Page 42 of A River of Crows

“Eddie?” Sloan asked. “Eddie Daughtry’s face?” She stood and met her mother's eyes. They had gone wide, with the white showing all around the iris. “How do you know Eddie Daughtry?”

“It's all over the news. Everybody knows who he is and what he did,” Caroline said.

“I don’t believe you.” Sloan fought to keep her voice steady. “I think you knew about Eddie Daughtry a long time ago.”

Caroline pounded her hands on the table. “I recognize him from the news!”

“Did he take Ridge?”

Sloan shrieked as Caroline grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled. “Don't talk about Ridge!” Caroline screamed. She released Sloan's hair, causing her to stumble forward. “And why are you reading this?” She picked up the police interview from the table.

Sloan smoothed her hair down. “Because the police missed something.”

“Your brother is fine.” Caroline lifted her foot and pulled out the broken glass. “I talk to him at the creek.”

“I understand,” Sloan lowered her voice, choosing words that might calm her mother. “And if he's alive, Dad didn't kill him. It means something else happened. Why don't you sit down, and we can talk about it?”

But Caroline didn’t sit; she stared down at the laptop. Miraculously, it was still on. The glass hadn’t shattered, but a big black shape like an inkblot covered half of the screen. All that remained visible was the face of Eddie Daughtry.

“Did you know crows never forget a face?” Caroline asked quietly.

Sloan shook her head. This was good. Nothing calmed her mother like crows.

“Captured crows remember the faces of their abductors forever.” Caroline’s eyes left the broken laptop. “A group has been studying this up in Seattle. They had two masks: caveman and Dick Cheney. They wore the caveman ones to trap the crows.” Caroline’s voice grew louder and her gestures more demonstrative as she continued. “The crows left the researchers alone when they were in the Cheney mask, but when the birds saw that caveman face, they howled, Sloan. They screeched, dive-bombed, and attacked. Months later, even.”

“Sounds like they have excellent memories,” Sloan said.

“It's not just their memory. Some crows that harassed the researchers in the dangerous masks were not even present during the initial trapping; some weren’t even born. Crows not only hold grudges; they tell others; they pass their grievances down to their offspring.”

Sloan wondered what her mother was trying to tell her. Just another random fact about crows or something deeper? She took a chance.

“Do you remember that face, Mom?” Sloan pointed down at the computer. “Is Eddie Daughtry your man in the caveman mask?”

“What are you talking about?”

“He took Ridge. He tried to take me. Didn't he?”

When Caroline’s hand met her cheek, it transported Sloan back to her teenage years. This was all familiar. The burning cheek, the burning rage inside of Sloan. Before she had time to react, her mom stomped over to the computer, raised her foot, and brought it down onto the screen, shattering it completely this time.

“That's enough!” Sloan grabbed her mother's arm, but she shook free.

Caroline moved around the kitchen, tearing up the police report, knocking dishes off the table, and breaking the flour canister into the sink.

“I'm calling the cops!” Sloan pulled out her cell phone. “They will readmit you to the hospital.”

But Caroline was undeterred. She pushed past Sloan into the living room, knocking pictures from walls and tossing throw pillows off the couch, her voice growing hoarse from screaming. Sloan expected her to run when she reached the front door, but she sat and banged her head against the frame. Harder and harder until drops of blood splattered on the white door.

Sloan’s hands shook as she began dialing Noah’s number. She stopped halfway through, remembering his warning. Don’t contact me this late again. She cleared the number and dialed 911 instead.

Sloan’s eyelids kept involuntarily closing, so she went to bed without cleaning up the mess. The hospital couldn’t keep her mom long; psychiatric holds were seventy hours max but rarely lasted longer than overnight. Sloan was as familiar with that procedure as she was with the burn of a just-slapped cheek.

As she swept the shards of glass and computer parts into the dustpan the next morning, she thought about her mother’s reaction to seeing the photo of Eddie Daughtry, about the darkness that had crossed her eyes as she stomped on the screen. There was something personal behind that darkness.

Sloan jumped at the sound of the doorbell. She caught her reflection in the microwave and hoped it wasn't Noah at the door.

She was surprised to see Dylan Lawrence on the porch. He seemed thrown by her rattled appearance but recovered with a smile. “Hey, Sloan. Sorry to just stop by, but I didn’t have your number and wanted to talk. Is this a bad time?”

Sloan glanced behind her. It was a terrible time, but with all her questions, she wasn’t about to let him leave. “Well, if you think I'm a mess, just wait till you see the living room.”

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