. He got in here once.”

Matt isn’t the type to overreact. His voice is like steel.

I sit against him and wonder if my brothers are right to be so worried. Would Thomas break in here again? I still can’t wrap my head around him doing it the first time. It feels like a dream, like it’s no different from my brain’s impressions of Lilly’s murder.

“Were you having a nightmare?” Matt says quietly.

“No.”

“You cried out.”

I look up at him. “I did?”

He nods. “You said, ‘No.’”

“I was dreaming of Lilly.”

“Lilly who?”

“Lilly Mauta. The girl who died.”

“Years ago? Your school classmate?”

Of course he wouldn’t remember it as clearly as Ben did. I shake my head. “I knew her from ballet.”

“Oh. I remember. Ben was a wreck.”

“Yeah.”

He’s quiet for a little while. My eyes begin to drift closed when he says, “I wonder if Ben is thinking about that one, too.” He pauses. “He said he couldn’t go through this again.” Then he grimaces. “Don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

“You guys try to hide it, but I know you’re human.”

He gives me a hug. “Mom wouldn’t go to bed until I told her I’d stay up with you.”

“I’m sure Alison appreciates that, being home with the little girls and all.”

“She was having some friends over for a girl’s night. It worked out.”

“And I’m guessing you wouldn’t have left her alone with Thomas roaming the streets . . . ?”

He rests his chin on my head. “You’d be correct.”

I drift again, leaning against him, feeling his heartbeat. “Do you believe in dreams?” I say slowly.

He doesn’t answer for a while. “I believe our subconscious has the ability to tell us things, if that’s what you mean.”

“I think so.”

He runs a hand over my hair. His voice is gentle. “Are you remembering something from last night?”

I shake my head. “From Lilly’s house.”

He frowns. “Were you there?”

“No. Only in my dream.”

Again, he’s silent for a while. I wonder if he’s dozing the way I am. I like this quiet period in between words. It makes this space feel safe.

“Maybe you’re dreaming of Lilly because your subconscious is trying to tell you something about yourself. She was attacked by a boyfriend, too.”

“He wasn’t her boyfriend. She’d just met him over the Internet.”

“You dreamed that?”

I shake my head. “Ben told me.” I pause. “And yes, I dreamed it. His name was Alex.”

“Hmm.” That’s Matt’s word for when he wants to sound supportive but he doesn’t know what to say. I actually think he’s half asleep.

“There was another guy there,” I say. “Do you know if Ben knows that?”

“Do I know if Ben knows there was another guy in your dream?” He sounds sleep-confused.

“No, in Lilly’s house.”

“Charlotte. Kiddo.” He’s fully awake now. “It was a dream.”

I inhale to protest, but anything I say is going to sound ludicrous.

He’s right, of course. It was just a dream. I can’t see the past. I wasn’t there. I’ve never even seen Lilly’s bedroom.

He yawns, then pats my shoulder. “You should get back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper. I lie down. He sprawls in my armchair again.

But I can’t sleep. I keep replaying the scene in my head. The nice college boy—and his friend.

“Char,” Matt says. “I didn’t mean to discount what you were saying. Maybe your brain is really trying to tell you something.”

I roll up on one shoulder and look at him in the darkness. “You think my dream means something?”

“Do I think you’re having a psychic connection with a girl who died years ago? No.”

I sigh.

Then he says, “But dreams always mean something to the dreamer. It’s just a matter of figuring out what.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I
have a restless night. I’m not one to be up before sunrise, but this morning I was relieved to see the sun, because it meant a reasonable time to get out of bed. JB has a futon in his office, but he offered to let me have his bedroom. I wasn’t going to accept, but he insisted. I don’t think he wanted me going through his things.

Check that. I
know
he didn’t want me going through his things.

I keep replaying the events of the day. The trip to pick up the fugitive—the
skip,
as JB had called him. His explanations of what we can do.

His insistence that I had something to do with my mother’s death and Charlotte’s attack.

I can wrap my head around the rest of this, but that’s the hardest thing. After the visions in the car, I’m careful not to let my mind drift to thoughts of my mother. I don’t want to relive that again.

Charlotte had told me to sketch her, and I hadn’t been able to do it. Was that part of my mind protecting itself? Would I have drawn my own hands?

I creep out of JB’s bedroom, not wanting to risk disturbing him, but to my surprise, he’s already up and showered and dressed.

In half a second, I go from worrying I’m up too early to panicking about being up too late.

“You’re fine,” he says. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee while scrolling through Buzzfeed. “Do you drink coffee? I made a whole pot.”

“Um.” I run a hand through my hair. I’m not what you’d call a morning person. Today, especially, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. “Yeah.”

“Cream in the fridge. Sugar by the pot. I set out a mug.”

“Thanks.” I shuffle into the kitchen.

“Did you sleep okay?” he calls after me.

“I feel like crap.” I find the mug and the coffee and dump more sugar than is good for me into it. “Stan told me I was having nightmares the other day. Maybe they’re keeping me awake or something.”

“We don’t dream.”

I stop stirring the coffee and turn around to look at him. “What?”

