And When I Die, page 17
“You, know, Jordan, you never told me how babysitting was the other night.” She kept her voice steady and calm as she edged around the kitchen island to come face-to-face with her daughter. She ran her tongue across her bottom lip. “For the Zindels. The night Whitney was killed.”
The girl’s eyes flicked down briefly, so briefly, no one else would have known. Except Erica did.
She shrugged. “It was fine. You know.”
“It’s just you haven’t babysat for them in a while. Over a year.” Erica rubbed her collarbone, her heart pounding furiously against her fingertips. “I thought maybe you were a little rusty. Especially since those girls are somewhat of a handful.”
Jordan fingered the yogurt lid. “Um, yeah, it was pretty low-key. I gave them some macaroni and hot dogs and then we watched a movie. Played a little tickle monster. Like I said, pretty basic.”
“What movie did you watch?” she continued on, her nerves, her anger, her disbelief over being lied to propelling her to keep digging. “With the kids.”
Jordan dunked her spoon into the yogurt, mixing the fruit on the bottom, the purple eventually obscuring the white. “Frozen, for like, the hundredth time.” She chuckled. “That’s all they ever want to watch.”
“Oh.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Frozen.”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Frozen.” Erica pursed her lips. “Frozen. What’s it about?”
“You know. Princess Elsa and her sister. ‘Let it Go.’”
“What do you mean ‘let it go’? I’m asking you a question, a simple question. Why can’t you answer it?”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God. Mom. It’s a song. In the movie. ‘Let It Go.’ Elsa sings it.”
Erica shifted her feet at the flush of heat racing through her, angry at herself for Jordan momentarily besting her. You have the upper hand. “Oh. I didn’t realize. A song.”
“Jesus Christ, Mom, Kennedy’s blasted it probably a million times.”
“You still didn’t tell me what it’s about. The movie, I mean.”
“Mom, come on, you took Kennedy to see it when it came out. She played the song on repeat every day for like a year.” Jordan rolled her eyes. “Seriously.”
“I guess I hadn’t really paid attention,” Erica said, chewing her bottom lip.
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Elsa’s trying to find her sister, Anna, who’s trapped in some ice somewhere.”
Erica’s heart continued its slow, agonizing sink to the bottom of her stomach. How had she never realized what an accomplished liar her daughter was? What else had she lied to her about over the years? “And what about your paper?”
“What about it?”
“You were at the library working on your paper. That same Saturday.” Erica paused. “Except I don’t remember you telling me what it was about.”
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
“Something specific or about the act in general?”
“We just had to write about some of the different things that happened that led to it.” Jordan spooned a glob of yogurt into her mouth. “The library was a really good resource. I used a lot of microfiche and old magazines and stuff for research.”
“I see.” Erica unfolded her arms and tapped a nail against the kitchen island, the sharp, tinny sound echoing across the room. “I can’t wait to read it.”
“I mean, it might be a while. Mr. Staub kind of takes a long time to grade stuff.”
“I see,” Erica repeated. “And what library were you at again?”
“In Lake Forest. Remember? Dad dropped me off?”
Erica made a face. “Of course I remember.”
“Then why are you asking me?”
“Jordan,” Erica’s voice held an unmistakable warning.
“What?” Jordan asked, exasperated.
“Tell me more about your paper. What you learned about the Civil Rights Act.”
“Can we do this later? I’ve got a lot of homework,” Jordan said as she slung her book bag over her shoulder and turned in the direction of the stairs.
“Jordan.”
Her daughter sighed and turned around wearily. “Yeah?”
“How are you feeling? About Whitney?”
The color drained from her face as she stepped back a bit. “I—I don’t know.”
Erica’s eyes narrowed as she studied Jordan. “Are you sad?”
“Yeah. I mean of course, I’m sad. Of course.” Jordan sighed as she looked away, tears teetering on the edge of her eyes. “It’s just really complicated,” she whispered.
