Better Left Buried (23 page)

“No, that’s not—” Brea was
stunned. “Why would you even say something like that?” Harmony walked faster toward the mausoleum where they often sat. She sniffled and even with her back turned, Brea could tell she was crying. She caught up with Harmony and put her hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on? Will you please talk to me?”

Harmony stopped, squeezed her eyes shut, and drew
a deep breath. It wasn’t like her to cry and Brea could see she was doing everything she could to stop it. “She sold me down the river.”

“Who did? What do you mean?”

“My mother. She called Sylvie and told her to send me to Midtown.”

“On purpose?
Was she drunk? Maybe it’s some sort of misunderstanding. Why would she do that?”

Harmony
hoisted the strap of the bag slipping off her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter
why
. She just did. That’s why I’ve been with Lance. Adam’s is the first place they’d look and the last place I want to be right now.”

This wasn’t typical Harmony. Adam had been a fixture for years.
Something had happened between them.

“What did he do?” Brea hurried, careful not to jam
her bare toes on one of the many potential hazards. Harmony shrugged and set her bag down in front of the mausoleum door. A long, stone slab sat beneath a pitched roof that provided perfect cover when it rained. “Did he hurt you?” Brea narrowed her eyes when she said it, unable to believe what she was even accusing him of. Adam was the guy who, for the most part, kept Harmony from hurting herself.

“No, all right
? Forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“
It’s not all right, Harmony. What aren’t you telling me?”

“
It’s nothing. We had a fight the night my mother took off, that’s all. I thought she was out getting high somewhere and that if I could just convince Bennett that I was dealing with things, this would all be over. I didn’t expect her to be the one to turn me in.”

“There’s got to be some way to fix this.”

Harmony sat with her head in her hands. “There’s no way. And I can’t go to Midtown with all of what’s happening.”

“What
is
happening?” Brea knew she didn’t just mean the fight with her mother or Adam. This had to do with Harmony’s father’s disappearance. Brea debated telling Harmony about the house and the photos of their families together, but Harmony would never believe her without seeing them.

“I don’t know, but I have to get to the bottom of it.
Whatever this is, it won’t leave me alone and if I go to Midtown with this on my back, they’ll put me away. I’ll get buried so deep in the psychiatric system I’ll never get out. I’ll die before I let that happen.”

Brea knew
Harmony meant it and cringed when she reached for the bag. She didn’t have to see it to know the spirit board was inside. “I don’t want to use that thing again, Harmony. I’m drawing the line.”

“I don’t have the luxury of chasing a bunch of half-ass leads, Brea. I need
him
to tell me what he wants and I need this over with.” Harmony lit three black candles and a sudden gust of wind extinguished them.

The sinking feeling Brea had had since
opening her bedroom window magnified exponentially.

Harmony re-lit the candles and Brea
reached into the bag for the replacement glass wrapped in a length of black fabric.

“I’m only doing this because I know how much you need me to. I owe you at least that for what happened with Rachael.”

A tree branch snapped in the distance and a voice called out, “Freeze, right there.”

Brea lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the white light blinding her.

A thick pine tree line blocked them from view, but it also blocked their view of the gate. They hadn’t heard or seen anyone coming. She turned to tell Harmony to run, but she’d already gone.

The flashlight lowered and Brea immediately recognized Pat
, one of the two police officers on-site, who also happened to work at her uncle’s precinct. She’d known the man her whole life.

“Brea?
Is that you?” Officer Pat Mullins was the best case scenario, a man too kind to ever fit the cop stereotypes. His blue eyes held sympathy and his silver-haired head shook with disappointment. “What are you doing here?”

She shrugged, unable to tear her eyes away from the chase.

Harmony ran, faster than whoever was chasing her. She hurtled over headstones and hit the low chain link fence with a force that made the metal ring out.

“Stop!
” the second officer called out.

Harmony
scaled the fence and threw herself over the top with an ease the officer couldn’t mimic.

“Is that Bruce?” Brea said
.

Bruce
Sims was Pat’s polar opposite, a man so drunk with power he might as well have
invented
the cop stereotype. He never met a rule he didn’t like and enforced them with impunity.

“Afraid so.”
Pat nodded.

“There’s no way I’m getting out of this, is there?” She knew the answer before she said it, but had to ask anyway.

“Afraid not.”

Bruce ran toward them, out of breath and red-faced. He wasn’t out of shape, especially not for a man in his mid-forties, but there was no shot at him outrunning Harmony, not when she was running for her life. He held his hands on his hips and took several
recuperating breaths. “Where did she go, Brea?” He had the same severe stare as her mother and uncle.

“Who?”

“Don’t start with me, young lady. I saw it was Harmony. Where did she go?”

Admitting he was right, that it was, in fact, Harmony would put her in the worst possible situation. She decided to press her luck and play stupid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you don’t, huh?”

Pat gave her a look that warned her to cooperate, but she wasn’t about to leave Harmony hanging out to dry.

“No. I have no idea who that was. I was here by myself.”

Bruce grew
angrier and more impatient by the second. “This stuff here,” he picked up Harmony’s bag in one hand and the spirit board in the other, nearly knocking the glass over next to it, “this is yours?”

She nodded.

“And what about that car out front? The one reported stolen. You drive that, too?”

