untitled (26 page)

because of Mina Bishop.”

The easy cheer in his brown eyes dims “Mina,” he

repeats sadly, and sighs.

“I’m Sophie Winters,” I say, and then I don’t say any-

thing else. I just wait for the understanding to snap across

his face.

It’s there instantly. He is a reporter, after all. Even if the

police weren’t allowed to release my name to the press as a

minor, everyone knew. “What can I help you with, Sophie?”

T E S S S H A R P E

209

“Can I sit?”

He nods, gesturing to the stool in the corner of the cube.

I balance best I can, my lower back, still red and sensitive

from the shots, fl aring hot with pain. “I found some notes

of Mina’s.” I open my bag, take out the printouts I’d made

from the excerpts from Mina’s time line, and hand them to

him. “I was wondering if she ever mentioned to you that

she was looking into Jackie Dennings’s disappearance.”

Mr. Wells’s lips press together tight, then disappear as

he scans the three pages I’ve given him. “This is . . .” He

looks up. “This was Mina’s work?”

I nod.

“Is there more?” he asks.

“No,” I say. It comes out of my mouth, all instinct. I slip

into that part of me that can bullshit so easily. It knocks too

close to the addicted pieces, the ones I’ve beaten into sub-

mission, and I can feel them stir.

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but Mina never brought

Jackie up. And she would have, if she was interested in the

case. It was one of the fi rst stories I covered for the paper. I

suppose she just never got around to it?”

I think about Mina saving the articles on Jackie’s disap-

pearance. No way she wouldn’t have noticed that Wells had

written a lot of them. “Maybe,” I say. “Anyway, that’s all I

wanted to know.” I get up off the stool, leaning on his desk

to keep my balance. “Did you have any theories?”

“About Jackie?” Mr. Wells leans back in his chair, thread-

ing his hands to cradle his head as he thinks. “The detective

in charge was convinced it was the boyfriend.”

210

F A R F R O M Y O U

“What about you?”

Mr. Wells grins, his enthusiasm over an old story almost

infectious. It reminds me of Mina, of the hunger in her, to

know
. . . to
tell
. “Sam James is a good detective—” he starts.

“Detective James was in charge of Jackie’s case?” I

interrupt.

“He was,” Mr. Wells says, frowning.

“Right,” I say quickly “Anyway, sorry. You were saying?

About Jackie?”

“Matthew Clarke is a solid suspect,” Mr. Wells says.

“But you don’t think he did it.”

“Can’t really say. It’s a decent theory, considering the

lack of motive elsewhere, but the evidence just isn’t there.”

“Did Matt have a motive?”

“You’re awfully interested in this,” Mr. Wells says.

I shrug. “I guess I just thought . . . it was important to

Mina, you know? Working here, for you. She was always

talking about how much she learned from you. I thought

maybe if I did some research on the stuff Mina was doing,

it’d help me, I dunno, move on. It’s been hard, since, you

know . . .” I trail off, resisting the urge to widen my eyes,

because that’d be pushing it.

Mr. Wells sets the copy of Mina’s notes on the desk, his

expression softening. “I understand,” he says. “Look, the

Dennings case, it’s a dead story. Whatever happened to that

girl, it’s doubtful that after all this time it’ll ever be known.

That’s the nature of things. You’re better off just letting

it go.”

I nod, like I’m agreeing with him instead of searching for

T E S S S H A R P E

211

a way to bust either case wide open. “I should get home,” I

say. “Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. I appreci-

ate it.”

I’m almost out of his cube when he stops me. “Sophie,

what happened at Booker’s Point that night?”

I look back at him over my shoulder, and it’s there again,

that gleam in his eyes that reminds me of Mina. She’d had

that look that night. She’d been practically vibrating from

it, the excitement humming beneath her skin, close enough

to the truth to taste it.

“Off the record?” I ask, because I’m not stupid.

He grins approvingly. This guy has to have all his girl

interns wanting to jump him. Probably some of the guys,

too. “I’d prefer a comment
on
the record.”

“I’m sure you would,” I say. “Thanks again for your

time.”

I don’t turn around to confi rm it, but I can tell he’s watch-

ing me the entire time I walk away.

46

TWO YEARS AGO (FIFTEEN YEARS OLD)

I dig in the dirt, making small furrows. “Will you hand me that fl at?”

I point to the seedlings I nursed under fl uorescent lights for weeks,

waiting until they were strong enough to transplant. I was pretty

proud of them, they were the fi rst seedlings I’d grown under the lights

Dad had bought for my birthday.

Mina sets her book down and gets up off the wicker chair she’d

dragged off the deck to move the fl at closer to me. She balances deli-

cately on the edge of the redwood bed, eyeing the soil suspiciously.

“What are these going to be, again?”

“Tomatoes.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble for tomatoes,” Mina says. “Couldn’t

you just get the plants at the garden center? Or one of those plastic

upside-down-hanging planters to put them in?”

“These are diff erent. They’re purple.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I ordered the seeds specially.”

Mina beams. “You could’ve just gotten me fl owers.”