“What’s complicated, sweetheart?” Erica asked softly, afraid, on some level, of the answer.
A single tear drifted down her cheek and her bottom lip trembled. Erica held out her arms and Jordan rushed into them, sobbing quietly. She stroked the girl’s hair. “You know how much I love you, right? You know that I would do anything to protect you. Anything.”
“I know.”
“And you know you can tell me anything,” Erica continued. “No matter what it is.”
Erica felt Jordan tense in her arms, heard her breathing still as the girl stayed silent. “Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?”
“No.” The utterance was small. Plaintive. As though whatever she wanted to confess might be hovering on the tip of her tongue.
“I promise, whatever it is, just tell me and I won’t get mad. We’ll figure it out. Together.”
“I’m really tired, Mom.” Jordan breathed out the words in a sad, slow stream.
She was at a loss. Should she push her? Plead with her? Threaten her? The wilderness of dealing with a teenage girl was treacherous and unrelenting. Bewildering. One false move, one wrong declaration could send the whole expedition swirling down into quicksand in a millisecond.
Except Erica knew her daughter was lying about where she was on Saturday night. It shook her to her core to realize that her daughter could lie so casually, so easily.
She pulled back and cupped Jordan’s face in her hands. “Why don’t you go up and lie down for a little while before you start your homework?”
Relief seemed to fill Jordan’s face at having been released. She nodded like a grateful mouse before she darted upstairs and quietly closed her bedroom door. Erica did a slow, deliberate stroll around her kitchen, lost in thought over what to do, how to proceed. Could Jay shake the truth out of the girl? Or would she just lie and lie and lie some more?
She jumped when the oven timer beeped, indicating it was time to take the casserole out of the oven. As Erica slid the glass dish from the rack, steam rising from the center, the cheesy top bubbling and crisp all at once, two thoughts ping-ponged relentlessly across her brain.
Find out the truth.
Protect Jordan.
39
LAUREN
Lauren stared at the ceiling in her living room, the soft hum of a daytime talk show droning on in the background. The topic something that caused the audience to erupt into wild applause every few minutes.
She burrowed deeper into the cushions of the slate gray couch, vaguely aware she’d been cocooned inside of her bathrobe the past few days, that she needed to use the bathroom, maybe drink a glass of water, as her mouth was gummy, her lips dry.
Except she was afraid.
She’d been afraid since Saturday night when the doorbell rang and for a split second, she thought it was Whitney, her anger at the girl for being MIA all day temporarily muted by the relief that her daughter was home, but must have forgotten her key. Instead, two police officers were on the other side of her door, their lips asking if they were Steve and Lauren Dean and did they have a daughter named Whitney. Saying they were sorry to inform them Whitney had suffered multiple stab wounds and had died from her injuries. That they were sorry for their loss.
That her daughter was dead.
Dead.
Lauren had actually laughed when they said it. Because it had to be a joke. Told them they were kidding. It was asinine, Whitney dead. Whitney wasn’t dead. She was sixteen years old. She couldn’t be dead. Lauren and Steve were supposed to die first. Whitney had her whole life ahead of her. There were colleges to choose, a fiancé to meet, a wedding to plan, grandchildren to spoil.
Those were the hopes and dreams a mother had for her teenaged daughter.
It wasn’t until they went to the hospital and some official-looking person peeled back the gray-ish white sheet draped over a body on a metal slab to reveal the closed eyes, the still, quiet, pale face, that Lauren realized those police hadn’t been joking, they hadn’t been kidding.
Whitney was gone.
The realization sent her plummeting to the cold concrete beneath her, as the comprehension smashed against her that there would be no colleges to choose, no fiancé to meet, no wedding to plan, no grandchildren to spoil.
Lauren didn’t have any other memories after that. There were blurry, fragmented images of Steve trying to console her, of Parker crying uncontrollably, the woman who’d brought Whitney to the hospital attempting to offer teary condolences. The flimsy gauze of her brain held faint, faraway recollections of faint, faraway phone calls and texts from friends and family. She vaguely remembered agreeing to a private family-only burial followed by a public memorial service at a later date.
