Jex Malone (18 page)

It will be dark and I'm guessing Dad will be passed out by then, so maybe Billy and I can even be outside of Melissa's house together for the first time in a really long time! Maybe we can start all over again.

“I wish someone would have told her not to go to the party. That would have been a good night for her dad to have kept her locked in her room,” Cissy surmises.

Nat and Deva give her a quizzical look.

“No one knew she was never going to be seen again after the party,” Deva reminds Cissy. “Plus, for all we know, her dad is responsible for her disappearing. Remember, he was the prime suspect—numero uno on the police department's list of who was responsible. For all we know, the party was part of his plan.”

“Guys like him don't plan to kill people,” Nat corrects. “Something just gets out of control and the next thing they know they've hurt someone.”

Nat stands up so emphatically that she practically shouts, “Still, don't you think if the police had done their jobs properly and found what we found, they might have had enough evidence to arrest her dad and bring him to justice?”

I can't do this anymore.

I get up and walk outside to the patio because I don't want them to see me really lose it.

We spend the rest of the day reading Patty's diary, word for word. So the year 2001 was apparently not the most exciting time ever. She watched a lot of
Friends
and
Melrose Place
reruns and was really into this kind of weird show in reruns called
Highway to Heaven
where the guy from
Little House
roams around talking to people about forgiveness and unconditional love.

Totally ironic given her home life.

It's getting close to the time my dad should be coming home from work and I'm thinking we better come up with a story on how we spent our exciting day.

“Okay, hang in, guys,” I tell them as we're nearing the end. Who knew someone could cram so much writing into an eighty-page college-ruled notebook?

Dear Diary:

Things are so messed up right now. He's just being horrible and I don't know what to do. Last night he shoved me backward hard and I swore I broke my wrist, but it's just sprained or something. I don't dare wear one of those bandages or everyone will notice, like the whole neighborhood at the block party. The last thing I need is to be the center of that kind of attention. I still have that huge purple spot from last week and it throbs if I roll over wrong at night. I'll have to use some cover-up on it before the big block party event.

Big news of the day: Little Miss Brainiac Cheerleader Gym Teacher called me on summer vacation to “see how I was doing.” She thinks she's out to save the world or something. I hate, hate, hate her!!!! God, why don't people leave me alone? Lillian is still really worried about me, but I tell her that it's not that bad and I can handle almost anything.

So that's what I am going to do: handle it. I'm not going to cry, I'm going to draw a really sad picture and see if that helps my mood. I'll do one of Coop and me at our little white dream house in the meadow. I tell him we're going to live there together someday. Cooper's banging on my door again 'cause he wants me to watch Power Rangers with him. So I'm going to go draw and play. First, I'll play. The kid needs some happiness in his life.

“Whoa,” I say and sit up straight. “Again, who's this ‘he' who almost broke her wrist?”

Nat shakes her head and shrugs, “Again, her dad, I guess, or maybe Billy?”

I shake my head and look at Cissy, who looks puzzled too. Deva looks up from her cell. “Sorry, did I miss something?” she says.

“Yeah, she's writing about somebody beating her up. But it's not clear who,” I respond. “It's weird; why didn't she just write: Dad hurt my arm.”

“Maybe because he didn't,” Deva responds. “But who else could she be talking about?”

The four of us look at each other with genuine shock.

“Billy,” Cissy announces what we're all thinking.

Then we crack open the notebook.

Dear Diary:

Everything is just closing in on me. I've never seen Dad so mad and now he's downstairs drinking like a lunatic. When I came down for a glass of water, he started ranting again about my “nonexistent future” and then threw his glass of vodka against the wall, booze and glass shards flying everywhere. Then he screamed at me to clean it up.

Instead, I grabbed the cat and ran up to my room. My head really hurts. I think there's a dent in the wall, too, from where Dad punched it. This is all Miss Sandy's fault. If only she hadn't asked to speak to a parent when she called. That would be my dad who yelled, “Go to hell, you bitch, and mind your own business.” I hope she rots.

Dear Diary:

It's midnight.

Oh God, Billy's at my window. He's not at the window, but downstairs throwing little pebbles so I look out and come out. He really wants some sort of showdown. It's either him or my dad.

If my dad catches me I'm dead, but if I don't go talk to Billy I'm dead with him, which seems even worse.

Dad pulled up just as I opened the door to let Billy in. He was so drunk he fell out of the car, and he grabbed me so hard I think he could have pulled my arm out of its socket. It was all kind of a blur, but I'm pretty sure Billy didn't jump in to try to save me. I just looked up and he was gone. Can you believe it?

When we got inside, Dad shoved me hard to the floor and punched the wall in the hallway, making a gaping hole while his own blood splattered all around it. Dust and plaster flew everywhere as I scrambled to my feet and raced upstairs crying.

Dear Diary:

Billy says what happened was all my fault, but he's just saying that because I'm stuck in the house. He thinks I planned the whole thing to avoid him. REALLY! Like I want to be armless just so I don't have to go to his stupid game! He's so dumb sometimes.

Later that night, I heard Mom yelling at Dad for the way he was treating me and then I heard her scream out in pain. I guess his one good hand, the one that's not bandaged, is working. A few minutes later, she stormed out the front door with Cooper to go somewhere and didn't come back until after midnight.

I'm just going to stay in my room and watch Friends. That's my favorite show now. I talked to Lillian on the telephone and she told me I absolutely must keep drawing because I've got a lot of pain to tap into right now.

