Chapter 03
iris
Iris picked up her nephew’s painting. The slender enamel bangles on her arms clinked as she held it out at arm’s length.
Nicky had an eye, that much was certain.
He got that from her, of course, not his mother.
Iris’s sister Amy was many things – hardworking, determined, articulate – but she didn’t have an artistic bone in her body.
Nicky’s work had so much style and energy: his composition was perfect, and Iris couldn’t fault his use of colour.
But the content of his painting disturbed her.
Even for Nicky, this was dark.
Her nephew had never been particularly outgoing or sunny, unlike Iris’s own son, Finn.
The boys had been born only six days apart, but you’d never know they were even related.
Nicky was quiet, introspective, a bit of a loner; the only person he was really close to was his girlfriend, Kate Walker’s daughter, Maggie.
Finn, on the other hand, was the life and soul of the party, everybody’s buddy.
He had the kind of good looks and easy confidence that might have inspired envy if he hadn’t been so nice with it; her son drew people towards him like a human magnet.
Nicky included: the two boys were closer than most brothers.
Iris wouldn’t have blamed her nephew if he’d hated Finn, but Nicky was her son’s biggest cheerleader.
Outwardly, at least.
This painting suggested something more complex was at work.
Iris understood how ambivalent Nicky’s feelings towards his cousin must be. She knew what it was like to grow up in the shadow of someone you loved.
She had two healthy kids and a happy marriage to one of the most successful men in Stowebury – she didn’t need a job teaching art at the local high school; she did it because she wanted to – but to Amy she’d always be the fuck-up who’d needed her big sister to step in and rescue her.
She put down Nicky’s painting, censoring her self-doubt. She hadn’t had an episode in a decade and a half, not since before Rose was born. Maybe if she stopped viewing herself as less than, Amy would too.
Her teaching assistant, Caitlin, joined her. ‘That’s a bit creepy.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing.’
‘Something going on we should know about?’
‘I’m not sure. I’d like to take a look at some of his other work.’
Caitlin turned to a wooden rack of student portfolios beside the window, tilting her head so she could read the names. ‘Sanders . . . Scott . . .’
‘He’s Nicky Gray Smith, but he goes by Gray,’ Iris said.
‘Got it. Here you go.’
Iris undid the string holding his portfolio together and fanned Nicky’s artwork across the desk, looping her long red hair up in a loose knot to keep it out of the way.
They were unquestionably some of the best paintings and drawings she’d seen from any of her students in a decade of teaching.
But it was obvious how the mood of his work had changed since the beginning of the school year.
The lake views and idyllic Vermont landscapes had given way to bleak mountains peopled with shadowy, indistinct figures, the paintings pregnant with an ominous sense of threat.
‘Well, it’s a tough time, your senior year,’ Caitlin said. ‘A lot of changes going on. It’s good Nicky’s expressing himself through his art. Better than keeping it all bottled up.’
Caitlin was twenty-three, still full of chirpy optimism and Hallmark wisdom. At her age, Iris had been a single mother with a two-year-old son and a stay at a psychiatric facility behind her.
Iris gathered the artwork together as Caitlin left to clean up the kiln room. Maybe the girl was right, and she was reading too much into things. But she made a mental note to talk to Amy when they had dinner with their mother, Helen, tonight, as they did every Friday.
She’d have to time her moment carefully, though.
Iris had given up trying to work out why her mother and Amy seemed to be in a state of perpetual war.
Amy had been five when Iris was born, and the rules of engagement between her mother and her sister had already been well established.
According to their father, Amy had been only four when she’d refused to answer to the “old lady” name her mother had given her – Jean – and adopted the middle name chosen by Dad instead.
Their mother had carried on calling her Jean, even when Amy had made the name change legal on her eighteenth birthday.
Amy retaliated by calling their mother “Helen” instead of Mom.
The stand-off told you everything you needed to know about their relationship.
And yet when their mother, crippled by arthritis and diabetes, had been unable to manage in her own home after their father’s death thirteen years ago, it’d been Amy who’d invited Helen to live with them.
Mac had built the in-law apartment over their garage himself, in a bid to keep his mother-in-law as self-sufficient as possible.
In an orgy of masochism, Amy now hosted a family dinner – conscientiously low-carb, because of her mother – with Helen every Friday night without fail.
Iris knew the only reason Mom attended was to make Amy miserable.
Iris was slotting Nicky’s portfolio back into place by the window when a flash of something red outside suddenly caught her eye.
She peered through the glass for a better look.
The art studio was in a separate building from the rest of the school, tucked away on the edge of the grounds above the winding road leading up to the main building.
It had once been a hunting lodge, donated to the school by an alum looking for a tax deduction.
She wasn’t wrong: that was her brother-in-law’s red pickup parked in the lay-by near the Stowebury Country Store, MacGill’s Marina clearly emblazoned on its side. And neatly pulled in alongside him, facing the other way, was the fire marshal’s distinctive black-and-yellow truck.
Iris frowned. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about the scene that felt off. What were Mac and the fire marshal so earnestly discussing through their rolled-down windows, like drug dealers in a scene from a Netflix crime show?
She didn’t wonder for long.
Chad’s truck suddenly burst into life as he activated his emergency lights. Seconds later, the vehicle roared out of the lay-by, accelerating so fast it was all but obscured by a cloud of dust.
He was headed right towards the school.