Mostly, though, everything past Saturday night and her dead daughter was a blank. A giant white spot.
The doorbell rang and Lauren blinked as she looked in the direction of the door, trying to fix the image in her head. Steve had taken Parker out for breakfast and would be back soon. At least that’s what she thought he said. The past few days, it felt as though all her conversations took place underwater. Distorted blobs emitting sound with no real meaning.
The bell sounded again as Lauren continued staring at the door. She winced as she pushed herself upright and sat for a few seconds, as though she’d forgotten what she was doing. The bell sounded a third time. Lauren took a deep breath and launched herself off the couch and shuffled to the door, slowly turning the knob to open it.
Two women she didn’t know. Cops. At least, that’s what she thought cops looked like according to TV. One short. One tall. Both with ill-fitting pants, bulky belts housing guns, walkie talkies and who knew what other equipment. Bad hair, no makeup. Plain.
“Mrs. Dean?” the tall one asked.
Lauren continued staring at the women and their inquisitive faces, pinched with concern and authority all at once. She tilted her head to the side, not entirely sure what to say.
“Mrs. Dean, I’m Detective Prentiss and this is my partner, Detective Diehl. We have a few questions we’d like to ask you. May we come in?”
Silently, Lauren moved to the side to allow them in. She didn’t offer them anything to drink, no have a seat, please, pleasantries. Instead, she trudged behind them, her feet feeling as though they were trapped in sludge as she sank back down on the sofa like a pebble tossed into the ocean, exhausted by the whole effort.
“We spoke with your husband at length the other day, but we did want to ask you some questions,” the short one—Detective Diehl—said as they lowered themselves down onto the sectional.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?” the tall one—Detective Prentiss—asked as she retrieved a tiny spiral bound notebook and a pen from her jacket pocket, shooting an inquisitive look Lauren’s way.
“Saturday morning, around eight,” Lauren said, her voice suddenly foreign to her. Gravelly. Deep.
“Here at the house?”
Lauren cleared her throat, the phlegm caught in her larynx, necessitating a few hacking coughs to liberate it. She patted her chest. “Yes. I had showings all day and I asked her to take her brother to his sleepover that evening.”
“Did you talk to her at all during the day? Exchange text messages?”
Lauren shook her head, the tears welling in her eyes at the memory of not speaking to Whitney the whole day, now knowing—
“Mrs. Dean?”
She focused in on their faces again. Still etched with concern and authority. “No,” she said. “We didn’t talk or text at all that day.”
“Your husband said you had to come home to pick up your son for his sleepover because you were unable to reach Whitney, is that right?”
“Yeah, uh, Parker, my son, he called and said he’d been calling and texting her, but she wasn’t picking up, but that her car was here.”
“Was that unusual? For her car to be here, but not her?”
“She, uh … the car was a Sweet Sixteen present. She’d only had it a week.” Lauren sighed, fatigue pulling at her, her brain not wanting to think about this. Any of this. “I assumed that because it was raining so hard that day, that she might have been nervous to drive and had one of her girlfriends pick her up instead.”
“I see. What time did you and your husband arrive home?”
Lauren rubbed her forehead, weary. “I don’t know. Maybe around ten-thirty.”
Prentiss nodded as she scribbled this down. “Okay. And how did she seem to you on Saturday morning?”
“Fine. Normal.”
Both detectives nodded before glancing at each other. Diehl put her notebook down and fixed a stare on Lauren.
“Mrs. Dean, can you think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt Whitney?”
A pea-sized lump in her throat swelled to a grapefruit as tears stung her eyes. “No,” she croaked. “My daughter, she was the most popular girl in school.”
“What about Jordan Mitchell?”
Her head snapped up. “What about her?”
“The fight at your daughter’s birthday party?”
