Thicker Than Water (9 page)

I seem to have discovered a hidden talent for making a bad situation worse.

And OMG this hurts. I don’t know if I can talk without crying.

Thomas swallows and looks around. His eyes are swimming with unease. He starts forward, but then seems to check himself.

“Are you okay?” he says, his voice very low.

He’s afraid. He thinks this is another setup.

I feel so horrible I’d be totally all right with the ground swallowing me up right here. It’s more than the pain. It’s the situation. It’s him. It’s my role in his problems in the community.

It’s the fact that I’ll
never
be able to keep this from my parents now. I’ll never be allowed to leave the house again.

I’m such an idiot.

Emotion crawls up my throat and finds my eyes. I put a hand to my eyes to stop the tears, but it’s full of mud. I’m painting streaks of dirt down my cheeks.

At least the nausea seems to be abating.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, my voice breathy and full of hitching almost-sobs. “I’m sorry. I should have left you alone. I just felt—” I choke and try to get it together again. I pull a forearm across my eyes and drag the tears away.

More mud is soaking into my dress. I can feel it. My left ankle throbs, pulsing pain up my leg. Even if I can get back to the car, I don’t know if I’ll be able to drive. There is no way to explain this. My mother will kill me.

Thomas is still standing there. Silent.

“Go away,” I finally say. I bury my face in my hands. Mud is everywhere anyway. “Just go. I won’t bother you anymore.”

He sighs. Leaves and underbrush crunch under his feet. He’s going. Good.

But a hand brushes my ankle, and his voice is very close, still very soft. “Can you stand?”

My hands slip down, enough so I can look at him. He’s crouching in the leaves in front of me. I have to sniff. “I don’t know.”

He takes a breath, then glances around again. “If I help you?”

“No one is here,” I say. “I’m alone. I promise.”

“I think I’ve heard that before.” But he reaches out, and before I’m ready for it, his hands are under my arms and he’s lifting. I’m off-balance, braced against his chest, inhaling his scent.

“Good?” he says.

Very good
.

Thank god there’s mud on my cheeks, or he’d see me blushing for sure. I realize he’s asking me about whether I can stand. I attempt to put some weight on the injured ankle.

Too much. It hurts. A lot. I whimper again and keep a grip on his shoulder.

His eyes flick at the trees around us. “Not good.”

Then he sighs, stoops a bit, and before I figure out what he’s doing, he’s put my arm around his shoulders.

I hobble for a second, torn between falling on my butt again or clutching him more tightly. He doesn’t tower over me or anything, but he’s too tall for this. Or I’m too short, especially in flip-flops. I’m not going to be able to walk like this.

And I thought this was awkward before.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” he says.

I don’t want to cry again, but I might anyway. “Just leave me here. Can I use your phone to call someone?”

He snorts. “One of the disadvantages of being a murder suspect is that they confiscate your phone for evidence.”

Somehow I feel like that’s my fault, too. “I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.” But his tone suggests otherwise. I’m ready to snap back at him, but his shoulders drop as he stoops again, and suddenly I’m in his arms.

I nearly scream in surprise, but I bite it off. My hands grab his shoulders. “You can’t carry me!”

“I’m pretty sure I already have.” Only a bare hint of strain hides in his voice. He heads deeper into the woods, away from my car.

Immediately, I remember who he is, and why we’re in this bizarre position at all. “Stop. Wait. Take me back to my car.”

“Oh, so I can be seen carrying you out of the woods, covered in mud and wearing a torn dress? No, thank you. I’ve already heard the word ‘rape’ thrown at me once.”

“What?
When?
”

“Yesterday.” He pauses, and now he sounds like he wishes he hadn’t brought this up. “Someone said something about a rape kit.”

I’m speechless.

He glances down at me. “I’m assuming that didn’t happen.”

“No! I’m just—what exactly did they think happened?”

“They thought I killed you.” His tone is flat now. “At least I guess that’s why they hit me.”

My eyes light on the mark on his face. “Someone
hit
you?”

“Your brother, I think.”

