Not Quite Dead Yet, page 33
“There’s a fifty percent chance you should have had polycystic kidney disease too,” Jet said, working it out as she said it. “But not if Dad isn’t your dad. He’s not, is he?”
“No,” Luke croaked, looking over his shoulder at the burned bones of Mason Construction.
“And you know who it is? Did Emily tell you who?”
Luke didn’t look back, eyes lost over there.
“No, she didn’t. Didn’t have a chance. I only know because he told me.”
“When?”
“Wednesday. Before I saw you, before I got home from work that day. Before…the fire.”
“Who is it?” Jet asked, stepping closer, Luke’s voice too quiet, now he was looking the other way. “Luke?”
“I thought he was just nice,” he sniffed. “Looked out for me, gave me advice about the company. About anything really. Spoke to me in a way Dad never did. But when he told me, I think I already knew, deep down. I think I always really knew that Emily was telling the truth that day. That I wasn’t a Mason, that this wasn’t supposed to be mine.” He pointed, over there, at the ruins.
“Luke?”
“He told me I was his son. He thought I already knew, from that day, with Emily. He told me and he said he was trying to help me. Said that you were going to start looking into the company, and that if I had anything to hide, then I needed to hide it.” Luke looked behind him again. “Then I drove home, and you were there, told me that Dad was never going to leave me the company anyway, that he planned to sell it. I just…lost my temper.”
“Luke!” Jet snapped. “Who is it? Who’s your real dad?”
Luke shook his head, his eyes trailing off to the right. “I can’t tell you. It doesn’t matter.”
Jet raised the gun. “Yes, you can—and it does matter!”
“You’re not going to shoot me, Jet.” He stood up to prove the point.
The gun shook in Jet’s hand, too weak to hold it up this long, finger vibrating against the trigger.
“I can’t tell you,” Luke said. “Not like this, here. The rest of us have to keep on living when you’re gone. Don’t look at me like that, Jet. I don’t want you to be gone, you’re my sister. I’ll miss you every day. I don’t know how we’ll be a family without you. No one to make fun of my hair. I always loved arguing with you. I’ll make sure JJ never gets out, for doing this to you. You won’t shoot me, Jet.”
She could.
She stepped forward, pressed the gun right up against Luke’s chest, looked up into his eyes, so like her own.
She could.
She would never. Not even after everything Luke had done. Jet wasn’t like him.
She lowered the gun and Luke actually smiled.
“Fuck you,” she sniffed.
“I know,” Luke replied.
“You killed Emily.”
“Emily’s death was an accident.”
“How did you do that?” Jet said, eyes filling again. “You were just thirteen. You were strong, but you were fucking stupid. How did you know how to make it look like an accident, her hair in the drain? Going over to play with Billy, to give yourself an alibi? How did you know how to do that?”
“I didn’t.”
Jet swallowed. “You didn’t? Did somebody help you?”
Luke blinked.
“Was it him?” she said. “Your father?”
Luke ran his hand over his too-short hair, a hissing sound, the wind picking it up, dragging it away.
“He looked out for me.”
That was all he said.
Returned to the gate, to watch the burned-down building, the wind howling, screaming through the gaps in the rubble.
Jet turned her back on him, followed her headlight beam back to the truck, opening the passenger door, struggling with the gun.
She got it open, leaned in, put the gun back in the glove compartment. Slammed it, a growl in the back of her throat.
“Jet,” Billy said, climbing in the driver’s side. “Are you OK?”
She didn’t answer.
Her mind was somewhere else, trailing down Billy’s guitar case, to the little black square stuck on its neck.
Her eyes circled it, forming an idea.
She reached out, slid her fingernail underneath it, peeled it off.
“Jet, where are you going?”
Back to Luke.
Leaves scattering away from her.
Jet joined him at the gate, side by side. Brother and sister, silhouettes against the blackened ruins.
“I know you didn’t kill me, Luke,” she said. “But I think you might be the reason I’m dead.”
She reached over, touched his arm. Luke could be scary, but he wasn’t now, a muscle ticking in his jaw, silent tears. Jet let her hand fall away, moving it down, dropping the little square into Luke’s pocket.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t change.”
She walked away.
Into the truck.
Shut the door.
Another crack that split the night.
Billy released the parking brake.
“Where—” he began.
“—Home,” Jet finished.
Thirty-Two
“Has he moved yet?”
Jet looked over at Billy, too jittery to sit down, spider legs up her spine, more inside her head, multiplying. An itch behind her eye.
Billy was leaning on the counter, his phone clutched in his hand, staring at the screen.
“No,” he said. “Looks like he’s still at Mason Construction. Or he found the Tile tracker you put in his pocket and dropped it there.”
Jet shook her head. “No, he hasn’t found it. This is going to work. It’s going to work.” She hardened her voice, trying to hear it over her heart, and all those damn spiders. “Luke is going to lead us straight to him, I know it. He’s going to go to him. He has to, after what we just talked about. And we’re going to follow.”