“It was nothing, just stupid teenage girl stuff.”
“Didn’t look like nothing in the videos,” Prentiss pressed. “Any idea what prompted it?”
Lauren dropped her face into her palms. That stupid fucking video. Steve had gotten it taken down, but the damage was done. The memory of her daughter’s Sweet Sixteen would only ever be about a thirty-second brawl.
She sighed as she lifted her eyes to meet their gaze. “Whitney didn’t want to invite Jordan, but I went ahead and invited her and … what does any of this have to do with finding the person who murdered my daughter?”
“We’re just trying to cover all our bases,” Diehl said.
Lauren rubbed her temples. “Just teenage girls being overdramatic. Nothing to kill anyone over.”
“What about boyfriends?”
“Um … no, not recently. There were a few boys she dated last year, but nothing major.”
“Their names?” Prentiss asked, her pen poised over her notebook.
Lauren’s lips flapped. “Dougie Knowles was one. I can’t remember the others.”
Prentiss nodded as she scribbled in her notebook. “Mrs. Dean, we weren’t able to find Whitney’s phone on her. Could that be why you didn’t hear from her at all on Saturday?”
“She never goes—” Lauren stopped herself, closing her eyes briefly. “My daughter never went anywhere without that phone.”
“Okay.” Diehl scrawled a note in her notebook. “Who would be able to tell us about any boyfriends your daughter may have had?”
Lauren rubbed her temples. This was too much. Just too fucking much. “Peyton, probably. Peyton Knowles. And Carly Ewing.”
Another scribble in the notebook before both women stood. “Okay,” Prentiss said. “That’s all for now. We’ll let you know if we have additional questions.”
“Do you think … maybe the person who did this might have it?” Lauren ventured. “The phone, I mean. Can you trace it, find out where it is?”
“We already tried that and didn’t get a signal,” Diehl said.
Lauren’s face fell at the dashed hope. “Oh.”
“We’re pursuing all leads right now, Mrs. Dean,” Prentiss said. “Like I said, we’ll be in touch.”
They all stood and ambled over to the front door. She watched them get in their car as a black Range Rover pulled up. A woman got out. A woman holding something shiny and square in her hands. Walking over to her right now, an uncertain smile on her face.
“Lauren.”
Lauren blinked as she stared at the exceedingly thin woman, mentally rearranging her features until they fell neatly into place to reveal Erica standing in front of her, the glint of foil shining in her hands. A casserole, no doubt. She had a vague recollection of casseroles streaming through her front door, accompanied by the mushy, insufferable platitudes of well-meaning friends and neighbors. If potatoes, peas, and carrots smothered in cheese sauce and topped with buttery brown breadcrumbs didn’t ease your pain, nothing would.
“Erica,” Lauren said firmly, proud she was able to croak out the woman’s name.
“I hope this is an okay time.” Erica glanced over her shoulder. “I saw you just had some visitors.”
“It was the police.”
“Oh. Dear. You must be drained.”
“Yes. I’m very tired.” Lauren’s eyes fluttered to the black Range Rover in the driveway. “Is that your car?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I bought it a few days ago.”
Lauren continued staring at the hulking, gleaming behemoth. “We bought Whitney a Range Rover. It’s blue.”
“Of course. For her birthday.”
She glanced down at the dish in Erica’s hands. For some reason, the sight of the casserole plucked a string of malevolence in Lauren. She didn’t want well-wishes, casseroles, people awkwardly standing on her front walk, their gums flapping with useless words and fake tears. What she wanted was her daughter. What she wanted was to have not been sitting at Erica’s table laughing at Jay’s jokes, guzzling wine, or slurping down tenderloin. She should have been out looking for Whitney. Her attention should have been on her daughter. She should have paid attention to the guttural, distressing instinct that something was wrong.
She should have, she should have, she should have.
“I wanted to bring this by for you.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“No.” Lauren said, her voice far away. “You can’t.”
