Not Quite Dead Yet, page 18
“But she told you she’d left her phone at your house between 2:21 p.m. and now.” Billy paused as Sophia closed the front door behind her. “3:24.”
“Yeah, so she lied.” Jet turned to him. “I told you it was weird. On the day I’m murdered, she lies about not having her phone, about the reason she came back to the house. And then there’s that Call me text at 10:52, when she and Luke were supposed to be together at the house, watching TV.”
“What do you think that means?” Billy paused the video.
“I don’t know.” Jet chewed her thumb. Felt strange doing it on this side. “Maybe it was a Call me because I just bashed your sister’s head in six minutes ago.” She pitched her voice higher, like Sophia’s. “And I’ve got her iPhone and I’m about to turn it off and dump it in the foundations on that North Street project because I know you’re doing the concrete tomorrow morning, could you come and give me a hand? Oh, and how’s the baby doing?”
Billy tried not to smile at her impression. Was spot on, though; how had Jet not discovered this before?
“You really think Sophia could have killed you?”
“Maybe she doesn’t like me much either.” Sinking back to her normal voice, deep and ragged. “But there’s clearly something going on. Something secret she was doing in the house on Halloween, that she doesn’t want me or the police to know about.”
“Connected to your attack?” Billy chewed his lip.
“Maybe.”
“Oh,” he said suddenly, eyes widening. Jet watched them in the darkened laptop screen. “Maybe she did forget something, but it wasn’t her phone. It was something she was supposed to do, to get ready.”
“Like what?” Jet held the reflection of his eyes. “Hide the hammer?”
“No, I was thinking about the door. Wasn’t the back door unlocked? That’s how the police think the killer got inside. What if someone made sure it was unlocked earlier in the day?” He stroked his fingers on the trackpad, awakening the laptop, pressing play. Sophia came back to life again, leaving the Masons’ house without a glance at the camera, head down, eyes locked ahead, Cameron sucking on his pacifier.
“For herself?” Jet said, playing the scenario through in her head, reversing Sophia’s steps, rewinding her into the kitchen, then the laundry room, flipping the latch to unlock the back door.
“Or someone else?” Billy suggested with a shrug.
Jet wrinkled her nose. “Like a hit man? Do we even have hit men in Woodstock? Hit women. Hit people.”
“I don’t think hit men use hammers,” Billy said, backing down from the idea. “OK, let’s think this through. I know it’s the same day you were attacked, but could this just be a coincidence? I mean”—he gestured to the screen again—“has she ever done something like this before? Bake cookies, drop them off when you and your parents are out?”
Jet leaned forward, dropped her chin into her left hand, finger to her temple, thinking back. Did thinking make her head hurt more? Did remembering? That constant ache, simmering away, like a little fire. But it wasn’t fire; it was blood, a slow leak.
“Yeah,” Jet sniffed. “Maybe she has.” Definitely not the first time Sophia had baked; it had happened enough times to start to piss Jet off. But when? “I think she made a cake for Mom’s birthday. Yeah, she did. And she dropped it off during the day too. Said she didn’t want to bring it to the restaurant we were meeting at later. And it was a fucking carrot cake. Vegetables in cakes.”
“When?” Billy asked, finger on the trackpad, clicking back to the Ring dashboard.
“August thirtieth, Mom’s birthday. Me and Mom and Dad were out during the day, visiting my aunt Laura. Came back to find the cake. Isn’t Sophia so thoughtful?” Jet said, an impression of Mom now.
“Does it save data from that far back?” Billy checked the screen.
“Yeah, goes back one hundred and eighty days. Let me.” Jet shoved Billy out of the way with her elbow, her left hand to the trackpad, finding the correct date on the dashboard. “Here. This must be Sophia.”
She clicked on the video for Motion Detected at 12:07 p.m. that day.
Blue Range Rover pulling up on the driveway, parking.
