Chapter Sixty-Seven. Ingrid
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
INGRID
I settle Mom into one of the side rooms off the hallway, and Dad plugs a space heater in, the glow of the coils illuminating the room like candlelight. I’m tucking a blanket around her lap when someone knocks on the door, and in steps Melanie, a steaming Styrofoam cup in her hand.
“Chamomile,” she says softly.
She sets it on the table, then crouches a little so she’s eye level with Mom.
“You keeping warm enough? Any chills?”
Mom shakes her head, giving a tired smile.
Melanie nods, tugging the blanket a little higher on her shoulders.
“Good. Chemo can make you more sensitive to the cold. So keep sipping fluids—it helps more than you think.” She rests her hand briefly on Mom’s wrist, as though checking her pulse without making a fuss.
“If you start shivering or feel lightheaded, you call for me, all right?”
“Thank you,” Dad says, sitting down next to Mom and taking her hand.
“Of course,” Melanie says with a light chuckle, “I’ll keep the chamomile coming.”
When she slips back out the door, I follow her, shutting it behind us. The hallway is dark except for the eerie red glow of the emergency exit sign at the end of the corridor.
“Is there anything else you need?” she asks.
“No. I just—” I look at her sweet, smiling face, waiting patiently for me to continue. “Melanie, I’m so sorry about Cat. I know y’all were close.”
“Oh,” she says, dropping her eyes down to her hands. With a thumb she pulls at the skin around one nail. And when she looks back up, there’s a sheen to her eyes. “I’ve been worrying about Cat most of my life. I don’t know who I am without her.”
“Does your dad know anything? I mean, does he think it was a break-in or…” I trail off. Or was it someone who knew her? I mean to ask, but can’t make the words come out.
“No signs of a break-in necessarily. The back door was open though.”
“Was anything taken?”
Melanie looks over her shoulder, down the shadowed hallway.
She takes a step closer, talks in a fast, faint rush.
“Well, don’t tell anyone, but Cat had this security footage of the kids partying at The Hollow.
She had it on this SD card, and she threatened Kennedy Claire with it.
You know, saying she had these pictures of Sarah Lynn drinking and doing drugs.
Cat just wanted Kennedy Claire to back off Olivia, you know?
I don’t think she would have actually done anything with that footage. ”
A cold pulse ripples through me, like the draft in the hallway has slipped straight beneath my skin. “What are you saying? You think Kennedy Claire—”
“I don’t think anything,” Melanie says, quick, shaking her head. “All I know is that Kennedy Claire loves her daughter, and that the SD card is missing.”
Melanie’s eyes bore into mine. I’m thinking of that scaffolding falling down, of the broken heel, and the message I never got, of how Kennedy Claire would do anything to protect her reputation, her image.
But before either of us can say another word, a teenage girl’s high-pitched scream of terror slices through the building.