Chapter 32
Nothing Tean said or did could slow Jem.
He made his way back to the lodge, across the lobby, and down the hall to their room.
He fumbled in his pockets for the key, swearing under his breath, until finally he dug out the thin piece of plastic and slapped it against the lock.
Jem tried the door, but the lock hadn’t disengaged.
He slapped the key against the reader again.
When he tried again, the door still wouldn’t open.
He yanked on the handle, yanked, yanked, yanked, growling, “Open up you fucking piece of shit.” He pressed the key against the reader and slid it around. A light flashed green. The door opened.
He didn’t hold the door, and Tean had to catch it on his shoulder.
“Jem,” Tean said.
Jem didn’t say anything. He shucked his coat and threw it on a stool in the kitchenette. He dropped onto the sofa and sprang back to his feet. He turned on the fireplace and went into the kitchenette and opened the little fridge. Yellow light and plastic-coated wire shelves. He shut it.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said. “I didn’t figure it out until we were already talking to her.”
Jem shook his head.
“I know this is upsetting,” Tean said. “I know this—it’s hard to process.”
Jem turned around. He put his hands on the breakfast bar and leaned across it. “You know how it feels, huh?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I don’t know. I meant that I’m sorry. And you must have a lot of feelings—”
Jem made a disgusted sound and started to pace again. He was limping. He still held one shoulder at that wrenched angle.
Tean hadn’t realized until then that his back was pressed against the door. He watched Jem. The blond man kept rubbing his eyes, scratching his beard, cupping his hands over his mouth and breathing thinly.
“It’s okay,” Tean whispered. “It’s going to be okay—”
“It’s not going to be okay!” Jem’s voice was wild. “You don’t even know what that means, so quit fucking saying that!”
Silence. The sound of flames licking ceramic logs. Sunlight on snow making the outside world so bright that Tean wanted to close his eyes.
“I want to respect that you need time and space to deal with this,” Tean said quietly.
“But this is an emergency. They’re going to have the roads open soon—maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.
And as soon as people can leave, she’s going to go.
Stephen will disappear. If there’s any evidence, they’ll make it vanish—if they haven’t already. ”
Jem was dry-washing his face. He dropped his hands and said, as though he’d only half-heard Tean, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about telling Vaughan what we know. He can—I don’t know. Do a citizen’s arrest. Keep her somewhere secure for the time being. He can tell the sheriff ahead of time that we need to lock down the lodge until we find Stephen.”
“No.” Jem shook his head. “We’re not going to do that.”
It felt like it took a long time before Tean trusted his voice enough to say, “Why not?”
“Because she’s my mom, Tean. Because she didn’t kill Gerald.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yeah, we do, actually. Because she told us.”
“Because she told us?”
Shaking his head, Jem turned away. “I’m done with this conversation.”
“Jem, I’m sorry, but we don’t know anything right now.
We certainly can’t make a decision about what to do next based on what Brigitte told us; she has lied to us about everything.
She lied about Stephen. She lied about their relationship.
She lied about why someone might have a motive to want Gerald dead.
She lied about what she’s been doing. We don’t know how much she was involved in this plan to steal money from Gerald’s coaching group.
We don’t know how she and Stephen started working on this.
We don’t know what their end goal was. We don’t even know why she invited us up here. ”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“I understand why you feel that way—”
“She didn’t kill him!” Jem slapped the top of the breakfast bar. The crack of his palm against the marble was like a gunshot. “I said I’m done talking about this.”
“Jem—”
The sound he made was somewhere between a moan and a laugh. He walked into the bedroom.
Tean followed him. “Jem—”
“Oh my God, can you leave me the fuck alone for five fucking minutes?” Jem grabbed a pillow he’d left at the foot of the bed. He tossed it up the mattress. “Please?”
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. You have to be calm because he can’t be calm right now.
“We know she—”
Jem screamed. Loudly. And then, pushing his hands through his hair, he stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Be calm. You have to be calm.