The car door opened and Sophia stepped out, headed toward the backseat. She pulled out a different baby. Cameron from two months ago, a quarter of his life stripped back, you could tell: the size of him, less hair, pinker-faced, Sophia not struggling so much as she balanced him in one arm and a frosted cake in the other. In a plastic-topped container.
She put the container down on the front step as she pulled a set of keys out of the pocket of her denim shorts. Opened the door, eyes meeting the camera for just a second, alighting on Billy and Jet two months in the future. She took the cake inside and shut the door.
Jet skipped to the next Motion Detected, four minutes later: Sophia leaving, without the cake.
“OK,” Billy said. “And does she—”
“—I think she does come back,” Jet cut him off, clicking on the next video. “We didn’t get back till like four that day, and this is 1:33 p.m. Yeah, look, it’s her.”
The blue Range Rover pulled up again. The same routine, minus the cake. Sophia in and out with Cameron, only inside for three minutes.
Billy leaned even closer to the screen. “What the hell is she doing?”
“Tell you what she’s not doing,” Jet answered. “She’s not forgetting her phone. Here.” Jet reached for her notebook and the pen resting on top, passed them to Billy. “Can you write the dates and times down? I—I can’t anymore. Yeah, there’s good. No, neater than that, Billy. You write like a four-year-old.”
“Any other time you can think of?” He turned to her, pressed the pen to the corner of his mouth. “Any other baked goods that turned up when you were all out?”
“Yeah, actually,” Jet said, finger on the trackpad, finding the date just as she said it. “Fourth of July. My parents had a cookout in the yard that evening. I remember Sophia dropped off some cookies, little American flags. Would have been when we were out at the store, buying Woodstock out of burgers. Which was weird, because Luke and Sophia were coming to the cookout, so I remember thinking: why didn’t she just bring them then?”
Jet clicked play, Motion Detected at 10:47 a.m. that day. “Oh, OK, this is us leaving,” Jet said, watching her parents walk out the front door, Mom cupping her eyes against the morning summer sun, buds and flowers where there were none now.
“Jet, hurry up!” Mom called back into the house. “We have a lot to do today.”
“We have plenty of time,” Summer Jet said, rushing out of the house, wearing the same Birkenstock clogs, not caked in mud. Both arms moving, hands in her hair, tying it into a stubby ponytail, so alive, so unaware that in four months’ time she wouldn’t be.
“Is JJ coming tonight?” Dad asked her. “We should get another pack of burgers, Dianne.”
That Jet scratched her head. “I think he’s busy. Maybe next time.”
This Jet skipped ahead to the next time the camera detected motion.
“This is literally two minutes after we drove away from the house,” Jet said, watching as Sophia’s blue Range Rover peeled into the drive once more.
“Weird,” Billy muttered. “Almost like she was close by, waiting for you guys to leave.”
“Almost,” Jet agreed.
Sophia got out of the car, wearing a denim jacket and a pale blue summer dress. She went to the back, pulled out a different baby again—even smaller, pinker, balder. Leaned farther in and emerged with a plate of red, white, and blue cookies, Saran-wrapped.
Cameron was fussing by the time she reached the door, grumbling through his pacifier.
“I know,” Sophia cooed at him. “We’ll just be a few minutes, I promise.”
She opened the front door, took the baby and the cookies inside with her.
Jet started the next video, four minutes later.
The front door opened and Sophia walked out, both hands around the baby, the cookies gone, left inside.
Sophia checked her footing on the front step just as Cameron spat out his pacifier, bouncing off the ground.
He started to cry, now his mouth was unplugged.
“Oh no,” Sophia said. “Mommy will get it, don’t worry.”
She bent forward, reaching for the green-and-white pacifier on the front path, and as she did, something fell out of her jacket pocket. Rattled loudly as it hit the ground.
“Whoopsie.” Sophia’s voice squeaked as she scrabbled for the white object rolling away from her, quickly stuffing it back in her pocket, a bulge in the denim. Then she grabbed the pacifier and walked to the car, Cameron’s screams building.