“Danny?” I wonder if it was retaliation, for what happened beside the church.

He shakes his head. “Not him. It doesn’t matter.”

My hand flattens against his shoulder. “It
does
matter!” It wouldn’t have been Ben, and Danny is the most likely suspect. Matt? He’s not violent. He would have had to be pushed past a limit.

Ben’s words echo in my head.
When he carried you out of the woods—we thought he was carrying a dead body.

Thomas just walks silently, not offering more information. The bruise on his face is a glaring reminder that a few stupid mistakes on my part led him down a more dangerous road than the one he walked yesterday.

I swallow. “Where are you taking me?” I ask quietly.

“Back to Stan’s. He can drive you home.” The baseball cap keeps Thomas’s eyes in shadow, but they glint with light from somewhere. He gives me a wicked smile. “You can make up your own story about how he found you that way.”

I wonder if Stan driving me home would be better or worse than me driving myself.

The muddy dress is going to be the tough part.

“I’m sorry I came after you,” I say.

He snorts. “I’ll bet.”

“No. I meant—”

“I know.” His expression sobers. “I know what you meant.”

“And I really didn’t set you up. At the funeral.”

“I really didn’t think you did.” He boosts me higher, adjusting the arm carrying my legs.

“I’m too heavy,” I say. “Put me down.”

His eyes flick to mine, then away. “You’re fine.”

There’s a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. He’s not breathing hard, and he’s speaking easily, but I know he won’t be able to keep carrying me forever.

Part of me likes it.

Part of me knows this is a bad idea.

Fear is a quiet friend, sneaking up to slip its fingers between mine.

“It’s a thousand degrees out,” I say.

“I hadn’t noticed.” His voice is dry.

“Maybe you should put me down.” My voice is careful. Like yesterday, no one knows I’m here. Once again, I’m completely vulnerable and at his mercy. “I’ll figure something else out.”

Just when I’m worried that he’s going to refuse, he gently lowers my legs to the ground. He holds onto my arms, though, making sure I’m not going to fall.

“Do you want me to let you go?” he says.

Yes. No. I don’t know. I wet my lips and have no idea what to say.

His hands don’t move, but he looks up at the sky as if searching for answers. “Everything is upside down,” he says.

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His eyes return to mine. “This,” he says, as if that explains everything. “All of
this
.”

“Much clearer.”

He lets go of me to press the heel of one hand to his forehead. “I’ve never had an entire town hate me. I’ve never been so . . . alone.” He says it matter-of-factly, not self-pitying at all. The words aren’t empty, though. For an instant, the emotion in his gaze is so potent that it feels like it might leach into me and start a round of tears again. His eyes hold mine, and his voice is quiet and low. “I’ve never given a girl a reason to be afraid of me.”

He sounds so earnest, so wounded. All at once, I want to beg him to pick me up again. Nicole would be a melted puddle on the ground.

I’m not afraid of you
, I think. And it’s almost true.

Whatever I feel, it’s definitely not the same automatic revulsion that everyone else in town seems to feel.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“What do you want, Charlotte?” he says.

He’s so close, we could dance. We could kiss. A few inches of motion could turn his grip on my arms into an embrace.

The thought hits me so suddenly that I almost stumble away from him.

He must read it in my face, because his expression shuts down. “I’ll take you back to your car.” It sounds like he’s biting the words out. “Or you can wait here while I go back to Stan’s. Whatever. Just tell me what you want.”

I shake my head. “No. Stop. I didn’t mean—”

“What?” he says, his tone cruel. “What
didn’t you mean
this time?”

Those
words are the slap in the face.

I had no idea you could be attracted to, afraid of, and irritated by the same person, all within a three-minute period.

“Go away,” I snap. “Just go away. I’m sorry I tried to be kind to you.”

He deflates like I’ve poked him with a straight pin. The fight goes right out of him. He shakes his head and his face twists. “You’re right,” he says. “I told you I don’t have any idea how to do this. You and Stan are the only two people who’ll give me the time of day, and I’m wasting time being shitty with you both.”

