Chapter Fifteen
Every light was on when Maeve pulled up to the house. When her mother opened the back door, Maeve braced herself for another scolding, for the grounding that would come at the end.
“Where have you been? Jesus, you had me worried sick. Your dad took my car. He’s out looking for you right now!”
“Mom, I’m only an hour late.”
“Wendy Walker’s mother called me.”
One thousand thoughts fired in Maeve’s brain, a hail of arrows. She swore words at herself she’d never dare say out loud, certainly not in front of her mother. Be cool, be cool, be cool. “What did she want?”
“You don’t know? There was an accident. Apparently, Wendy’s prom date hit a tree. He’s in the hospital. Him and another boy.”
At Wendy’s request, Maeve had dropped her off at the corner in case her parents were waiting up. What if Brett had been waiting at her house? Had he forced her into the truck? Was she with him? Was she hurt?
“There was a girl with them, but it wasn’t Wendy. They can’t find her!” Her voice was shrill. “She was frantic, calling all Wendy’s friends. Dad even tried to find you at that party. He called from a pay phone and said the car wasn’t there.”
Maeve tried to think of what to say, but it was like she was turned to stone.
“Maeve. Maeve! For God’s sake! Snap out of it. Get in the house!” Her mother followed her in, let the screen door slam. “Have you been drinking?”
“No!” Maeve said, answering a question she knew she could be honest about. “You can smell my breath, I swear.”
Lights shone in the driveway. Her mother exhaled hotly. “There’s your father. We can straighten this out now.”
“When did Mrs. Walker call? I mean, like, what time was the accident?”
“Over an hour ago! We’ve been frantic!”
An hour. Wendy had been with Maeve an hour before. She couldn’t have been in the wreck. She wanted to run to the phone and call Wendy. But there was no way. The hammer would come down now that her father was home. The door opened.
Maeve shuddered.
It was Conor O’Kane.
In the kitchen light, the creases under his eyes were deeper, the strange darkness of his lips more purple, his hairline blacker, his eyes bluer. Here was the wolf Maeve feared.
Her mother’s head lolled. “Now’s not a good time, Conor.”
“I saw the lights on,” he said, as if that was an open invitation to any house.
“William’s not here,” she said, then added a second thought, “. . . but he should be back any minute.”
“I’m not here for him. Or for you, Fiadh.” His eyes flicked to Maeve then back.
He was the only person Maeve ever heard refer to her mother by her given name, one that was not even on her driver’s license. And the way he said it, biting down on that F, as if the name itself was a curse. Maeve’s shallow breaths heaved. She could not let Conor O’Kane say what he saw.
“What do you want then?” her mother asked.
He uncorked the flask he held in his hand, emptied the contents into his gaping mouth, then tossed it in the direction of the table like it was a paper airplane.
It hit the floor with a hollow clang. He rummaged his right hand around in his jacket like he was sorting a junk drawer then turned his attention to Maeve. “I think you dropped this. Earlier.”
Maeve patted her empty back pocket. It was the photograph from the paperback. It must have slipped out of the car when he opened the door. Blood rushed to her head.
Her mother snatched the photo from Conor’s fingers, considered it, a look of confusion on her face. “Why do you have this?”
“I saw Maeve tonight. This fell out of the car.”
“What do you mean you saw her?”
“Well, Maeve and her little girlfriend . . .” he began.
Her mother’s head jerked like a predator had snapped a twig. “What?”
That leer. My, what a big mouth you have! “He was at the Quick Stop,” Maeve blurted. “I was there. Before the party.”
Conor crossed his arms, an amused look spreading over his face. “I told you I had proof, remember? But, by all means, dig your hole. I have all night.”
She had to think fast, get rid of him before he said more, before her father came home.
“He said he would buy beer for me, and I told him no. Then . . .” She remembered the way he’d pulled up on her overalls.
He knew what he was doing. “He touched me weird.” She was shaking.
She would not let him say what was only hers to tell.
“I don’t want him here. Mom. Make him leave. ”
She turned, squeezed her eyes shut to wish him away, then bolted to the stairs as shouts erupted behind her. Accusations. Her mother and O’Kane, gnashing at each other.
“. . . Frenching some girl!”
“. . . kill you if you touched her, so help me God!”
“. . . a liar, just like you!”
“Liar!”
“Fiadh!”
“Liar!”
Molly was staring over the railing in front of Maeve’s door.
“Go to your room!” Maeve shouted, taking steps two at a time.
Molly retreated as the wolf clamored up the stairs.
Maeve flung her door open. Her mother’s hollering shook the whole house.
Conor O’Kane was steps away from gobbling her whole.
“Trust me,” he said. “You want to see this!”
Molly, weighing in at sixty pounds, got between Maeve and this wolf.
“Leave her alone!” Molly yelled. She kicked him in the shin, and he swatted at her.
Molly ducked and pushed him in the belly.
A fierce little thing, their father called her.
O’Kane took two steps backward, almost with a laugh.
But it was the extra step, a heavy stumble into the railing, the crackling of wood.
O’Kane busted through, grasping at air, disappearing into the hollow.
Then, the pumpkin thud of a heavy skull.
Her mother was caught halfway up the stairs like she’d stepped in cement.
Molly took a step toward the broken railing like a siren called to her, her hands out as if they were smeared with blood.
Shock ran through Maeve like she’d been struck by lightning.
She yanked Molly back, wrapped her arms around her.
Everything from there was a blur—her mother bounding into the entryway, her sickening yawp.
Then her shocked father appeared in the doorway.
Maeve pulled Molly closer, pinned her sobbing sister against her body.
“William! The girls!” Her mother was on the floor. Maeve caught her eyes as she looked up. Her face was a galaxy of emotion.
And then their father was with them, and Maeve could breathe again. He was Atticus and she was Scout, and he would make everything okay. He backed the girls into Maeve’s bedroom, sat them down, and told them not to come out, no matter what.