Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Indi
I stand at the threshold to the Davis house and my shoulders sag as if there’s a ton of weights strapped to my back, not just a backpack.
There wasn’t much to say to Addy after we’d both calmed down. She swears she doesn’t know what Briar was talking about, and I so badly want to believe her.
When I asked, she said she was supposed to leave with the moving men, but she wanted to spend a few minutes saying goodbye to her childhood home.
I still don’t know what shit her parents were involved in that made them a target for the IRS. She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask her to. Right now, I just want to climb into bed and forget the past two weeks of my life ever happened.
Which is what I would have done if I hadn’t run into Marigold.
She’s waiting for me in the entrance hall, skinny arms crossed over her chest. The lecture begins before I’ve even let out my first long-suffering sigh.
“How far do you think you’ll get in this world, young lady?”
“Quite far,” I snap back. “Starting with moving fuck far away from this hell hole.”
“And then what?” Marigold says, following me relentlessly up the stairs. “You get a job, your boss gives you an order, you throw it back in their face?”
Well, at least she’s not expecting my boss to be male. That’s gotta count for something, right?
“I dunno, granny,” I say. “But let me think it over while I remain grounded for the rest of my life, yeah?”
I turn to close my bedroom door in her face, but she sticks out a hand before I get there. I scowl at her, and she glares back at me.
“This isn’t the life your mother wanted for you,” she says quietly.
“Don’t you dare,” I say, lifting a finger at her and wishing it was my knife instead. “Don’t you dare!”
“She put me in charge of you, Indigo. Me.” Marigold presses her fingers to her chest. “I’m responsible for her daughter. This—” she flicks her hand at me “This excuse of a child.”
My mouth drops open. “What?”
“I never wanted kids,” she goes on with barely a pause. “Did your mother ever tell you that? Not one. Until I had your mother, of course.”
She shakes her head.
“That’s when it all changes, you know. That one moment, when you’re holding your baby in your arms. The burden you’ve carried for nine long months. The thing that made you throw up every morning, that made you spoil your bedsheets more times than you’d care to remember. That thing…”
Marigold blinks a few times, and I realize she’s keeping back tears. “That thing consumed my life. She was everything to me. Everything!”
I start misting up. That’s how I felt about Mom too, especially after Dad died. She was my world.
I like to think I was hers.
“But then I lost her.” Marigold holds up a hand and extends two fingers. “Not once. Twice.”
“I don’t?—”
“Your father took her away from me.” Marigold flicks her hand, shakes her head. “Dragged her thousands of miles to that nowhere town. He kept us apart.”
I open my mouth, but she doesn’t let a word get out.
“And then someone killed her.”
Those two fingers lift, trembling ever so slightly. “Twice, I’ve lost her. I’m not losing you too, even if it means you hate me. Because at least you’re here to hate me. At least you’re here.”
She drops her arms to her sides, swallows visibly, and takes a step back. “Now think about what you’ve done.” She nods, and a single tear breaks free to race down her wrinkled cheek. “You think about your life, Indi. And you don’t come out of this room until you’re ready to tell me how you plan to spend it.”
Marigold grabs the door handle and shuts the door in my face. I stare at the wood for the longest time, and then slowly turn around and collapse on my bed.
I wish there were a way I could dump everything that’s happened to me in the past two weeks onto Marigold. Maybe she can handle that shit better than I can. After all, she’s still standing, and barely looks worse for wear.
Me? I feel like two-day-old roadkill left to bake in the sun. I’m a withered husk of who I used to be, and it feels like the only thing keeping me alive is my anger and my hate and my desperation.
Anger at Briar for lying to me.
Hate for the man who destroyed my life so wantonly.
And oh, how desperate I am to make them all pay for their crimes.
Briar
It’s just after one when I get to the burned-out church. Empty, blackened, cast in deep shadow.
I haven’t seen Marcus here in years. So why? Why did he track all the way over here from his house? It’s further than mine—an extra fifteen, twenty minutes. Doesn’t make sense, not if it was just to reminisce.
So why then?
I scan the building, trying to find anything that might be out of place. Some glaring sign that will point me in the right direction.
But it looks the same as it always does.
I head to the back where I thought I saw a flicker of light the night Marcus and I were here. There’s a tangled nest of brambles back here. I crouch, take out my phone, and shine the torch on the ground.
There are a few scrapes through the dirt, some indistinct marks. A thorn ripped from the bramble. Was this where Indi was hiding?
I turn, crouch, and scan the church from my new perspective. The entrance is straight ahead, the pulpit a little to the left. She would have had a clear line of sight to both of us coming and going.
She must have seen what Marcus was doing. My finger hovers over my phone, but who the fuck do I call?
I try Dylan first. He’s the one that sent Indi the video his girlfriend had taken of her on her knees in front of me in Veroza’s class.
No answer.
I try Zak next, but his phone’s off.
I know Marcus doesn’t have her number, and the last thing I want is to potentially tip him off to my amateur investigation.
Instead, I wander around the church. Spot the difference, Briar.
My eyes are drawn to the mess of footprints coming and going. I follow them a few times, trying to decipher which ones are mine, which are Indi’s, which could possibly be his. On the fourth circuit, I notice a pair of tracks detouring. It could be mine from the night I first followed Indi into this place…but it doesn’t feel right.
For one, they’re too perfect. Each precisely placed in front of the other.
I follow them down a row of pews, and stare at a scuff mark on the dusty tiles.
Crouching, I brush my fingers over the tile. It’s not flush with the others. No surprise—almost nothing in this church is straight or narrow anymore. I heard that the church burned down in the early sixties, cause unknown. Apparently, no one was injured in the fire, but it was never reconstructed.
I wedge my fingernail under the lip of the tile. Reluctantly, it starts lifting. I put it down to one side and frown down at the dark rectangle of empty space it was obscuring.
I reach inside. The air in that small space is arctic. I grab the bundle of fabric inside and draw it out as goosebumps break out over my arms.
Did you get rid of everything?
Of course.
As soon as that blue fabric catches the light, I recognize it.
Jessica’s hoody. The one she was wearing when she left Marcus’s house the next day.
Why the fuck would he keep this?
I stand, gripping the sweater tighter. Inside one of the pockets, something crumples. I unfold the hoody, dangling it from my finger as I head out of the church. I rummage through the pockets, forcing a swallow when I pull out Jessica’s lip balm.
It takes everything I have not to smell it. My hand slips into the other pocket.
A piece of paper, and something small, rectangular, hard, slick, cool.
Flash drive. I stare at it for a second before slipping it into my jeans. As I step into the small clearing right outside the church and the sun washes over me, I unfold the piece of paper.
I stop walking.
I straighten the paper, blinking hard.
I turn my head.
Am I fucking seeing things?
I rub a thumb over the penciled lines. They smudge a little, but that only convinces me that I haven’t lost my fucking mind. My head darts up as a cold thrill scours my bones.
Indi.
I break into a sprint.
Jesus fucking Christ.
How long, Marcus Baker?
How long have you been playing me, you sick fucking psycho?