“I’m pretty sure if you got shitty with anyone else, you’d end up in a jail cell again.”

“Exactly.” He takes a deep breath. He looks aggrieved. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into the middle of the woods. If someone sees me, they see me. I’ll help you back to your car.”

“No.” I swallow. I might have played a part in his trips to the police station yesterday, but I’m not playing a role in another one today. “You can take me home with you.”

His eyebrows go up, and I wince at the double entendre. “I mean. Um. You can take me back to Stan’s.”

“Can you walk at all?”

I try to put weight on my ankle. It feels like I’m stepping in fire.

I can’t ask him to carry me. It’s too awkward. I bite back the pain and try to take another step.

“Don’t be a hero,” he says.

And then, before I can say another word, I’m in his arms again.

CHAPTER NINE

S
o here’s the irony of this whole situation. I used to think I could read people. Mom always warned me I’d grow up and find myself in messes I couldn’t charm myself out of. She said that’s what happened to my father—which made me hate the comparison. I’ve never been a troublemaker, but I’m pretty good at reading people and figuring out what makes them tick.

Or at least I used to be. Forgot to study for a test at school? I could tell the teacher I was so busy working because my mom couldn’t afford the electric bill this month, and they’d give me another day. (Even though we always had enough money for the electric bill.) Didn’t have lunch money? I could compliment the heavily made-up cafeteria lady on anything about her appearance, and then feign shock when my wallet turned up empty.

It wasn’t just school, either. I worked nights at Best Buy, moving stock. If I showed up late, the manager never hassled me. Once I dropped the end of a big screen television, shattering the screen—something I’d seen a guy get fired for. My apology got a smile and a “Don’t worry about it, kid.”

Here? In this town? I’m a murderer.

No one trusts me.

No one will hire me.

Everyone hates me.

And Charlotte is afraid of me.

I wish I could hold her away from my body somehow. Her sundress isn’t skimpy, but it’s not Puritanical either, and my bare arm is under her bare legs, and I’m trying really hard not to think about that too much.

Stan’s going to flip his frigging lid. I’m glad he’s home, though. He can be a witness to the fact that I’m being a perfect gentleman.

I think about her warm body in my arms and almost wish he
wasn’t
home.

My mother would be smacking me on the back of the head right about now.

Charlotte clears her throat, and I wonder if she’s found the silence as awkward as I have. “My friend said she saw you on the news last night.”

I nod. “Yeah. It was great. There was a news van in front of Stan’s house this morning, too, but apparently the mayor was caught with his pants down somewhere, and they went chasing a better story.”

“There was one in front of my house, too.”

“What, your brothers didn’t open fire on them?” She looks taken aback, and I sigh. The not-being-shitty thing still needs work. “Sorry.”

“No. You’re right. I’m not happy with them either.”

“I’m sure they think they’re being protective.”

“More than they should be. Part of it is the diabetes, but I also think it goes along with the cop thing. You spend all day trying to keep citizens safe from stupid people, and it leaks into your personal life.”

“Am I the stupid person in this scenario?”

She blushes and looks away. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

My grip is starting to slip, and I have to readjust her in my arms. She wasn’t paying attention, and she catches my shoulders. A quick gasp escapes her lips.

“Sorry,” I say.

“I’m too heavy.”

“You’re not. It’s just hot and you’re sweating.”

The words come out like they’re loaded with double-meaning. She’s blushing harder now. She doesn’t have a response to that.

But she’s not shoving at me to put her down.

I can’t decide if that’s progress or not. She’s not a potential girlfriend. I might as well just ask Stan to shoot me if that’s what my brain is considering.

“How much farther?” she asks.

“Not much.” I’m starting to feel it in my back and shoulders now, and I have to adjust her
again
. She doesn’t ask me to put her down this time. I grunt. “Had to be the boonies. Mom couldn’t marry some guy who lived in a major metropolis. I almost want to blame her for this.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize what I’ve said, and it’s like someone punched me in the back. All the wind goes out of me. My feet stop, but I have to keep walking or I’m going to drop Charlotte.

