Thicker Than Water (27 page)

I stare at her message. I almost can’t believe this is happening.

I don’t want the number. I don’t want it. I don’t.

I’m full of crap.

She does. I save it in my phone and look back at the computer.

It’s an “About Us” page. No pictures, unfortunately, but each person has a bio. I skip past Clarence Brown and Martin Creighton, and stop on JB Augury.

I remember what the neighbor said about a knee injury. It’s him. It has to be him.

How did Thomas find him?

Then I scroll a little further. There are three images at the bottom of the screen. One is a large black man—the guy we saw on the street. One is a middle-aged white guy with a comb-over.

And the third, the youngest guy of the three, makes me give a little yip of surprise. My subconscious fires up.

It’s him. The guy from my dream.

Not Alex. The other one.

The one no one knew was there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I
fall asleep on my sketchbook.

It’s one of the few things I was able to get from Stan. My sketchbook, my pencils, and my clothes. He didn’t even pack up my toothbrush.

He really wasn’t kidding about forgetting I’m not a puppy.

I wake up to JB leaning over me. He’s close, almost close enough to share breath, and I jerk back in surprise.

He glances at me. “You’re really talented. I had no idea.”

Then I follow his original gaze. He wasn’t leaning down over
me
, he’s leaning over my sketchbook.

I shift up on one elbow and look down at my drawing. Warmth floods my cheeks. It’s the sketch I started in the car with Charlotte. Of him. I hadn’t intended to keep working on it, but last night I flipped to the page, and I couldn’t help but fix the angle of his shoulder. That turned into more shading around the door. The addition of a bed, only the corner visible.

It had been like regaining the use of a broken limb.

Now, with JB staring down at the sketch of himself, I want to slam the cover closed—but that would be more obvious than the heat on my face.

Who the hell am I kidding? He knows exactly what I’m feeling.

“Did you do this last night?” he says.

“No.” I shake my head. “Well, not all of it. I started it in the car with Charlotte.”

“So this is where you funnel your ability.” His eyes flick up to find mine. “No wonder you’re not the hot mess I was expecting.”

Before I can ask what that means, he reaches out. “May I?”

I shift so I’m sitting upright, leaving him room to sit on the side of the bed. He drops to sit beside me, then slowly flips through the book.

“Some of those are old,” I say, by way of explanation. Mom used to tell me she loved them all, but I can see the difference between my early drawings and what I can put on paper now. My lines are cleaner, my dimensions and proportions more accurate. Sometimes I want to rip my early sketches out of the book because I find them so appalling.

I leave them because I like some record of how far I’ve come.

“Do you draw these from sight?” he asks. “Or from what you see in your head?”

I feel heat on my cheeks. “Both. But mostly from my head.”

“Dad is an artist, too.”

“He is?” I’m intrigued in spite of myself. After what JB told me about the man, I’m not sure I want to find anything in common between us.

But JB nods. “Not like you, though. Holy crap, kid, these are amazing.”

“Thank you.”

He looks up at me. “Do you ever feel like you have to get the image out of your head and onto the paper? Like you can’t contain it all?”

My eyes widen. “Yes. Exactly that.”

He looks back at the sketchbook again. “That’s what he used to tell me. I never knew if what he would draw was something he’d done, or something he wanted to do.”

Nothing about that sentence sounds positive. I think about how Charlotte kept telling me to draw my mother’s murder, and I wonder if I would have found a clue there.

I wonder, again, if I would have drawn my own hands committing the crime.

I hesitate.

JB glances at me. “It bothers you, me looking at these.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

I frown. “It doesn’t bother me, exactly.” I think about that for a moment. “I don’t mind you looking. But some of them are embarrassing.”

“None of these are embarrassing.” He turns the page and stops on a drawing of Mom. She’s in the kitchen, mid-sashay as she makes dinner, dancing around the kitchen with the radio on. I remember being proud of it when I drew it—I captured motion in the sway of her skirt and the lift of one foot. She looks young and happy and full of life.

“You loved her so much,” JB says. His voice is rough. Uncertain.

“I did,” I agree. I bite the inside of my cheek. I did love her. I still love her.

Which is why my brain still won’t accept that I’ve killed her. I don’t care what proof he shows me.

I can believe the empath stuff.

It’s the murder I’m having a hard time with.

He slams the sketchbook closed, and I jump. His eyes flick up. “I’m sorry.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Your girlfriend called while I was in the shower. Didn’t leave a message, but she sent this text.”

