20. In Which Juniper Refuses to Live in Fear
IN WHICH JUNIPER REFUSES TO LIVE IN FEAR
T he buzz of squad cars and the attention of curious neighbors are more than I feel like dealing with, so I scurry up to my room to hide.
Aiden is talking with Sheriff Garrity; there’s nothing I can really contribute at this point anyway.
I just open my window, keeping my ears tuned for any relevant snippets that might float up toward me. ? *
Mostly it’s just a lot of yelling. Aiden at Garrity—“ I told you we saw a body in the woods, Todd, and you’re still not taking this seriously!
”—and Garrity at Aiden—“ Give me a body if you want me to investigate a murder! We’re working on what we can!
We had a report of stolen chickens from Rocco Astor. This is obviously some kind of prank! ”
I do not do well with screaming. I can handle snide, sarcastic, argumentative, and downright rude. But something about screaming makes me want to curl up into a little ball.
You know what else makes me want to curl up into a little ball?
Dead poultry on my doorstep.
Who even does that? Is this a mafia movie? Are we threatening the local gangs? What kind of person steals a chicken and then leaves it nice and bloodied and broken on another person’s front porch?
Most of me is outraged about any number of things—the poor dead chicken, the welcome mat that’s now ruined, the audacity . But there is a little part of me that’s wondering, over and over again on a loop, if we provoked someone enough for them to want to send a message.
There was no note left with it, but there’s not much to misinterpret about a bloody dead animal.
It’s a warning.
I finally sit up, unrolling myself from where I’m curled in the fetal position on my bed. I push myself up just far enough to peek out the window. The yelling has died down, which is good, but it also makes it so I don’t know what’s going on out there anymore.
As it turns out, Aiden and Garrity are still talking, but another party has joined the chat: Rocco Astor, looking rough.
He’s rubbing his hands over his head without stopping, making his already messy hair look messier.
I can’t see all the minute details of his face from up here, but I can tell that he’s wearing some sort of frown, and his body language is agitated—he can’t seem to stop moving, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
And maybe he just needs to pee.
But maybe…maybe he suspects the same ridiculous thing th at I do: that his brother somehow stole one of his chickens and dumped it on our doorstep to get us to stop digging around.
It’s insane. It just seems absolutely insane that anyone, much less Lionel Astor, would do something like that. Aiden and I are hardly a threat. We’re not doing that much digging. We don’t have law enforcement on our sides. We don’t have unlimited resources, or even many limited ones.
So why is someone out there scared of us?
I narrow my eyes on the trio of men standing in their little clump, talking seriously. I need them to speak up so I can eavesdrop.
No, that’s not right—eavesdropping only happens when you’re not supposed to hear something. I have every right to hear that conversation. I just would prefer to listen from the comfort of my bed, where I can hide from any shouting or attention that comes my way.
And unbidden to my mind comes a memory that I’d much rather leave in the past—my mother, stumbling drunk around our gravel driveway at ten at night, screaming at the top of her lungs about the neighbors reporting her to the HOA for an unkempt yard and improperly disposed of garbage.
I was fifteen, and I came home late from an evening at the library to find her there, the neighbors all out on their porches and in their yards, watching with scandalized faces.
I had never been so humiliated in my life. She turned her yelling on me when I hurried to take her inside, coaxing and wheedling and outright begging until finally she relented and shuffled back in, closing the door behind us with so much force that the windows rattled.
When I peeked out the window, though, the neighbors were still watching. It always felt like everyone was watching. So I let the curtain drop and helped my mom get into bed, removing her shoes and making sure she had a trash can in case she threw up.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she murmured as I pulled the covers up around her. “I just got so angry.”
“I know,” I said.
“Did you have a good study session?” The words came out garbled.
I swallowed back my tears. “Yes.”
“Find yourself some dinner.”
“Mm-hmm.” I closed the blinds tightly, turned out the light, and closed the door.
Then I sat in my room and cried, wondering why someone who obviously loved me so much could be such a terrible mother.
When I finally go down to the driveway, I’ve splashed my face with water and held a cold compress over my eyes for a few minutes so they don’t look swollen.