But Tean didn’t feel calm. He had seen bees swarm. Had seen them rise like a particulate cloud, buzzing so loudly that he thought he could feel it in his bones.
She ruined his life.
And he’s going to let her get away with it.
He didn’t remember moving across the room, but the bathroom door opened when he tried the knob.
Jem was bent over the sink. His face was wet. His eyes were red.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he asked. Water was still trickling down his cheeks, running into his beard and glistening there. He grabbed a towel and buried his face in it.
“I don’t understand why you’re acting like this,” Tean said.
The sound from inside the towel was, maybe, a laugh.
“I don’t understand why you’re protecting her.”
When Jem pulled the towel away, his skin was flushed from the water, from being rubbed with the towel. The marks of wind and snow were crimson. In his lip, the indentations of his teeth were white crescents, slowly fading now. He’d bitten his lip, Tean thought distantly. Just like she had.
It made him so angry that for a moment, he couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear.
“—don’t know, actually,” Jem was saying when the static faded. “So, quit saying we know she did it.”
Be calm, he thought. You have to be calm. You have to be nice. You have to be kind. You have to be patient. You have to be all those things, forever. And you can never say what you want.
And then he couldn’t think anymore. It was like someone had yanked all the wiring. The only thing left was a dark space inside his head.
He said, “She abandoned you.”
He saw the tears in Jem’s eyes a moment before Jem blinked them away. Jem pushed past him and out into the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Tean said. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Jem kept moving. He left the bedroom.
Tean made it as far as the doorway before he said, “She left you, Jem. Why are you trying to protect her? She never protected you.”
Jem was shaking out his coat. He stopped. His throat moved once. And then, voice husky, he said, “Fuck off.”
“She ruined your life.”
Jem didn’t move for a moment. And then he gave the coat another shake.
“She walked out on you, Jem. She left you. And do you know what? Maybe I could forgive her for that, if that’s all it was. But it’s not. She stole from you. She destroyed your credit. And you know what’s even worse?”
“You need to stop talking.”
“She didn’t come back for you. She didn’t look for you. She didn’t even know if you were alive.”
Jem made that huffing sound again, the one that was almost a laugh. He slipped one arm into the coat. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why do you keep letting her do this to you? Why do you let her hurt you over and over again?”
Jem stood there, the coat hanging from one shoulder.
“Do you know what kills me?” Tean said. “She’s never apologized. Not once.”
“She didn’t leave.”
The words were so quiet Tean almost didn’t hear them. He didn’t care. “What happens when it comes up? What happens when we have to talk about the fact that you were in foster care, or that you didn’t go to high school, or that you never had a chance to go to college?”
“They took me. She didn’t leave.”
“She acts like she didn’t hear. She looks away. She waits for the subject to change. Or she changes it herself.”
Jem’s throat moved again in a silent swallow.
“Has she ever once said she was sorry? Has she ever once told you she wished things had been different, or she knew she’d done something wrong, or she wanted to make it up to you?” When Jem didn’t say anything, Tean said, “Of course she hasn’t.”
The compressor in the little fridge kicked on.
“Say something,” Tean said.
Jem shook his head. But he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say you’re angry! I want you to say you didn’t deserve that!
” Tean was shouting; he couldn’t seem to rein himself in.
“She ruined your life, Jem! She fucked up any chance you had at a future! She was supposed to take care of you! She was supposed to make you feel loved and safe! She was supposed to help you! And instead she ruined everything!”
The words echoed in his head: They ruined everything. They ruined everything. Oh my God, they ruined my whole life. And the sudden need to sob rose up in Tean until his throat clenched.
Snuffling, Jem pulled the coat on the rest of the way. Red-rimmed eyes watched Tean. Held his reflection in unshed tears.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “That’s why they took me away. Because of me. And you know what, Tean? I look at you, and I see how much you hate your parents, and I don’t want to hate her. I don’t want to be like you.”
He pulled the door shut behind him, and it closed with a click.