I look at his phone.

I respond without thinking about it.

She doesn’t respond. I wait a full minute.

Nothing.

I add another line.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Then his phone buzzes. She’s calling.

I’m so excited that I almost fling the phone at my brother.

“Chill out and answer it,” he says.

I slide my finger over the screen. “Hello? Hello.” I sound deranged.

Her voice is a whisper. “I have to be careful. I don’t want my mother to hear me.”

“I understand.” I pause. “Are you okay?”

“No. Confused.”

I let a moment pass. “Okay.”

“You found your brother?”

My eyes flick up to JB. “How did you know that?”

She laughs a little, but it’s a bitter sound. “No one thinks Charlotte can figure things out on her own.”

“I don’t think that. You know I don’t think that.”

“I’ve had an armed guard since Saturday night.”

I imagine her brothers standing outside her room, alternating shifts. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously.” Her voice gets softer, if that’s possible. “So you found him, and you’re living with him?”

She sounds disapproving. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“But you don’t know him.”

“I don’t know
anyone
, Charlotte! Would you rather I sleep in the street?”

She’s quiet for a moment. For a long moment. “Did you break into my house and try to strangle me?”

I put my hand over my eyes and let out a breath. “I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it. I swear to you. I don’t remember it.” I’m not making any sense. “Something has happened to me, Charlotte.”

“Something has happened to me, too.”

My hand falls to my lap. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” She pauses. “I need to see you.”

My heart thumps hard. “Yes. Name the place.”

“I need to see you alone. Your brother can’t come.”

I frown. “Okay.”

“If he wants to come, I don’t want to be there. Do you understand?”

JB is standing right in front of me. He can obviously hear her. He looks just as puzzled as I am, and he gives a little shrug.

“Sure,” I say. “I can come alone.”

“Promise me,” she said. “Promise me you’ll come alone.”

JB pulls his keys out of his pocket and holds them out. “You can take the car,” he says.

Charlotte’s gasp is a whisper of breath in my ear. “Is that him? Your brother?”

“Yeah. This is his phone. He said I could take his car. Where do you want to meet?”

“By the creek.”

My eyebrows go way up. “The creek? I might need you to be more specific.”

“The creek. Behind the cemetery. Where we met. Sort of.” She pauses, then sounds sheepish. “I think my parents will let me out of the house if I tell them I’m volunteering at the church. And the creek can’t be seen from any of the buildings.”

“Okay.” I hesitate. “You’re being a little weird, Charlotte. Are you all right?”

“This whole situation is weird.” Some rustling, like she’s moving around on her bed. Suddenly, her voice is very muffled. “Can you meet me at noon?”

I raise my eyebrows at JB. He shrugs assent.

“Sure,” I say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I
n my dream, I was mentally throttling Lilly, telling her she was an idiot for meeting a guy without telling anyone about it. How could she be so stupid?

Now I’m being just as dumb.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I told Nicole. She’s the only one I
could
tell.

And I have a plan. I’m prepared. I know what I’m doing.

Sort of.

When I get to the church, I park in the side lot, under a tree, where my car won’t be easily noticed. The place is mostly deserted, which isn’t too uncommon for a Monday afternoon. I told Mom I’d be helping to set up for the newly organized mother’s group this afternoon, and I’d be helping to take care of the little ones while the moms drink coffee and eat cookies or whatever they do.

I have no idea, because I made the whole thing up.

My pulse is racing, and I can’t get it to slow down.

I’ve never put much stock in dreams. They’re like reading a story with no plot.

I
do
agree with Matt, though. These dreams may just be my subconscious trying to tell me something.

But if that’s true, it means Thomas’s brother was in my room that night.

What does that all mean? Has Thomas been working with his brother all along? Am I a stupid fool for sitting here right now?

Or is Thomas somehow being manipulated by his brother? How would that work if they’ve just met?

I’ve been trying to run it all through my head, and none of it makes any sense. If he knew he had a brother, why would he go through the whole charade of finding the letters? It was
my
idea to even go through her things—he couldn’t have set that up on the fly, right?

Wait. It was my idea, wasn’t it?

This is making me crazy.

I need to talk to him. I can’t tell my parents or my brothers any of this. Every word I mention about Thomas gets sidelined as some type of infatuation.

I am so sick of being
handled.
Of being treated like someone who can’t think for herself.

I fish out my phone and send a text to Nicole.

I think about that for a moment, and another text comes in.

I keep my phone in my hand and climb out of the car.

