Page 58 of The Whisper Place
Mom shot me a look.
“—that someone—” I amended quickly, “took care of his dad for him. He’s probably been considering patricide for years.”
We argued the rest of the drive home. Nothing I said changed her mind. She was convinced Ted’s body would be found and the absence of his still-on-paper wife would lead authorities straight to her. Ted might have even left evidence of his recent stalking, which would make her even more of a suspect. She had to keep living herlife as though nothing happened. When I suggested going back to the house to get rid of anything that might point to us, she refused. When I suggested burying him better, she flatly rejected the idea.
“We can’t go anywhere near there again.”
She was right. I knew she was right, but the urge to go back and do better was overwhelming. If only we’d planned a murder contingency, this could’ve all been different.
The problem, we both knew, was that if the authorities started to look into Mom as a suspect, what they would find was me. My car at his house. My phone pinging the nearest cell tower practically the whole night. My literal video recording of killing my stepfather.
“We escaped that prison, Kate, and I’m not letting you spend one more minute of your life locked away because of him.”
She wore me down over the next few days, until I started believing what she said. It made sense for me to leave town. There was already a record of me being a runaway on file with the local police. On paper, I had a history of disappearing. If they came to question her, she could tell them we’d had a fight and I’d left on bad terms. She hadn’t heard from me since. It would hold up, as long as they didn’t dig deeper.
The next Friday, she was gone for most of the day and when she came back, she had twelve thousand dollars in cash.
“Where did you get that?” I’d saved less than a thousand since I graduated college. Most of my paycheck went to our rent, gas, groceries, and restaurant takeout.
“It’s for you.” The bills were bound with rubber bands, not the paper wrapping they used at the bank, and the whole pile was stuffed in a plastic grocery bag. She handed it to me, then she gave me the dough cutter.
“Mom, no.”
“I don’t need it.” Her eyes were suddenly bright. She tucked the dough cutter in my other hand and bracketed my shoulders, holding me in place. “You take it and then wherever you go, I’ll be there, too.”
“Mom—” Tears welled in my eyes and spilled, making her blurry.
“I couldn’t have gotten it back without you. It’ll make me happy, knowing you’re out there using it. Do you know how many times I’ve looked at you and marveled at all the things you’re capable of, everything you could do if only you let yourself?
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore. You don’t have to hold yourself back. I want you to fly, Kate. I want you to see the world and fall in love and get your heart broken and know you have it inside you to get up and try again. To do anything you set your mind to.
“You’re the best daughter I could have imagined.” She hugged me to her chest, hard, and I felt shudders running through her. I couldn’t absorb what was happening. We’d been talking about it for days and still I was blindsided, numb.
“I’ll love you, forever, Kate.” She whispered in my ear before backing away, eyes running over every inch of me as if memorizing this moment. “You have to leave. Now.”
Max
“What do you mean we can’t leave?”
Shelley dragged me through a room that looked like a warehouse separated into individual metal cages. Giant wooden dartboards hung in the back of every one. We passed a mid-twenties couple, giggling and drinking beer. A table full of axes stood behind them.
Shelley told me to trust her for this date night. She wouldn’t tell me where we were going, which usually meant a movie or a restaurant she knew I didn’t like. When we pulled into the parking lot for Hatchet Jack’s, I was thrown. She smiled like she’d just watched me open the perfect Christmas present.
“I don’t feel like axe throwing.” She wasn’t paying any attention to me as we followed the uniformed guy to our reserved cage. “I don’t throw axes.”
When we got to our spot, though, I understood why she was so giddy. Jonah and Eve stood inside the cage, the two of them mirroring our expressions perfectly.
“Surprise!” Shelley pulled my arm into her side, practically bouncing. “It’s a double date.”
After ordering beers and listening to the “axpert” instruct us on how to play darts with axes, Jonah came over and muttered under his breath. “Did you know?”
I shook my head and took a long pull of beer, willing the alcohol into my bloodstream faster. “At least it’s not bowling.”
Shelley and Eve took turns first, both of them aggressively competitive and not bothering to hide it. Neither landed an axe and demanded second tries. Jonah and I stood at the back of the cage.
“I’ve been thinking about Valerie.”
“Me too.”