Aiden’s eyes only linger on me a second longer than normal, so I think I’ve pulled it off for the most part.
Either way, no one says anything or asks why I seem to have developed a head cold.
“What’s going on?” I say to Rocco, coming to a stop next to Aiden. Garrity has gone, as has the dead chicken, thank goodness.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Rocco says, turning to me with a severe look on his face. This is the serious version of him, the one I saw when we went to his house that day, asking about his brother. “Whatever you two are poking around in, you need to stop.”
This clearly isn’t the first time he’s told Aiden this, because my roommate doesn’t look surprised; he’s just rubbing his temples. It’s nice to see him do that because of someone other than me.
I hold my hands up, trying to placate him. “I don’t think we’re poking around so much as?—”
“Oh, come off it,” he snaps at me, his blue eyes harsher than I’ve ever seen them. “You two are running around doing heaven-knows-what, digging up the past, and you’re going to get hurt. Some nutter stole my chickens this time, but next time that could be you .”
An image pops into my mind of myself, covered in feathers and lying glassy-eyed on someone’s front porch. I shake my head to get rid of it and then say, “When did your chickens go missing? You didn’t see who took them?”
Some of the fight drains out of Rocco at this question; his shoulders slump and his face falls.
“Last night sometime. I didn’t see anything.
Didn’t even hear them. I should’ve installed security cameras,” he says.
“If I had just installed security cameras like I’d been planning, I would at least be able to see who it was.
Should’ve installed them. Gotten a better lock, too?—”
“All right,” I say quickly. “Calm down. We’re not mad.” I look at Aiden.
“I mean, I’m a little pissed— oof.” He breaks off when I elbow him in the ribs. He glares at me and then turns to Rocco. “Obviously it’s not your fault someone stole your animals,” he says, sounding grumpier than necessary. “I’m just mad that someone did this.”
“I know,” Rocco says, and somehow he droops even further, deflating completely.
“I feel horrible that I had any part in this. And I’m so terribly, terribly sorry.
Just—stay safe, kids. All right?” He’s more earnest now, his voice beseeching.
“Stop whatever it is you’re doing and stay safe. Don’t meddle, don’t get hurt.”
“Let me ask you one thing,” I say. It’s partly to avoid making a promise I don’t intend to keep, but I also really do want to know.
“Do you think this is something your brother might do? I’m not saying that he’s responsible for this”—I gesture vaguely at the door mat that I will most certainly be throwing away—“but just…do you think this is the kind of thing he could do?”
Rocco heaves a sigh. “I don’t know,” he mutters, running his hand over his hair again.
“I don’t want to believe he would stoop this low.
But he’s a son of a—ah.” He shoots me a self-conscious glance.
“He’s a power-hungry scumbag, and he’s surrounded by power-hungry scumbags.
So if you’re messing around with him”—he’s back to looking severe now, and I half expect him to start wagging his finger at me—“you just cut it out and leave it alone, all right?”
I garble out something nondescript under my breath, and I can’t help noticing that Aiden doesn’t reply at all. It seems neither of us want to promise him we’ll walk away.
What about Cam Verido? a little voice in my brain asks. Where is he in all this? And what about the incident Gus mentioned? How much do we really know about those two?
Not much. I can admit that. And it’s a thought that has my insides squirming with discomfort. I think back to the rest of the people on our Murder Board too before deciding to erase the Betties later. There’s no way a few small-town teachers would be involved in something like this, right?
When Rocco finally leaves, Aiden and I go back inside, although we make a quick detour to the dumpster first. Aiden holds the chicken-blood welcome mat pinched between two fingers, his arm extended as far away from his body as it will go, while I follow behind with a look of disgust on my face.
I do feel better once the mat is safely at home in its trash heap, though, mingling with the company of old banana peels and grease-stained pizza boxes.
“Don’t you need to go to work?” I say once we’ve returned indoors. Aiden stands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing his hands with dish soap and a sponge. He’s using the bristly green side, not the softer yellow side, which makes me think he feels more violated by this ordeal than he’s letting on.
“I’ll go.” Short, to the point, quiet. But then he looks over his shoulder at me. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”