I head toward the cemetery. The humidity hangs thick as soup, and I can feel my curls frizzing almost immediately. I feel very exposed walking across the open land. Today I’m more sensibly dressed for this kind of adventure. No dress and heeled sandals like the day of the funeral. Short shorts—to irritate Grandma—and a tank top.

And tennis shoes. In case I have to run.

If
I can run. My ankle gives small twinges when I walk, but nothing painful.

We haven’t had rain since Thomas and I were last out here, so the grass is dry and crunchy. Heavy clouds loom overhead, warning of bad weather to come. Wind rustles through the trees, and I wonder if this is all some kind of sign that we’re coming full circle.

I try not to think about the fact that I almost died the last time I was here.

My phone vibrates.

I keep my back to the water, because that’s the only direction he
won’t
be coming from. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not a lamb waiting for slaughter. I’m prepared to talk to him, and I’m prepared to defend myself.

By the time he shows up, I’m ready for him to come charging through the trees.

Instead, he’s walking, pretty sedately. For some reason, I expected him to look cocky. Arrogant, like he’s just pulled one over on the whole town, and I’m the moron who keeps showing up for more.

He doesn’t. He looks tired and drawn and anxious. He stops once he sees me.

Something falls in his face, and he looks at the ground before looking back at me. “You’re afraid of me,” he says.

“Not afraid,” I say, but it’s a lie. My mouth is dry, and my hands are itching for a weapon.

“You are.” He swallows. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry. If you don’t believe anything else about me, please know that. I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

My eyes scan the area around him. “You came alone?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Where’s your brother?”

He frowns at me like I’m nuts. “I don’t know. He said he was going to grab a coffee and he’d be back in the parking lot in twenty minutes.”

“Okay.” My heart is still pounding, and I wish it would dial down the panic. “Okay.”

He glances around, taking in the landscape, and I realize he’s looking for my brothers. We’re both totally on edge, neither fully trusting the other.

He clears his throat. “Did you want to talk to me?”

“Yes.” But that’s all I can say.

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Can I come closer, or do you want to yell everything back and forth?”

It takes me two tries to speak. I’m about to stake my life on a theory about a dream. “You can come closer.”

He crosses the ground in a few strides, and it’s all I can do to remain still. I feel like a gazelle on the Savannah, forcing herself to remain in one place while the lion descends.

My phone buzzes in my hand, and I jump and give a little
yip.

It’s so sudden that Thomas jumps, too.

I hold up my phone. “Nicole,” I say by way of explanation. I don’t even read her message, I just reply with
All OK.
I think about telling him that I’ll be texting her every few minutes, but I don’t want him to know the plan, just in case he tries to keep it up after killing me.

Ugh. I need to stop it.

“I was only kind of kidding,” Thomas says softly. “I can wait across the way. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

I look into his eyes, and the emotion there is enough to halt my breath. He’s genuine.

“Do you remember breaking into my house?” I ask him.

There’s a little flinching around his eyes. “No.”

“Do you remember climbing on top of me? Making out?”

He shakes his head.

“I saw you.”

Thomas studies me. “I don’t know how to explain that.”

“I don’t think you were alone.”

His eyes widen. “What?”

I force my voice to remain even. “I don’t think you were alone. That night. I think your brother was there.”

“Wait—what? You know my brother?”

“No.” I shake my head quickly. “I haven’t met him, but I looked him up online. I saw his picture. And I’ve seen him before. I’ve been dreaming about him since the night you . . .” I stop and swallow. “Since the night you broke in.”

He takes a deep breath and blows it out. A line has appeared on his forehead. “I didn’t meet him until
after
I was arrested. He bailed me out.”

“Why?”

That line on his forehead deepens. “What?”

“
Why
?” I demand. “He doesn’t know you. Why did he bail you out? Why did he know you were there?”

“I—I don’t know, Charlotte. He said he was there to help me, which is more than I can say for pretty much anyone else in my life right now.”

I put my hands up in surrender. “I’m just asking you to think about this. Why did he know you were there?”

“You want me to think about why my brother showed up to get me out of jail because you had a
dream
?” His tone implies that the only thing he’s thinking about is checking me into an insane asylum.

“Yes,” I say simply. “I think it’s my subconscious trying to tell me something.”

Thomas gives a tight sigh. “God, Charlotte, I don’t know what I expected from this meeting, but this isn’t it. JB hasn’t done anything illegal since I’ve met him. I don’t even remember breaking into your house, so how the hell would I remember whether he was there?”

