Thicker Than Water (11 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

F
our days have passed since I carried Charlotte through the woods.

Four days have passed since Stan and I had an epic argument about a murder I know nothing about, a murder he declared was
nothing like this one, Tom
.

Four days have passed since we formed an uneasy truce, and now we’re living like roommates who don’t have much to say to each other. The words
stir crazy
are taking on new meaning. I’m about ready to commit a crime just so I can look at four new walls.

I’ve pulled out my sketchbooks and my pencils for the first time since she died, but I stare at white paper and nothing happens. My thoughts won’t settle enough for art. I stare at blank space, and my brain fills it with garish images. My mother in her bed. Bruises on her neck. Bulging eyes.

I could draw it, but it’s bad enough seeing it in my head.

I wish I didn’t remember her that way.

I try to think of her at other moments. Pushing my hair back from my forehead, telling me to get a haircut. Sitting in the kitchen in the early morning silence, nursing a cup of coffee while she read the paper. Dancing to terrible eighties music while she cooked Hamburger Helper.

Every image morphs into her final one.

I ended up putting my sketchbooks away.

At least in jail there would be someone to talk to. Without my phone, I don’t have anyone’s number—and I sure as hell never thought anyone back home would need Stan’s. Stan told me not to post anything online, not even in a private message, because it could be used against me.

“Think about it, Tom,” he said. “You make a joke or talk about anything nonserious, and it looks like you’re not mourning your mother. You say something appropriate, showing how much you miss her? It’s a calculated statement by someone capable of murder. Either way, you lose. I can’t stop you from contacting your friends, but know that a prosecutor is going to interview anyone you talk to, and you can’t control what they say.”

It was enough to keep me off social media, but it’s been weeks since she died, and it’s either this or I go steal a car.

I log onto Facebook. I have to use Stan’s desktop because my laptop is sitting in an evidence room somewhere. His computer isn’t what you’d call state-of-the-art, and it takes a bit of time to load the webpage. I don’t have many messages. I can’t decide whether that’s a surprise or not. I don’t click on any of them, because I don’t want anyone to see the little message confirming that I’ve read them.

Instead, I click on my notifications.

A lot of people have heard about Mom. A lot of people have posted on my wall. Even more people have tagged me in their own statuses. There are dozens of comments. I don’t even
know
half of these people.

Some are sympathetic.

Some think I did it.

Sinister? Perfect?

I frown and click the next one.

Have you ever seen the way
Thomas Bellweather
watches people? Is anyone really surprised?

Why the hell would someone tag me in that kind of status? I don’t even
know
this girl, and she’s going to talk about me watching people?

It takes every ounce of self-restraint I possess to keep from telling all of them to go straight to hell.

The next one punches me right in the gut.

I jerk out of the chair so I don’t throw the entire computer to the ground. The words are imprinted on the inside of my eyeballs.

I run my hands through my hair. My chest is caving in, and my eyes burn. The problem is that I agree. A better son would have been able to stop it.

For some reason, I thought I could somehow escape this mess and return to my old life.

I never considered that people from my old life would blame me just as much as the people here, who’ve never known me.

I think back to the funeral, how Mom’s two friends couldn’t get time off.

Was that it, or were they avoiding me?

I can’t sit back down at the computer. I can’t look at those words anymore. At the same time, I can’t leave them on the screen, especially not for Stan to find.

I close the browser. Then I reopen it and delete the history. I don’t know how savvy Stan is, but I don’t need any questions.

Then I click the buttons to shut the damn thing down. The computer’s fan slows and eventually stops.

The house falls into an absolute silence. For the time being, even the air conditioning isn’t running. My breathing sounds loud and just a little nuts.

I’m walking before I know it. Stan never said I had to stay in the house.

I could cut through the woods and head east to get to the local grocery store, which is attached to a pretty basic strip mall. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts, a bank, and a dry cleaner. Last time I headed that way, the grocery store manager chased me out of the store, and I’m not looking for a repeat performance.

I’m also doing my best to avoid Charlotte Rooker, because I think Stan will lock me up in a jail cell himself if he catches me with her again.

Guilt flicks me in the neck. I haven’t asked how she’s doing, how her leg injury turned out. Stan might not even know, but I can imagine how the conversation would go.

I have no idea what I’ll find if I head west, but I’m not after anything in particular. Maybe I’ll stumble onto a highway and an eighteen-wheeler will put me out of my misery.

Today’s heat comes packed with a wallop of humidity. I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but after three minutes in this weather, I feel like I swam a few laps in a pool and then got dressed without drying off. The trees offer some shade, but I might as well be walking in full-on sunlight.

Cars zoom along asphalt nearby, so I must be close to something. After a few more minutes of walking, I spot bricks. A building. Then a mostly empty parking lot. A few shrubs and flowers wilting in the heat.

A sign announces that I’ve arrived at the Garretts Mill Community Library.

Okay, seriously. I didn’t expect to stumble into a rave, but surely fate could have offered up something a little more exciting than a
library
. They don’t even serve food.

I sigh. Maybe I can get a card and some books to pass the time.

The air conditioning is such a relief that I want to hug the security posts just inside the front doors. This isn’t a large library, but there’s a small bank of computers off to the right, just past the circulation desk, and two older women are sitting across from each other, clacking at the keys. The center area sports four round tables, but only one is occupied. A young mother is reading to a young girl with pigtails who has absolutely no interest in being read to.