I force my feet to move. My eyes feel hot, and I have to take a long breath to settle my voice. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“I know.”

I glance at her. “I just meant we wouldn’t have been in the woods.”

“It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, but it’s nice of her to say so. She
is
kind. I’ve only known her for a day, but she’s probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

Kinder than I deserve, for sure.

I clear my throat. “A city probably would have made this whole thing
more
likely.” I grimace. “Not some little town where no one’s ever been killed before.”

She inhales quickly, but then doesn’t say anything.

It was a loaded breath, though, like she was going to correct me. My eyes zero in on hers. “What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You were going to say something.”

Her face squinches up like she doesn’t want to answer. “I’d like to plead the fifth.”

I sigh. “You’re one of two people who will speak to me, and now you’re crossing yourself off the list.”

“I just—” She hesitates, biting her lip. “It’s not the first murder in this area.”

“I was kidding. I’m sure someone was probably run over by a Model T back in nineteen-ten . . .”

“No, two years ago,” she says. “Someone was killed two years ago.”

She sounds like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Her voice is too hesitant to be referring to some convenience store holdup gone wrong.

“You make it sound like it’s significant,” I say.

“I’m not a police officer. I’m sure they’ve considered it.”

“Can you stop talking
around
it and just tell me what happened?”

“A girl was strangled in her bed.”

I almost drop her. She gasps and holds on.

She looks up at me, and her eyes are full of something like guilt, like maybe she feels bad for telling me this.

Or maybe she feels bad for not telling me earlier. I have no idea.

I don’t know what to say. She’s right—the cops have probably considered a connection. I don’t exactly want to buy any of them a cup of coffee, but I feel fairly sure they’re not completely incompetent.

“Is that all you know?” I finally ask.

She hesitates. “Pretty much. I knew the girl. She lived about twenty minutes from here. We took ballet together. But—she was a kid. She had just turned fifteen. Your mom—” Her face twists, and I know she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “It was different.”

“
How
different?”

She pulls away from me a little, and I realize I must sound fierce. I can’t help it.

“How different?” I repeat, less harshly this time.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know all the details. I heard it was a boyfriend or someone who knew her, but . . . it was never solved.”

Stan would know. I can’t believe he hasn’t mentioned this to me. I wonder if it’s deliberate. We found some solid ground last night, but maybe it was only solid to me. Maybe he’s still playing everything close to the chest. This unravels my feelings about our entire conversation, especially how easily he deflected my questions about what he was doing that night.

I want to put my fist through a tree trunk.

Charlotte watches me, but she doesn’t say anything. I can almost feel her pulse pounding through her body, and it’s a touch too fast.

She’s still afraid of me.

She’s not asking me to put her down, so I keep walking.

“Don’t tell me,” I say. “I should start lining up an alibi for that murder, too.”

“I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she says. “I thought—I thought you knew—”

I shake my head. “I don’t know anything anymore, Charlotte. Not a damn thing.”

We’ve come to the tree line behind Stan’s house, and before I walk out of the woods, I check the driveway for any sign of a news van. All clear.

Also absent: Stan’s car.

“Shit.” I ease her feet to the ground and now I do slam my hand into a tree. “
Shit
.”

“What?”

“Stan’s gone.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“If I had a car, you think I’d be walking through the woods to get to the grocery store?”

“Shit,” she agrees, and the word doesn’t sound right from her mouth, like profanity is a new thing. Despite everything, that makes me smile. It takes a bite out of my tension.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing. What do you want to do?”

She looks at the house, and then back at the woods. It’s taken us about fifteen minutes to walk here from there, and I can see her doing the math in her head.

“My mother doesn’t know I was buying the flour at the local store,” she says. “We don’t usually shop there. But she might assume it. She needed me right back. I was hoping Stan could drive me home and I could make up some story about a flat tire and falling in the mud.”

“You didn’t have a flat tire.”

She makes a face. “That, too.”