“Wait.” Jet rewound the video, dragging it back to the moment the white object hit the ground, too fast, too blurry. Jet paused, swiped her fingers on the trackpad to zoom in.
“What is that?” Billy asked, craning forward too. “A pill bottle?”
“Yes.” Jet zoomed even closer. The object too tiny, too pixelated, but she recognized that band of pale blue across the bottom, the illegible blurred black writing and orange numbers near the top. “Lotrel,” she said, her heart picking up, echoing the word back. “Five ten. Amlodipine besylate. One hundred capsules.”
“How the hell can you read that?” Billy looked at her, impressed.
“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t need to, I know it. Those are mine.”
“What?” The look in his eyes changed, a tiny storm in the blue again.
“Those are my pills,” Jet said, more sure now. “Lotrel. I recognize the bottle. It’s for high blood pressure. I have to take one every day for my kidneys. Those are mine.” She zoomed out again. “Why is Sophia stealing my pills?”
Billy blinked, but it didn’t shake the storm. “Were they ever missing?”
“No,” Jet said. “I would have noticed. I take one every morning. They’re in the cabinet in my bathroom. Take it after I brush my teeth.”
Billy returned to the screen. “Did she come back this time too?”
Another Motion Detected at 11:51 a.m. that day. Billy pressed play before Jet could.
Blue Range Rover.
Open door.
Sophia.
Blue dress and denim jacket.
Baby Cameron on her hip, a clean red pacifier in his mouth now.
Nothing in Sophia’s hands this time. But there was something in her pocket, the same-shaped lump the pill bottle had made just over an hour before.
Jet pointed.
“She has the pills in her pocket still.”
“Is she bringing them back?” Billy asked the screen as the front door closed behind Sophia. He clicked on the next video, recorded three minutes later.
Sophia time-jumped, walked back out of the house with Cameron, turned to shut the door behind her. The pocket of her denim jacket was flattened, the lump gone, which meant—
“—The pills are gone,” Billy said.
“She must have put them back.”
They turned to each other, eyes hooking on.
“Is that what she was doing all of these times? Mom’s birthday? Halloween. Coming in to take my pills and then bring them back?”
Billy swallowed. “You think she’s doing something to them?”
Jet reached forward, slammed the laptop shut, the sound echoing in her chest. Because what the fuck else could Sophia have been doing?
“Only one way to know for sure. Come on. I left the pills at home. Mom and Dad are at the North Street site—we need to go now, while they’re out. Can you…can you help me with my jacket?”
Nineteen
Jet waved to the doorbell camera, waved to her laptop back at Billy’s apartment, waved to whoever might watch this footage after the end of this week, waved beyond the grave and even farther than that.
She slotted her keys in and pushed open the front door. It still smelled too clean in here, a chemical bite to the air even after three days. Billy coughed behind her.
A skittering of claws on the polished wood and Reggie rounded the corner.
He yipped when he saw Jet, speaking to her, yelling. Something like: Where the fuck have you been, hi, hi, hi, I forgive you already.
He jumped up, scrabbled at her legs.
“Hello handsome Sir Reginald the Woof.” Jet dropped to her knees, left hand scratching behind Reggie’s ear. “Who’s a good boy, huh?”
His tail wagged his whole body, climbing up on her thighs to reach her face, nudging her lifeless arm with his nose.
“I can’t do the double scritches anymore, bud, I’m sorry.” Jet scratched even harder with one hand, Reggie leaning his head into it, eyes hooked on hers, almost the same shade of hazel. “You’ll have to ask Billy very nicely.” The dog squeaked. “But Billy is nice, so he’ll say yes.”
Reggie looked up at Billy, tail smacking Jet as he rested his head on her shoulder. She hugged the dog with one arm.
“It’s better this way,” she said quietly, resting her chin on the dog’s fur. “I thought I was going to have to watch you die someday, after I stole you from Mom and Dad, obviously. Now I’ll be the one checking out first. Sorry, bud. I would’ve missed you, and I know you’ll miss me.”