“We don’t dream. Ever.” He glances at me over the computer screen. “Our brains don’t work like that.”

I don’t know why this one silly minor detail is throwing me, but it is.

“Think about it,” says JB. “Have you ever remembered a dream?”

No. I haven’t. I wonder if this is the kind of thing I should have noticed, or if it’s something I
wouldn’t
notice, because it never happened.

I bring the coffee back to the table and sit across from him. “Weird.”

“Not weird. Probably a . . . a protective thing. Think about it. We could dream that we’re being hurt and start projecting fear or aggression.”

“Huh.” I take a sip of coffee.

He goes back to looking at his laptop. I study him. At first, I wasn’t too sure about him, but he’s all right. He’s not deliberately cruel. He stopped me before I could hurt the pizza guy. He only gave me a glimpse of my abilities with Mark Duplessy—and I sense that could have gone a lot further than it did. Despite the fast action chase from yesterday afternoon, he takes his job very seriously. He was up late last night organizing leads and making phone calls. He seems honest, and direct, and while not exactly patient, he could be putting me through hell. And he’s not.

I like him.

He clicks on something on his laptop, then strikes a few keys. “I like you too, kid.”

“Stop it.”

He smiles. “Did you have anything you wanted to do today?”

“Let me check. Nope. Schedule is wide open.”

He looks at me over the computer screen. “Do you want to go get your stuff?”

I set my coffee mug down. “You mean from Stan’s?”

“Yeah.”

I look down into my coffee and wonder how that would go over. I had a key to Stan’s house, but I didn’t have it on me when they arrested me, so I don’t have it with me now. Stan didn’t come see me in jail, and he didn’t answer when I called him. If we showed up at his house, I have no idea how he’d react.

I can practically guarantee he wouldn’t be happy.

I try to imagine what he’d make of JB, and I come up with nothing positive.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I say.

“You don’t have anything you want?”

“Yes. Lots of things.”

“Well. Let’s go.”

I wince. “I don’t think that’s the greatest idea. I don’t want to get into it with Stan.”

“He won’t get into it with you.”

“How do you . . .” JB is smiling thinly. “Oh.” I hesitate. “I’m still not sure how I feel about this whole making-people-do-what-you-want thing.”

“It’s not quite that easy,” he says. “Look at Mark Duplessy. Like I told you before, they don’t exactly jump in my car.”

“And you couldn’t have made him?”

“Nope.” He closes the laptop. “I probably could have gotten him to go for my gun and shoot me with it.” He studies me. “Even without knowing what you are, I’d bet you’ve used this for your own purposes before.”

“No. Never.”

He looks at me sideways. “You’re not even thinking about it.” His eyes narrow, just a bit. “I’d bet you got away with all kinds of things in school.”

I stop with my coffee mug halfway to my mouth. I remember all the teachers who let me coast by with minor infractions. I remember breaking that stupid television at Best Buy, how another guy had gotten fired, but my error had barely been acknowledged.

“Why couldn’t I get myself out of jail?”

“Too afraid, and they weren’t predisposed to let you out.” He leans back in his chair. “Yelling at the judge probably didn’t help your case. If you’d been trying, I bet you could have pulled some sympathy and gotten the whole thing thrown out.”

“Wow,” I whisper. I almost want to go back through the previous day again with this insight.

Almost.

Then reality comes crashing back down. “Charlotte,” I whisper. “She must hate me.”

“Want to go see her too?”

I do. Desperately. I want to see if she’s okay. I want to apologize. “There’s a court order saying I can’t see her. Her brothers would shoot me on sight.”

“That court order means
you
can’t go near
her
. Not the other way around.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.”

He half shrugs. “You might be surprised.”

I hate that he’s inspiring my curiosity. Again, I’d kill for a phone. Then again, I’m not allowed to text her either.

Then I remember Nicole.

I look at my brother. “Maybe we could stop by the library. Her best friend works there. I could find out how she is.”

“See? Look at that. Your schedule is filling up already.”

 

We’re on the highway, beating down the path back to Garretts Mill. I’ve grown more comfortable in his car, in his presence, and for the first time, I don’t feel like anxiety is going to tear me apart.

“Will you tell me about Dad?” I ask him, out of the blue.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. He must have mile high walls, because sometimes it’s very difficult to pull emotions out of his head. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything?”

His eyes flick toward me. “I didn’t live with him once I turned ten or so, and even before that, it was off and on. I grew up with our grandparents. I didn’t see him often.” A pause. “I haven’t seen him since before I enlisted.”

“Why?”

He hesitates. “Remember when I told you that there are people like us who don’t use these abilities for good reasons?” When I nod, he says, “Dad is one of those. He’s very powerful. He can control other empaths. When I was young, I couldn’t fight it. When I grew strong enough to resist, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”

Walls or not, he doesn’t like this line of conversation. It practically radiates from him. “Why?”

“Because he’d use me to do things.” His hands are tight on the steering wheel. “Not good things.”

I’m horrified at his choice of words, and I’m sure he can feel that. “Like . . . what?”