I set a seedling carefully into the dirt. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“We can make purple pasta sauce,” she suggests.

“As long as you’re doing the cooking.”

“Oh, come on—remember that vegetable soup you tried to make?

T E S S S H A R P E

213

There was only a teeny tiny fi re that time. You’re getting better.”

“I think I’ll stick to what I’m good at.” I dig a third hole, lift another

seedling out of the tray, set fragile roots into their new home.

“Aren’t you glad I made you get a hobby?” Mina asks, grinning.

“When you become a world-famous botanist, I can say I’m responsible

whenever I brag about you.”

“I think out of the two of us, you’re going to end up being the

world-famous one,” I say, laughing.

“Well, that goes without saying,” Mina answers. “I’ll make sure to

thank you when I win my Pulitzer.”

“I’m honored.”

Mina goes back to her chair and book and I go back to my toma-

toes. She fl aps the neck of her tank top back and forth. “It’s so hot,”

she complains.

I grind my good knee into the dirt, spacing the seedlings evenly

apart, neat rows of three across, four down. “The twentieth’s coming

up,” I say fi nally. “You okay?”

Mina shrugs, eyes glued to the page. The sun beats down my back,

and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

For a moment, I think that’s all I’m going to get out of her. But

then she looks up at me. “I’m going to spend the day with Mom and

Trev. She wants to go to Dad’s grave in the morning.”

“Do you . . . do you go out there a lot?” I ask. I’m curious, all of

a sudden, and she seems willing to actually talk about it for once. I

know that Mr. Bishop is buried in Harper’s Bluff , that he grew up here

and that’s the main reason they moved back aft er his death. And the

only reason I know that is because the fi rst time Mina and I got drunk,

she’d slurred it out against my shoulder and cried and didn’t—or just

maybe wouldn’t—remember the next morning.

214

F A R F R O M Y O U

“Sometimes,” Mina says. “I like to go and talk to him. It makes

me feel closer. Like, I don’t know, maybe it’s easier for him to check

on me there.”

“Check on you from heaven?” I ask, and I don’t mean it to be there,

but there’s skepticism in my voice.

Mina frowns, sitting up straighter in her chair. “Of course, from

heaven,” she says. “What—you don’t believe in it?”

I look away, shy under her scrutiny. We’ve never talked about

this. I’ve avoided the subject. Mina isn’t devout like her mom but she’s

someone who believes. Who goes to Mass when her mom asks her to

and wears the little golden crucifi x that her dad gave her.

And I am me. I would’ve lost my faith aft er the crash, if I’d had

any to lose.

“Not really.” I won’t lie about this when I’m already hiding more

urgent things from her: the crushed-up pills and the dirty straws, the

need for numbness that eats more of me up each day. She’s starting to

notice how oft en I nod off in class. I make excuses, but she’s watching

me closer.

I brush the dirt off my hands, standing up to fi nd her staring at

me like I’ve declared the sky was green. “Soph, you
have
to believe in

heaven.”

“Why?” I ask.

“You just . . . you
have
to. What do you think happens when we

die, then?”

“I don’t think anything happens,” I say. “I think this is it. All we

get. And when we’re gone, we’re gone.”

She shift s in her chair, and the unhappy curve of her lips makes

me wish I’d never answered the way I did. “That’s a crappy way to

think. Why would you want to believe that?”

T E S S S H A R P E

215

I’m quiet for a moment, rubbing my fi ngers against my knee, trac-

ing the scar by memory. I can feel the bumps of the screws that lay

under my skin through the material. “I don’t know. It’s just what I

think.”

“It’s horrible,” Mina says.

“Why does it matter? I’m not an expert.”

“It matters,” she says.

“What, are you worried that I won’t end up there if there is a

heaven?” I ask.

“Yes!”

I can’t stop the smile that stretches across my face.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Mina says angrily. “Like you think it’s

cute or something. My dad missed everything, all of my and Trev’s

lives. The idea that he’s here still, that he’s keeping an eye on us? That’s

not cute—that’s faith.”

“Hey.” I reach out to grasp her hands. She doesn’t pull away, even

though my fi ngers are still dirty. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m—I’m glad it

makes you feel better. But I don’t have that in me. It doesn’t make me

right or you wrong, it’s just how it is.”

“You have to believe in something,” Mina protests.

I squeeze her hands and she grips them back, tight, like I’m going

to disappear any second.

“I believe in you,” I say.

47

NOW (JUNE)

Trev’s late by almost twenty minutes. I’ve almost given up

hope he’ll show when the doorbell rings. My parents are

out on their weekly date night so I let him in the house

and we stand awkwardly in the foyer for a moment. I don’t

know what to say to him now that he knows.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say.

He follows me up the stairs, and I pause at the top, my

back aching at the injection points. When we get to my

room, he hovers in the doorway as I walk over to my desk

and sit down.

He closes the door behind him and stands at the edge of

my bed, waiting.

“Kyle fi lled you in on Mina’s notes?” I ask.

Trev nods. “We looked at the time line and some of the

articles she saved.”