Billy bent over them, cupped both hands behind Reggie’s ears and scratched away, his knuckles grazing Jet’s neck.
Reggie closed his eyes and groaned.
“Yeah.” Jet smiled. “That’s the good stuff, huh? Told you Billy will look after you. He’s good at that, huh? Better than me?”
“Could never be better than you.” Billy smiled too, drew back.
“OK.” Jet’s knees cracked as she straightened up, Reggie circling between their legs. “Come on, Reg. We’re on a mission, to see if my sister-in-law has been poisoning me for months.”
She headed toward the stairs, Billy and Reggie following closely behind.
“You really think Sophia’s been trying to kill you?” Billy asked, still taller than her, even though Jet was two steps up.
“Well, someone tried to kill me.” Jet gestured to her messed-up head. “Maybe there was a first plan, to do it slowly. Then it got ex-exp-ex—fuck. You know that word, when something needs to happen sooner.”
“Sped up?” he guessed.
“No, smarter than that.”
“Accelerated?”
Jet pursed her lips, reached the landing. “No, but that will do. Then the plan got accelerated, swapped pills for a hammer.”
Jet paused outside her bedroom, the door shut. It was never normally shut.
“But why would Sophia want to kill you?”
Jet grabbed the handle. No, thought about grabbing the handle, with the arm that no longer worked, still dominant even though it was gone. Used her left hand instead, overriding instinct, scolding herself.
“I can think of a reason,” Jet said darkly, ushering the two boys into her bedroom. “Sophia cares about money, always has. When you’re fifteen, you tell each other everything; she grew up with parents who couldn’t afford much, always argued about money, and she said she would never live like that. She wanted to be like us, the Masons. I always thought that’s why she really went for Luke. But, hey, I’m no romantic.” She paused. “Maybe Sophia found out that Dad wasn’t going to leave the company to Luke, because it wasn’t fair on me. Well, if you get rid of me, you get rid of that problem.”
“That’s dark,” Billy said, looking around.
“I think motives for murder usually are pretty dark. But it is my first time.”
“Looks different in here.” Billy gestured toward the bed, and the walls. Plain walls with dark baseboards, light cotton sheets, and neutral-patterned cushions.
“Yeah.” Jet followed his eyes. “I guess you haven’t been in here in like—”
“—Fourteen years,” Billy finished.
“No more frog wallpaper.” Jet clicked her tongue. “And the green bed is gone.”
“Don’t tell me you got rid of Mr. Rabbitson, the Fifth Earl of Woodstock?”
“I’m not a monster,” Jet scoffed, heading for the bathroom. “He’s in the closet. One of his arms fell off, though. Ooh, foreshadowing.”
Jet pushed the bathroom door open with her shoe, flicked on the light.
“OK. They’re in here.”
She approached the mirrored cabinet above the sink, her reflection drawing closer, that strange dilated eye, like it was lost in terror, always ready in fight-or-flight. Billy watched her face too, not his own—she caught him.
Jet opened the cabinet and banished both of them, reaching for the white pill bottle on the bottom shelf, her left arm getting tired, doing all this extra work.
“Here we go.”
The pill bottle rattled as she carried it over to the toilet. She flipped the lid closed and sat on the floor, resting her elbows on top of the closed toilet.
Billy joined her, sitting on the opposite side, his knees grazing hers around the toilet bowl.
Reggie settled himself across the threshold, giving them some space, standing guard…lying guard. Facing the wrong way, actually.
Jet clenched the pill bottle in her fist, stared down at the childproof top. A push-down-and-twist kind of lid. She blew out her cheeks.
“Need me to open it?” Billy asked.
“Kind of feels anti-feminist if I let you do that.”
“No one’s watching.”
“Apart from Reggie.”
“He won’t tell,” Billy said, leaning forward, placing one hand over Jet’s on the bottle, the other on the lid, pressing down and twisting it off. “There, you did most of the work. I just finished it off.”