I want to hit him. “I know I sound crazy. I just need you to think about it! I don’t know if he’s drugging you or what, but I think he was there, and I think he made you do it somehow.”

Thomas goes still. “What did you just say?”

“I think he made you do it. Could he have slipped you something?” I put a finger to my lips, thinking of the night he attacked me. “What about the night I dropped you off? Did you eat anything at home? Could he have drugged—?”

“He didn’t drug me,” Thomas says. His voice is hollow.

I study him. His expression is on the edge of panicked.

“There’s something,” I say. “What are you thinking about?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, then presses his hands to his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Talk to me.” He’s scaring me and not in the way I’d worried about when I got here.

“I can’t, Charlotte. I barely understand it myself, and now—” He breaks off and looks at me. “I need to go. I don’t understand any of this anymore.”

“Stop. Wait. Please.”

“No. I can’t.” He starts walking. “I’m not supposed to be near you. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Thomas—”

My phone buzzes. Damn it. I stop to respond to Nicole.
Still fine.

Thomas is striding across the open ground, heading back toward the church. I jog to catch up with him before he makes it to the trees.

“Please,” he says. “Please leave me alone.”

“Just stop. Tell me where you’re going. Tell me what’s going on.”

Thomas whirls on me and grabs my shoulders. It startles a gasp out of me, but that’s all he does. “You think my brother was in your bedroom that night.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I do.”

“But you didn’t see him.”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure. I don’t understand it. I keep
dreaming
about him. And then when I saw his picture. . .” I let my voice trail off.

“You saw his picture?”

I nod. “I looked him up when I heard who bailed you out. I couldn’t figure anything out. Why you’d hurt me. It didn’t make sense.” I pause. “Once the initial panic wore off, I realized that it seemed completely out of character.”

He frowns and his hands go gentle on my shoulders. “Once again, you’re the only person who believes the best of me.” He snorts. “Most people would be sending me for a psych consult.”

“Maybe we can do that next.” I hesitate. “Talk to me. Tell me what you know.”

He grimaces, then his eyes lock on mine. “He told me we can do things with our minds. That we can force people to do what we want.”

I wet my lips. “And you believed him?”

He turns away. “This sounds crazy. I can’t do this, Charlotte. It sounds crazy in my own head.”

I go after him and catch his arm. “No. Wait. Stop. Talk to me.”

He stops and turns and looks down at me. His eyes are so troubled, like the day we met.

“I think you’re the one with the power,” he whispers.

His voice is intense, and it takes me a moment to find my own. “Me?”

“You.” He puts his hands on either side of my face. His palms are warm and secure, and any fear I may have felt earlier has completely melted away. “You can make me do whatever you want.” He closes his eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. If he made me do it . . .”

“How?” I whisper, matching his tone.

“I don’t know enough about it yet.” He shakes his head, and I’m surprised to see his eyes are rimmed with red, like he’s a heartbeat away from crying. “He’s my brother. He’s all I have left. I want to trust him.”

I think about my own brothers, their own reactions to Thomas. They’ve been overbearing and a pain in the butt, but they were just looking out for me. I love them, and I trust them, too. I can understand why Thomas wants to trust his brother.

“He’s been good to me,” he says. “He hasn’t given me any indication he’s misleading me.”

I hold his gaze. “I’m accusing someone based on a dream. I could be wrong.”

He grits his teeth and shakes his head a bit. “It’s what you said. About forcing someone to do something. He
can
do that. I just can’t wrap my head around
why
. Why bail me out of jail? Why give me a place to crash?” He pauses, and his thumb strokes over my cheek. “Why force me to hurt you?”

“Maybe we’re missing something. Something big.” I put my hands over his. “How is he doing this?”

“Like this.” His hands wrap around my throat.

And then he begins to squeeze.

I’ve been ready for it since I got here, but I almost miss the attack. He had me fooled. He cuts off my air supply almost instantly. I fight like hell, clawing at his hands, before all of Matt’s self-defense training kicks in. I drop my chin and seize his wrists, pulling myself closer.

Then I kick him right in the crotch, as hard as I can.

He yells and lets me go. I bolt.

Thank god for the tennis shoes. I’m tearing through the trees, praying for the open air of the field beside the cemetery. My ankle screams at me, and I ignore it. I’m trying to get my hand into my purse, but I’m more focused on running. It doesn’t sound like he’s following me. I chance a look over my shoulder.