“I could run back and stab it.” I can’t believe I’m suggesting this. I imagine the headline.
Local teen suspected of murder caught vandalizing car.

Her face lights for a second, but then she sobers. “I think that would generate more questions. And I don’t want anyone to see you.” She heaves a big sigh. “Can we get out of the heat, at least?”

I hesitate. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to bring her inside. It’s ridiculous, especially when you consider that we’ve been alone in the woods all this time, and theoretically, there’s nothing I could do to her in there that I couldn’t do out here. But still. Taking her behind closed doors feels like a risk.

Her eyes light with understanding. “You don’t trust me.” “That’s not it.” That’s exactly it.

“It is. You don’t trust me. You still think this is some kind of setup.”

“Let’s just say that I’d rather Stan not come home and find us alone together.”

“We’re alone together right now!”

I sigh. “We can sit on the porch.”

I try to avoid being a complete asshole. I help her into one of Stan’s cushioned patio chairs, and bring her a bag of ice and some Advil. Then I go inside to put on a clean shirt. Stan’s air conditioning is a welcome reprieve, and I almost reconsider leaving her outside. The heat out there is oppressive, now that I’m out of it.

Then I remember her brothers arresting me at gunpoint, and I take my time.

Just when I’m feeling like an asshole again, I pour us each a glass of iced tea. I return to the porch and sit across the round glass table from her.

A good safe distance.

Charlotte has used the paper towel from around the ice bag to wipe her face clean and her hands as well. We sit there awkwardly for a minute. She doesn’t seem afraid of me anymore—but maybe discovering that I don’t trust
her
has somehow reassured her. Hard to be afraid of someone when you realize they’re a little afraid of
you
.

Her eyes glance up after a moment. She gives me a hesitant smile. “My grandmother would have your head for wearing a hat at the table.”

“I’m sure she’d have my head for a lot more than that.” I pull the hat off, though, then ruffle my hair with my hand. I’ve never had a girl chastise my manners, but maybe she’s right. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t mean—” She falters. “Now I feel like your moth—”

She stops. Grimaces. “Sorry.”

We fall into silence again. I’m still mulling over the revelation about her ballet classmate. Is it significant? I need more details. I just don’t have any idea.

Then I realize I might still be acting like a jerk. I clear my throat. “Can you drink that? It has sugar in it.”

She takes a tiny sip. “It’ll be okay.”

“Do you need something to eat?”

Her eyes flash with anger. “Don’t you start, too.”

“Start?”

“I hate that, you know. I get enough people telling me how to dress, how to act, and especially when to eat. This is
my life
, okay? You don’t need to protect me.”

“Protect you? Five minutes ago you were afraid I was going to kill you.”

Her eyes go wide, and her cheeks flush. “That’s not—it’s not—”

“Isn’t it?”

She clamps her mouth shut. We sit there and stare at each other for another minute.

Finally, I have to say something. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She looks puzzled for a moment, then pieces it together. “No—she wasn’t—we weren’t friends. Not really. I just knew her.”

“Oh.”

“It was one of Ben’s first cases. He’d know more.”

“Who’s Ben?”

“My brother. Another one.”

Oh. I frown. I’m pretty sure Ben won’t want to grab a soda and talk about the case.

“He’s not like Danny, though,” she rushes on. “He’s my favorite brother. I could ask him.”

“How exactly are you going to slip that into conversation?”

My tone is just a bit nasty, but I’m surprised when hers matches. “Maybe I could tell him while we’re planning our next attempt to trap you alone with me.”

I scowl. She scowls.

Finally, I say, “Do you want me to get the phone so you can call your mom? Or do you want me to call Stan?”

She sets her mouth in a line and shakes her head quickly. “Call Stan.”

I get the cordless phone from the kitchen and call him. He picks up after two rings.

“Tom?”

“I need you to come home.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sort of.” I pause. “Charlotte Rooker is here.”

“I’ll be right back.” He hangs up.

I stare at the phone.

“Did he just hang up on you?” she says.

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t even ask why I was here.” She sounds incredulous.

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t care why you were here.”