Chapter Nine A Piece of My Mother
nine
A Piece of My Mother
“Jas?” My voice comes out tight. I try to keep it even, but I can’t mask the panic. “Have you seen my necklace?”
“What necklace?”
“My locket. The diamond heart one.” I race toward the dresser to rifle through the knickknacks on top of it. “The one my grandmother gave me.”
My pulse speeds up. I yank open my dresser drawers, pushing clothes aside, pulling out socks and underwear, but it’s not here.
“Why would I have seen it?” my cousin asks.
“I don’t know, maybe you moved it or something?” I turn around to find her lips pressed in a thin line.
“Are you saying I took it?” Jasmine demands.
“No, of course not—”
“Really? Because it sure sounds like it!” Her voice rises. “Just because something goes missing, you automatically assume I took it? Like I’d steal your stupid necklace?”
The panic is clawing at my throat now. “No, I…I thought maybe you saw it somewhere.”
Jasmine jumps up from the bed, eyes flashing. “You seriously think I’m the kind of person who’d just take your shit?”
“It’s not like that!” I insist, but she’s already on the defensive.
“I didn’t take anything. You want to search my things, Ryan? Go ahead.” She gestures wildly to her side of the room. “Check my bags, my drawers. Maybe I stuffed it in my pillowcase like some fucking criminal.”
“Oh my God! I’m not accusing you!” My voice cracks, and I can feel my eyes welling up.
Before I can say anything else, my aunt rushes into the room, eyes darting between us. “Girls! What on earth is going on in here?”
“Ryan thinks I took her necklace,” Jasmine says bitterly.
“I never said that!” The words come out louder than I intended.
“Yes you did!”
Maggie gives us both a stern look. “All right, that’s enough. Ryan, what necklace?”
I swallow hard. “My diamond locket. The one my grandmother gave me.”
“And you believe Jazzy took it?”
“No. I didn’t say she stole it,” I mumble, my face burning. “I only asked if she’d seen it.”
Jasmine huffs, throwing her hands up. “Maybe you lost it—ever think of that? The clasp was loose, remember? I told you to get it fixed.”
Maggie’s gaze shifts back to me. “Are you sure you didn’t lose it?”
“I—” I falter. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“It probably fell off when you were walking in the woods,” Jasmine says. “You’re always out there.”
She’s right. I walk every single morning, and sometimes in the evenings too. But to lose my necklace, the only thing I have left of my mother…literally…the thought makes me want to throw up.
Blinking back tears, I rush out of the room, my feet carrying me outside before I even realize where I’m going. The woods surround me, and I break into a run, not caring where I end up. When I can’t hold it in any longer, I collapse against a tree trunk, wrap my arms around myself, and sob.
My locket is gone.
A piece of my mother is gone.
How could I be so careless? How could I let it fall off?
I hear the crunch of leaves and twigs. Then my aunt’s voice, soft and gentle.
“Ryan?” She’s closer, crouching beside me. “Darlin’, talk to me. Are you all right?”
I try to tamp down my tears, but they keep coming, the heavy weight of loss building in my chest. “It was a cremation diamond,” I choke out.
Maggie sucks in a breath. “What?”
“Gran had it made from Mom’s ashes.”
“Oh Jesus.” Maggie curls an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “Oh, darlin’. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I moan. “I know she’s dead, but she wasn’t really gone, not as long as I had that necklace.
All those other families, they don’t even know where their moms’ remains are, but I had mine around my neck.
It sounds horrible and morbid, but it felt comforting.
Like she was still with me. And now I…” Another sob racks my body.
Maggie strokes my hair, holding me as I cry. “We’ll find it,” she assures me. “We’ll look for it tomorrow morning when it’s light out. Search every inch of these woods if we have to. We will find it.”
“What if we don’t?” I whisper.
She hugs me tighter. “That won’t happen. But if we don’t find it, you’ll be okay, darlin’. Your mother’s with the angels now, which means she’s always watching over you. She’s still with you, even when it doesn’t feel like it.”
Her words sting in the way that only the truth can. I know she’s right, but right now it feels like I’ve lost my mother all over again.
The next morning, everyone is milling in the front courtyard before school starts. Normally I’d bid my cousins goodbye and head inside, but I’m too exhausted to force my legs to move. I’m ready for the week to be over, and it’s only Monday.