“You’re sure Luke’s real dad is the person who killed you?” Billy didn’t look up.
“I think it’s the reason why he killed me.”
Jet swallowed. This felt right. It did. They were going to do this; they were actually going to solve her murder. Jet might not have been able to see straight, but she could see the way forward. This was it. Didn’t matter that the world was spliced in half, two layers, clashing and filmy, one world closer, the other a little farther back, two Billys, one within reach and one not. Jet rubbed her eye, her hand doubled too, existing in both worlds. She was used to it now, finding the line between.
“And you really don’t want to just go ask your mom?” Billy did look up now, four pale blue eyes. “She obviously knows who Luke’s real father is.”
Jet nodded. Shouldn’t do that, almost unbalanced her. “I don’t really want to be the one who ruins my dad’s life, right before I die. Mom should tell him about Luke, not me. But if we have to…We give Luke an hour to lead us to him, or we get it from Mom instead. Luke has an hour to lead us to him.”
“An hour,” Billy agreed, refreshing his screen. “Who do you think it is? Luke’s dad? And don’t say Darth Vader again, this is serious.”
“Same person as my killer,” Jet said, seriously.
“Who?”
“There’s two options.” She sniffed. “Has to be one of them.”
“Andrew Smith?” Billy glanced toward his front door. “If it’s him, then Luke would be coming here.”
“Andrew is one of them.” Jet also stared at the front door, two doors, the truth somewhere in the middle. “I asked JJ at the police station. He says he didn’t touch me at the Halloween Fair. And I don’t think he did. So it wasn’t me who transferred the red wig hair to the crime scene. Which means the killer had to have had contact with Andrew Smith or JJ at the fair. Andrew Smith obviously had contact with Andrew Smith; he was wearing the fucking wig. The construction site on North Street used to be Andrew’s house—he could have been watching the work, knew when the foundations were going in, knew to hide the hammer and my phone there. Or maybe he and Luke talked about it. Luke said he gave him advice, about the company.”
“Why, though? What could Andrew’s motive be?”
“For Luke,” Jet said, her words echoing in her chest, heart in her throat, stuck there. “Andrew knew that Dad was going to sell the company to Nell Jankowski, not leave it to Luke, because of me. If you take me out of the equation, then Luke gets the company. That’s his motive.”
Billy narrowed his eyes, not following. “But why would Andrew want Luke to have the company?”
“Because that’s his son. And Andrew has nothing. You don’t think he’d want access to all the money that Mason Construction can bring in? He’s lost everything. Luke could be his damn meal ticket—his drinking ticket.”
Billy chewed his lip. “I don’t know. He really seemed to hate Luke when we spoke to him.”
“Or that’s what he wanted us to think,” Jet countered. “Doesn’t have to like Luke to want to use him. If he knew about Emily, if he helped Luke get away with it back then, he could threaten to expose that, make Luke give him whatever he wanted when the company was his.”
“But he was so angry that he’d lost his house,” Billy said. “That he’d sold it to Luke.”
“Exactly.” Jet slapped one hand on the counter, really just holding herself up, the world tilting again, stomach lurching. “Why would he sell his house to Luke if he didn’t really want to, if Nina had begged him not to? He did it to help Luke, knew that project was Luke’s chance to prove himself. He did it for Luke. There’s something between them, has to be. Andrew hates my family, hates my mom; maybe that’s because the relationship ended, because she kept Luke from him, and he blames her for Nina’s death too. It’s all so messy, but Andrew is connected to all of it, every bit. That fucking house on North Street. It makes sense, why he’d want to kill me.”
Billy sighed, conceded, still chewing his lip. “Who’s the other option?”
Jet tapped her fingers on the counter, up and down, more spider legs, dragging the name up her throat. “Lou Jankowski.”
Billy straightened up. “Really?”
“Let’s look at the evidence,” Jet said, before she lost her way. “The red wig hair. The chief helped break up the fight when Andrew Smith attacked you at the fair. One of the wig hairs could have transferred to him then. Or maybe it wasn’t even Andrew Smith. We saw that photo that Owen Clay took of the little girl in the same wig. She was posing with the chief. The hair could have also come from her, two possibilities. And again, Luke said his real dad has been giving him advice about the company, so maybe that’s how Lou could have known about the foundations going in on North Street, where to hide the hammer. And it’s this thing, with my mom, that I can’t let go. Why would she vote Lou for chief of police when your dad has been our next-door neighbor forever? She had to have known Lou before. He didn’t live far, only in Hartland. And remember: Nell told me that Lou lived in Woodstock for six months, in his thirties. That’s when the affair could have started, when Luke was conceived. Luke could be his. Why else would my mom vote for a stranger? And, man, he does not like me, the chief. He really did not want to let me out of jail, to give me any more time to work this out.”
“But what’s his motive?”
Jet shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll ask him. Probably the same as Andrew’s. He wanted Luke to take over the company—probably pays much better than chief of police.”
Billy pressed his lips together and Jet’s stomach turned over, watching him, a warm buzz in her ears. The same Billy but, somehow, not at all.