She told me I needed a signature thing to put on the bottom of my drawings, so I drew a castle with stars over it. Forget rainbows. What am I? Twelve years old? Now the castle is my artistic stamp, whatever that means.

Sometimes Lillian is so weird, but I think she's just trying to help me. I snuck in a call to Billy to apologize to him for not managing my situation and he says he's all sorry now for blaming me and he's going to come back to visit me—but not at the party.

I begged him to come to the party and reminded him that it would be Saturday night and Dad would be miles away at some bar. Dad hates the block party because he never wants nosy neighbors to see how much he's actually drinking. Billy is sticking to his guns. He ain't coming to the block party. For once, I hit the “end call” button on him. Chills! That actually felt really good.

Then I looked outside. That stupid Mr. Foster next door is standing in his side yard just staring up at my bedroom window. FREAK!

Dear Diary:

It's really, really late Friday night, but I don't know what else to do but write in you. Dad totally flipped out tonight and I was so scared. He didn't see Billy bring me a red rose to say sorry (although he's still not committing to the block party), but said he “knew” I was up to something even though I have the rose hidden under my bed.

After getting home from drinking with his work buddies, Dad pounded upstairs and burst into my room. He grabbed me by my throat and started yelling, “It's all your fault, Patty! You are this way just to make me mad!” Then he kicked my bedroom door so hard that it's half off the hinges and just hanging there like this rotted thing. The only thing I could think to do was cry and hide the rose between my mattress and the box spring. Some girls press flowers to remember a great night. My pressed flower will always remind me of the night my father tried to strangle me.

We don't want to stop, but it's like we just reached the top of a roller coaster and someone removed the rest of the track. The notebook ends just as abruptly because the last pages are missing. Torn out. Gone. All that's left is the yellowed, wispy fringes on the left side of the page from where someone yanked them away.

I count the layers of fringe, impressing myself with my own detective work here. The last five pages are gone.

Ripped out.

Nat holds up one arm and there are goose bumps on it. I read her mind.

“Where are those pages?” I ask, feeling my own goose bumps rise.

“And who has them?” Nat whispers.

“I never bluff, Sergeant. I merely express my optimism forcefully.”

—Brenda Leigh Johnson,
The Closer

Nat hangs back after the others have been called home. There isn't much explaining because they have the perfect non-adult-supervision rule in their house: Give me no reason to suspect you're up to no good, and I'll trust that I've raised you to make the right decisions.

I'm watching the clock to keep track of what time I expect to hear my dad's car coming down the street based on his known travel time between home and the only thing important to him: work.

He doesn't go anywhere else and saves all the errands for the weekends, so if his all-important shift is over at six, I've figured out we have exactly twenty-four and a half minutes to get our murder evidence put away.
Wait. How many of my friends on summer vacation have this issue?

The way Nat is into this case, I swear she should have been my dad's daughter and not me. Wouldn't he have loved having deep conversations over Pop-Tarts about perps and predators?

Out of nowhere, my cell starts buzzing and we both jump from being startled. I pull the phone out of my pocket and see a number I don't remember. I show it to Nat, who shrugs and mouths, “Answer it.”

“Hell … o,” I say tentatively.

“Jessica, this is Katt Kaetan. You remember we met at the Mexican restaurant last night? We talked in the ladies' room, you remember don't you?”

“Uh, yeah, Katt, uh, Miss Kaetan, I totally remember,” I respond, again uncertain if I should even be talking to her. “How are you doing? And how did you get my phone number? I don't remember giving it to you.”

Score one for the out-of-towner.

“That's unimportant,” Katt shoots back.

I gulp.

“I thought since you seemed so interested in the Patty Matthews case, we could get together and talk some more about it. It will help you fill in some of the missing pieces of what happened. I know you were too young to remember any of it,” Katt says.

“Uh, gee, thanks, Katt. That's really nice of you,” I respond, wondering for the briefest second if she is really trying to be friendly and helpful.

Nat is leaning in so closely that we're about to become those twins that need to be surgically separated. She could be across the room and clearly hear Katt, whose voice easily carries outside of the phone. Nat quickly looks at me with wide eyes and makes a rolling motion with her hands, mouthing, “Keep talking.”

“Uh yeah, I guess I would like to know what
really
happened since, you know, my dad never talks about it,” I add to fill in the uncomfortable silence.

“Oh, he doesn't talk to you about it?” Katt replies, sounding somewhat crestfallen. “Are you sure? Never? I find that hard to believe.”

“Yeah, well you know, it's not like we've had a super close relationship,” I catch myself saying and wonder whether it was perhaps the worst idea ever to tell her even more about our lives.

Nat is still coaching me and gives me the thumbs up before pantomiming like she's casting a fishing pole and reeling a fish in.

“Yeah, yeah—we're not big talkers, but I would
love
to know the inside story of what really happened because, uh, it pretty much ruined my life,” I add, only somewhat embellishing the drama, and Nat gives me two thumbs up while doing a little twirling dance with the dog, who doesn't know why she's dancing. But I do.

“Yeah, in fact I think it would make me feel much better if I knew everything you know about Patty Matthews and what might have happened to her. Katt, can you help me? Please?” I say in a semi-begging voice.

Arms raised over her head, Nat is silently cheering, and I can tell from Katt's sudden quiet on the other end of the line that I've caught her off-guard.

“Jessica.” Katt composes herself. “I would love to help you in any way I can. I think you are one of the uncounted victims of whoever killed Patty Matthews and if there is any wrong I can right after all these years, it's the least I can do.