Maggie and I woke up at six a.m. to scour the trail for my locket, but between the two of us, all we found was dirt, rocks, and a piece of silver foil from a Hershey’s Kiss. That last one got my hopes up. I almost cried when I realized it was only foil.
Maggie reminded me that even though my mom was cremated, she still has a gravestone at the cemetery in town. “You have a piece of her there,” she tried to reassure me, but it’s not the same. I want my diamond back. I want my mom back.
I’m going to search again after school. And every morning if I have to.
I hate myself for it, but a part of me can’t help but wonder if Jasmine did take it.
She was so enamored with the diamond heart.
But I can’t level that kind of accusation without hard proof.
And my cousin seemed genuinely sympathetic on the way to school when she touched my arm in the back seat and promised she’d help me look for it later.
Now I stand frozen in the school courtyard, feeling defeated, demoralized.
I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to move back to this godforsaken town without the anxiety finally overwhelming me.
It’s all caught up to me. My missing necklace, my psychotic father, the press conference, the bodies, the reward.
Everything’s swirling in my head, making it hard to focus.
A few yards away, Jasmine is babbling away with Nikki and Gillian.
Beside me, Connor is telling me about some Halloween party in Nashville he wants to attend with Sam next month and brainstorming how to convince his parents to let him go.
I’m only half-listening to him, my nerves making it hard to focus.
The anxiety only heightens when I spot a familiar face across the lawn.
It’s Mr. True Crime himself, Logan Zellman.
He’s talking to Sofia, of all people. Based on her body language it’s obvious that the captain of the cheerleading squad is annoyed to be conversing with him.
Her arms are crossed, and she’s glaring at him like he’s some kind of insect.
Her cheerleader friends stand around her, equally unimpressed.
Finally, Sofia flips her hair over her shoulder and saunters off, her friends following her like baby ducklings.
Unfazed, Zed starts to turn away, but then his eyes lock onto mine.
Damn it. He’s noticed me.
“Ryan, hey,” he calls out, his face brightening.
Connor’s gaze shifts to me. “You’re friends with Zellman?”
“Not at all.”
“Good.” His lips curl in a sneer. Which is shocking coming from Connor.
For once, my laid-back, congenial cousin seems to genuinely detest someone.
“Zed and his Thorn fan club are obsessive assholes. Seriously, don’t indulge him.
And don’t get me started on the others. There was one summer when a whole group of true-crime losers camped out in our front yard. ”
My eyes widen. “Why?”
“They were holding some kind of stupid protest. Insisted my family knew more than we were saying about the murders and refused to leave until we confessed. The sheriff rounded ’em all up, and we had to have a police cruiser parked in our driveway for a whole month to keep them off the property.”
At his bitter tone, I suddenly realize how lucky I was to live in Pennsylvania with Gran, anonymous, invisible. Away from the noise of this case, the obsession around it. Gran never talked about my father or his crimes. Nobody in Allentown knew or cared about the case.
But the Shipleys…
My heart aches for them. I’m Gabriel Thorn’s daughter, yet it’s them, a family that wasn’t even related to the monster, who had to live with the consequences, fielding questions and fending off suspicion all these years.
“Great, he’s coming over here,” Connor mutters under his breath.
Sure enough, Zed stalks over on his scuffed Converse sneakers. But it’s my other cousin he’s hurrying after.
“Jazzy,” he says irritably. “Can you please tell Sofia that the operative word in ‘yearbook committee’ is committee. As in, more than one person makes all the decisions?”
Jasmine doesn’t even stop walking. “We already told you, we’re not using your dumb classic rock medley for the audio,” she taunts over her shoulder.
“Well, that was unnecessarily rude,” Zed says, turning to me and Connor.
“You’re on the yearbook committee?” I can’t help but ask. Zed doesn’t strike me as a school spirit kind of guy.
“Needed something for my college applications and it was the only extracurricular that didn’t make me want to kill myself,” he answers with a shrug.
“What, you can’t use your super-popular website for your applications?”
If he hears the sarcastic note in my voice, he doesn’t remark on it. “Turns out colleges aren’t impressed with meticulous research and thorough investigation. At least according to my guidance counselor. She thinks I need more wholesome activities on my résumé.”
“Con! Come see this,” someone shouts, and my cousin gives Zed a wary look before ambling off.
Once we’re alone, Zed lowers his voice like we’re sharing a conspiracy. “We should talk about the case sometime.”
I freeze. “Why?”