“But Lou was going to get the company anyway. Your dad was planning to sell to his wife.”
Jet hadn’t thought about that, not much space left around the ache in her head and that feeling in her gut, the one with wings. “I don’t know,” she said. “First, we’ve got to work out who. Then we can ask him why, when Luke leads us to him.”
“And what do we do, once Luke has led us to him?”
He glanced at his front door again, and Jet missed his eyes. All four of them.
“I don’t know. We tie him up, make him tell us how and why. We have the gun, in the truck. We make him confess.”
Billy looked back at her, eyes hooked on. Hazel and blue, earth and water, fire hidden somewhere behind.
“And then do what?”
“I don’t know,” Jet said, and she really didn’t. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I wasn’t sure we’d get here. I don’t know what to do. He killed me. Do I have to kill him?” she asked.
Billy didn’t answer, couldn’t, the silence ticking on, ticking up. But Jet liked their silences, different with Billy than with anyone else. Not an absence of sound, its own thing. Didn’t want to break it. Had to.
“Has Luke moved?” She pointed to his phone.
Billy refreshed the app. “Not yet, still there.”
“We should get ready.” She sniffed. “Be ready, for when he does move.” She pushed off the counter, her feet clumsy beneath her, too heavy, the world pulling at her heels. “Where’s that duct tape we took for the security cameras?”
“Why?”
“In case we have to tie someone up.”
Jet winked, shot him a half-smile, like that was a normal thing to say, watched Billy fill in the other half, because he liked when she did that. When should Jet tell him? After they were done here, after they found her killer? Should she even tell him? Was it fair to tell him, so close to the end? What was best for Billy? He was the one who had to live after this.
“I put the tape back,” Billy said. “Closet. Next to the tool kit.”
“OK.”
Jet stumbled over to it, pulled one door open, then the other, Billy’s mom staring down at her.
“Do you have gloves too?” she asked, throwing the question over her shoulder.
“Not even going to ask why,” Billy said, abandoning his phone on the counter. “Think I have some in the bedroom. I’ll get them.”
“Thanks.”
He wandered out of the living room, and Jet watched him go, smiled to herself, just for herself, not to share.
She turned back to the closet, reached for the shelf. Patted around. Couldn’t feel the duct tape. Where was it? Maybe Billy had put it back inside the tool kit.
Jet wrapped her fingers around the fabric handle, shunted the tool kit toward her, off the shelf. Took its weight in one arm, too heavy, crashing against her chest to keep ahold of it. She bent down and dropped it to the floor with a thump.
Fuck, that was heavy, should have asked for help.
“Jet?” Billy called from the bedroom.
“I’m OK.”
She got to her knees beside it and pulled the zipper, undoing the black fabric case.
No duct tape on top.
Jet dug her hand through, moving tools aside, searching for the tape.
It must have been in here.
Jet peered inside, pulled something out that was blocking her search. A set of pliers, handle wide, mouth open.
Black rubber handle with a yellow logo at the bottom.
Wait.
No.
Jet turned the pliers to read the brand name, her heart dropping all the way to her gut, taking the wings with it.
Coleby.
Written in a little yellow circle with pointed ends, against the black.
No, no, no.
Her heart was already there but Jet couldn’t follow.
She pulled out more of the tools.
A screwdriver.
A wrench.
Black rubber grips and a little yellow logo.
Coleby.
Coleby.
They were all Coleby.
A measuring tape.
A little knife.
Fuck.
Where was it?
It had to be here.
If the hammer was here, then everything was OK, just a coincidence. Just a strange little coincidence that they would laugh about.
Jet had to find it.
Had to, no choice.
A file.
Another screwdriver.
More pliers.
Where was the hammer? It had to be here.
Jet’s hand retreated from the dark folds inside the tool kit. Grabbed its handle instead, flipped it, turned the whole thing over.
The tools clattered onto the floor, Jet shaking the bag until they were all out.
She sank back on her knees, sorting through the chaos of metal and rubber with her one hand, moving the saw, under the screwdriver heads, searching, searching.
It wasn’t here.
“No, no, no.”
There was no hammer.
“Jet, what are you doing?” Billy said, framed in the doorway.
Jet turned, fell back, the knuckles of her dead arm dragging on the floor as she backed up against the closet.
“It’s yours,” she said, voice almost gone, joining her heart in the pit of her stomach. “The murder weapon. It’s yours, Billy.”
She kicked out at the empty tool kit, so he could see the yellow logo stitched on the side.
Billy narrowed his eyes, shook his head.
“Coleby,” Jet said, bile rising with the word. “A sixty-piece set. But the hammer isn’t here. The murder weapon. It’s yours, Billy.”
She couldn’t breathe, no air here, stuck between these two worlds, two Billys moving toward her.
“It was you.”
“What?”
He took another step.
“Don’t come any closer!” Jet shouted, pushed herself to her feet, stumbled, tripping over the abandoned tools. “Stay back!”
Billy didn’t stay back, he kept coming.