She shrugged. Everyone knew she didn’t have a license. Her mother had been using it as a bargaining chip
to get her to stop hanging out with Harmony for the past year. “Please, let me go,” she said to Pat.

“Not a chance.” Bruce handed
over Harmony’s things. “Take her back to the station, Pat. I’m going looking for the other one.” Pat and Bruce had apparently arrived in separate cars. Bruce called something in on his radio, a BOLO for everyone to “be on the lookout” for a girl matching Harmony’s description, and then he called Brea’s Uncle Jim.

“I’m sorry.” Pat ran his hands through his thinning gray hair. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

Brea agreed, not that she had a choice. She didn’t want to walk home and even if she did, her uncle would have called her mother before she even hit the front door. It was better to face her mother in a public place and under police protection.

“Am I under arrest?”

Pat shook his head. “I know you didn’t steal that car.”

“Harmony didn’t either.” Brea
tucked the spirit board inside the bag and wrapped the glass. “If you just let me explain—” She didn’t have an explanation, really, but she had to try. Pat was her only shot at getting Harmony out of this.

“Not here. We have to go.” Pat headed through the trees toward his car.

Brea wondered if he wasn’t giving her a chance to run, too, but there was nowhere to go. She was too highly visible and fleeing punishment wasn’t her MO. She flip-flopped through the frosty grass, hot despite the freezing cold and high on adrenaline.

A tow truck backed up to Lance’s car, presumably to
take it to impound.

“I don’t have to ride in the back, do I?”

“No.” Pat opened the passenger’s side door as a courtesy.

“This whole thing is a big misunderstanding. Really, if you called Lance and let him know it was Harmony, I’m sure this could all be cleared up. She’s like his girlfriend or something. I don’t know. S
he’s been staying with him since the recent trouble with her mom—”

“Probably better we don’t talk about that.” Pat picked up the radio and called the station.

Pat kept his eyes on the road and two hands on the wheel. He seemed nervous and muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “When will this ever end?”

“When will
what
ever end?”

“
Huh?” Pat looked as though he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

“You said ‘When will this ever end?’.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

He turned up the radio broadcasting details of a call in progress.

Brea listened to see if it had anything to do with Harmony.

“Has anyone called Charity?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help wanting to get Harmony out of the jam she was in. She was a lot of things, but Brea had a really hard time believing she was a car thief.

“I’m sure your uncle has
,” Pat said.

“Did you talk to him?”

Pat nodded. “I called him on the way to the car. I didn’t know what to do with you. He’s not too happy right now, I can tell you that.” Brea rolled her eyes at the understatement. “And your mom’s on her way to the station.”

Suddenly
the comment Harmony had made about bars on the windows didn’t seem so unrealistic.

“What happens n
ow?”

“That depends on you, kid. Your uncle and mother are going to do as much as they can to help you, but I don’t think it’s in your best interest to repeat that stunt you pulled with Bruce. If you know where Harmony is, or even where she might be, you’d better speak up.” He cleared his throat and stopped at a red light, making eye contact
for the first time since they’d gotten in the car. “Hasn’t she gotten you in enough trouble?” Clearly her uncle had said more than “Let her ride in the front seat”. “You should consider a better class of friends.”

“You know how many times I’ve heard that? My mother, my uncle, my father when he bothers to call
… ‘Get better friends’, ‘Stay away from Harmony’, it’s all I hear from them and now you, too. Whatever happened between Harmony and Lance, she didn’t
steal
his car. At most, she
borrowed
it.”

“Is there a difference?”

“In this case, yes.”

“And what if I told you Lance found powder in a drinking cup, that Harmony drugged him to
borrow
his car? Would you still think it was a misunderstanding?”

Brea
sighed, remembering the night Harmony showed up in Adam’s truck. He wasn’t the lending kind.

“She’s out of control
,” Pat said. “That whole family is out of control.”

“What is it with you people and persecuting her
because of her family? She made some mistakes, but they weren’t always so bad. Don’t you think it’s possible that they’re trying to do the best they can with the hand they’ve been dealt?”

“It’s a nice thought, but they made their beds.”

“Did they?” That particular idiom was one of her mother’s favorites: “You made your bed, now lie in it”. Why anyone would lie in a made bed was beyond her, but she got his meaning. He seemed to know something about the Wolcott’s past, and attributed their bad fortune to it. She decided to see just how much he knew. “It all started with Tom.”

“You remember Harmony’s father?”

“No, but she does. She’s determined to track him down. I mean, given the state of things, you can’t blame her for wanting something better, can you? I don’t have the heart to tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“That her father is worse than her mother, and that she’s not likely to find him. Uncle Jim told me about the stabbing. Charity could’ve died. Harmony, too, for that matter. Our families were best friends for cripes sake, until that accident. An event like that destroys everything.” She played him, using every bit of factual evidence in her arsenal to make him believe she knew the whole story.

Pat shook his head. “You were never supposed to be collateral damage. Your father never should
have gone back there.”

Brea paused, not immediately sure she was hearing right. She’d done some research and the timeline of Tom’s disappearance and her father leaving were off by months. “You’re right. He shouldn’t have, but he did.” She baited him by agreeing. “What was he supposed to do?”

“He could’ve let it drop. He could’ve stayed gone and Tom would’ve never started that fight. Your father would’ve never been a suspect. I mean, it was ridiculous. Everyone knew your parents were the perfect couple. Tom was jealous. He was drunk.”