Bookshelves line all the walls of the room, with evenly spaced aisles leading to the exterior walls. Someone is shelving books off to the left, but I can only see the motion of the cart; the person is hidden by the stacks. The place smells like old paper and coffee and copy machine toner. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time about ten years.

The best part is that no one notices me. No one cares that I’m here. No one throws me out.

Maybe this place isn’t so bad after all.

I walk up to the circulation desk. There’s a little sign that says, “Ring bell for service.”

There’s no bell.

I stare at the sign for a moment too long. The heat has made my brain slow.
The sign says to ring a bell. There is no bell. Does not compute. Abort. Abort.

A girl brushes past me and ducks beneath the counter to pop up again on the other side. She’s blond and brown-eyed and a bit breathless. She’s short and rail thin, with few curves to speak of. The only thing that keeps her from looking boyish is the waist-length hair and the fluorescent pink glasses. She’d be a piece of cake to draw, full of lines, with big round eyes like an anime character.

“Sorry,” she says quietly. “It was slow so Carla went out to grab lunch.”

I have no idea who Carla is. “There wasn’t a bell,” I say, like an idiot.

“Yeah, people complained about the noise so we took it away.”

Yet they left the sign. Okay.

She smiles. “I know. The sign.” She heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes, and then, I could swear she’s batting her lashes at me. After my reception over the last two weeks, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a girl flirt. Now I’m full of suspicion, and I’m going to look like a shady creeper.

“Trust me,” she says, “I told them to get rid of it, but you have to file forms in triplicate to get anything done around here. Can you believe they said, ‘How will people know they have to wait if there’s no sign?’” She holds her arms out to indicate the space around her. “Like people wouldn’t know they have to wait
if there’s no one standing behind the counter.
”

She’s animated and larger than life, and on someone so tiny, her attitude is almost comical. I smile before I can help it.

“So.” She leans forward, folding her arms against the counter and giving herself the tiniest hint of a chest. “What can I do for you?”

I keep my voice low. “I think I need a library card.”

She brightens, then pulls a clipboard out from under the counter. “You’re going to have to give me your name and number first.” She clears her throat and spins a pen between her fingers, and now she’s
definitely
flirting. “For official purposes only.”

I freeze.
My name
.

Of course she needs my name. What did I expect, that they’d just hand me a library card, like it’s a grocery store membership or something?

Maybe I can give her a fake one. Is she going to ask for ID?

She’s peering at me curiously now. The pen has gone still in her fingers. I’ve taken too long to answer.

I pull the hat lower on my forehead and look down at the form.

Name. Address. Phone number. Driver’s license number.

This is never going to work. She’s going to tell me to get out of here as soon as she hears my name.

“Wait a minute,” she says slowly. “Wait. You’re . . .”

“Forget it,” I say bitterly. “I’ll go.”

She whistles softly through her teeth. “No wonder Charlotte sprained her ankle running after you.”

There’s not much that would keep me at this counter, but that does the trick. “You know Charlotte.”

“Intimately.” Then she makes a face. “I mean, not
intimately
intimately. We’re not that close. But maybe if we’re still single when we’re thirty.”

I can’t decide if I like this girl or if she makes my head hurt. “She didn’t break it, then?”

“Break what?”

“Her ankle.”

“Oh! No. Char’s family might want her to end up barefoot and pregnant, but she’s tough as nails. It’s a pretty bad sprain, so she’s on crutches, but she got away with an ace bandage and a Velcro boot.” She bats her eyes at me again. “Did you really carry her for five miles through the woods?”

I cough. “Ah . . . no. It wasn’t anywhere near five—I’m sorry, who are you?”

She holds out a hand. “Nicole Kerrigan. Library page and best friend extraordinaire.”

Her hand is tiny, and it’s like shaking hands with a doll. “Thomas Bellweather.” I hesitate. What do I say? Unemployed and friendless? I sigh. “Social pariah.”

“Yeah, she said you weren’t having any luck finding a job.”

My eyebrows go up. Charlotte talked about me? “She did?”

“Yes. Is that why you’re here? You should have told me you wanted an application.”

I can’t keep up with her. “Wait. An application? For what?”

She holds up her index finger, then slowly rotates it to point to her left. “Um. The job.”

Right there on the counter, to the left of the sign about the bell, is a neon yellow piece of paper in an acrylic holder, declaring, “NOW HIRING. Technical Assistant. Part time. Flexible hours.”

I frown.

Nicole ducks and pulls another clipboard out from under the counter. She slides it across to me. This one is an employment application. “Fill it out. Old lady Kemper hasn’t been able to get anyone to apply for three weeks, and I think she’s going to make me teach her to use a computer if we don’t fill it soon.”

I look at it, but I don’t move.

“Please fill it out,” she says in a low whisper. “The last time I tried to show her something, she thought she could speak into the mouse.”

I pick up the pen, but still, I hesitate.

“What’s the problem?” says Nicole. “Too good for the library?”

“No.” Maybe.

I know beggars can’t be choosers, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of place where I can make enough money to eventually move out of Stan’s place.

She shrugs and pulls the application back. “Suit yourself.”

I slap my hand down on the clipboard and the sound rings throughout the library. “Stop. I’ll fill it out.” I start writing.

She watches me, and I sigh.

“This feels like a waste of time,” I eventually say.

“Why?”

Maybe it’s her talkative nature, but I find myself saying more to her than usual. I keep my eyes on the paper and try to keep any hint of self-pity out of my voice. It’s more of a challenge than I expect it to be. “Because no one in this town is going to hire me.”

“I find it hard to believe that any straight woman with eyes
wouldn’t
hire you, but maybe that’s just me.”