“He made me stay with him.” He glances over at me. “When I was young. He made me hate her.” He pauses. “It wasn’t just you, Tommy. She wanted to take me, too. I fought her like hell. Ran away from her and right back to him.”

Our mother. I don’t know what to say. My voice is husky. “I’m sorry.”

“She came back for me. Spent a year with him trying to get to me, but my grandparents—our grandparents—were under his spell, too. They helped him keep me away from her. You would have been four or five.” He pauses. “He eventually let her see me, but he’d make me think she was there to hurt me. I wouldn’t let her get near me.” He hesitates. “I was already so screwed up. I tried to hurt her. He’d taught me well.”

I swallow. “How?”

He glances at me. “I convinced her I was going to kill you. I couldn’t help it. He was in my head, and everything he wanted me to feel, I’d feel. He taught me with violence and threats, so I’d retaliate against her the same way.” There’s so much regret in the car, I almost can’t breathe through it. The most heartbreaking part of his story is that he blames himself for all of it. I can feel that. “Eventually, she ran again. That time, it was for good.”

“How did he make you do all of this?”

He takes a long breath and blows it through his teeth. “You name it, Tommy. If I fought him, he’d do something worse. When I was thirteen, I had a crush on this girl named Annabel. Dad caught us in the backyard, and he inspired so much lust in her that I couldn’t get her off of me without hurting her. And I did hurt her. I had to. It was either that or—” He breaks off, his breathing fast. “He’d do this shit for
fun
, Tom. He’s a sick fuck, and I’m glad to be rid of him.”

Now I understand the note in his voice when he warned me away from Liam.
Don’t hurt him.
“How did you get away from him?”

He glanced over. “I joined the army.”

So that’s why he enlisted.

“I was good at football,” he said. “When you can sense where the other players are going to be—it gives you an advantage. But my knee couldn’t take it. I had to have surgery when I was sixteen, and it never came back all the way. I almost didn’t pass the physical to get into the army, but I gave the doctor a little nudge.”

“Wow.” I look at him. “I’m sorry. I never knew.”

“I know.” He glances over. “I know. I’m sorry too.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” I say.

He reaches out and ruffles my hair, then turns it into a good-natured shove. “Thanks, Tommy. You’re a good little brother.”

“Nah,” I say. “You’re probably just making me act that way.”

 

I was secretly hoping that Stan would be working and he would have accidentally dropped his keys in the driveway.

Unfortunately, he’s home, and he comes out the side door when we pull up the driveway. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt. At first, he looks confused at the unfamiliar vehicle, but then we pass below the trees lining the driveway, and he can see me and JB. His mouth settles into a line, and his eyes are hard.

“Yeah, so I’ll wait here,” says JB.

My head whips around. “What?”

“I’m kidding. He’s a cop, right?”

“Homicide detective.”

“Well, that’s kind of hilarious.” He says it like it’s not hilarious at all. He kills the ignition. “I hate cops.”

“You do?”

“Yes. It’s one of the few things I have in common with Dad.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re a pain in the ass. You’ll see. Come on.”

Stan folds his arms across his chest and looks at both of us, but he only addresses me. “Tom. What are you doing here?”

I stop halfway across the driveway. Even under the shade of the oak trees, it has to be in the high nineties. We’re both sweating just from the effort it took to get out of the car.

Stan’s face is closed down. Suspicious. Angry. I didn’t expect him to welcome me with open arms, but I wasn’t ready for hostility. “I wanted to come pick up some of my things.”

“Who’s your friend?”

I glance at JB, unsure how to explain his presence.
This is my brother
probably wouldn’t go over too well.

But JB holds out a hand to Stan. “JB Augury. I’m a friend of Tom’s. I’m letting him crash with me for a while.”

“A friend.” Stan shakes his hand, but something about it seems like a challenge.

“Yep.” JB gives me a nudge. “Go get your stuff.”

Stan lets go of his hand. “No. I’ll get it.” He glances at me, and I’m ready for him to say something openly aggressive, but he doesn’t. “Wait here,” he bites out. Then he turns and goes into the house.

Once he’s gone, JB says, “Want to put money on how much stuff the cops have already taken for evidence?”

I’ve been wondering about the last name JB gave him, but that throws me. “What?”

He glances at me. “You thought you could be arrested and charged with attempted murder, but the cops wouldn’t search your stuff?”

Fury grabs me, searing in its potency. “There’s no
evidence
. I don’t care what you said. I didn’t hurt Charlotte.” I swallow. “I didn’t—” I can’t finish this sentence. After the episode in the car, I’m scared to even think of my mother.

“Okay, Tommy.” His voice is even, placating. “Hold it together. I didn’t realize this would come as a surprise.”

“Well, it does.” Then I turn to look at him fully. “What if they found your letters?”

He shrugs. “If they found them, they found them. I’m not worried about someone reading a bunch of letters I wrote when I was a kid.”

“You’re not?” I look between him and the door. “But you just called me a friend—”

“I’m trying to spare you an hour of questions. He’s already suspicious. We don’t need the cops thinking you’ve been hiding a brother on top of everything else.” He rolls his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t need the hassle.”