Page 28 of The Fix
“I know,” his mom said. “But still, you never know. There might be something good buried under all that mess.” She paused for a moment and then gave him a cheeky smile filled with her unique charm, the small part of her that nothing and no one had managed to dampen, despite her own best efforts. “Same with me, right, kiddo?” She winked as she took another hit of her vape.
“So, when do you want to scatter his ashes?” he asked.
“Whenever. We could do it over the lake.”
“I think there are laws against that.”
“Perfect. That prick never met a law he minded breaking.”
“Fair point.”
She stood up and poured herself a cup of coffee, added some milk from the fridge, and sat back down as she stirred it. “We could release some butterflies,” she said after she’d taken a sip. “There’s a butterflyfarm across town near Bristol Lake called Flutterfly something.” She gave him an assessing look and paused before saying, “That girl runs it.”
His heart gave a little dip. And there was the information he’d forced himself not to look up. Cami ran a butterfly farm that did butterfly releases, among who knew what else. Was that actually a bona fide business? “What girl?” he asked, just because it felt good to pretend.
She continued to look at him.
He massaged his jaw, deciding not to bullshit a bullshitter. “I’m surprised she still lives here. Or that she moved back.”
“She never moved, far as I know. I drove past her a few times over the years. There’ve been follow-up TV shows and articles about their family. Never an interview from her, from what I can tell but ... folks are interested, you know? They want to know that things turned out okay.”
He nodded. Maybe he wasn’t so surprised that she’d never left town. The last time he’d seen her, she was about to give birth. She had to have had it hard in the aftermath. He felt a moment of guilt about the way he’d dismissed her the day before. Then again, he hadn’t been mean. He’d just been decisive. He and Cami had no reason to fake cordiality. And frankly, he’d been miffed about the way she’d stifled laughter when she’d looked at him standing on the rickety porch and even more annoyed by her mention ofbygones. It felt both impossible and far too easy.
And yet ... he hated that his body reacted to the sight of her yesterday and the mere mention of her now. Hated the way his heart sped and his hands felt itchy. Hated the way she made him feel all these years later, even with so much water under the bridge.
So many years ago, before everything fell to pieces, Cami had inspired him to make some self-improvements. The military had taken him the rest of the way, and he’d found that he was right about muscles and confidence opening up a man’s social opportunities. He’d been with more than a few women over the years, even if they’d been mostlycasual, but he didn’t think even one of them had left him feeling half as elated as he’d felt that summer day after a short conversation with Cami.
He’d never, ever disclose that to a soul. He barely liked admitting it to himself.
“So no on the butterflies then?” his mom asked. And he knew she was probing, but he really didn’t have anything to say about all that. It had happened. He’d left it behind. Now he was back, and he supposed he should expect to be confronted by it in some small measure anyway. But ... other than that, there was nothing to say. He hadn’t thought about Cami Cortlandt in a long time. Butterflies, though? She ran a butterfly farm? He’d never have imagined that. He looked back over to his mom. He was about to say that his grandpops probably hadn’t cared for butterflies anyway, but with all those flowers, he must have tolerated them at least. “I think we can do without a butterfly release. He’d shit a brick over something so romantic.”
She made an agreeable sound in the back of her throat before taking a sip of coffee. “Butterflies it is. Order up a flock.”
He smiled. He didn’t thinkflockwas the right word, but his knowledge on butterflies was slim. She was joking anyway, but even if she wasn’t, he would have ordered butterflies from Amazon before he drove over to any business Cami Cortlandt ran.
They had an understanding now, but even so, he would avoid her at all costs while he was here.
It wouldn’t be hard. Just like then, they lived on opposite sides of town, and there was no reason their paths needed to cross.
Chapter Eighteen
Cami unlocked her door and went inside, her cat, Boots, greeting her by rubbing his body against her leg, his meow joining the beep of her alarm. “Hi, Bootsie. How are you, sweet boy? Hungry?”
Door firmly shut, she set her purse and keys on the console in her foyer and then typed in the alarm code before engaging both locks. Boots followed along beside her to the kitchen, and she poured him some food and refilled his water bowl.
A jiggle told her the kitchen window was secure before she lowered her shades. She leaned back against the counter, stretching her neck one way and then the other. It’d been a long day full of one snafu after another.
A wedding order and a birthday order, both for butterfly releases but of different types and quantities, had been mixed up, and so she’d jumped in her car and sped to both events and swapped them out with a few minutes to spare. Then the credit card machine in the gift shop had gone on the fritz, and the air conditioner had started leaking in earnest.
And though she didn’t relish spending a day in fix-it mode, she did appreciate that therewerefixes for everything that had gone wrong.
Especially after yesterday. She cringed for the hundredth time as she thought about Rex Lowe standing on that porch looking down on her coolly. And who could blame him, really? Like he’d said, his life had been ruined in the fallout of her mother’s and her sister’s murders because she hadn’t defended him. If anything, she’d confirmed thepossibility that he’d been there. She’d been so confused. So lost, her mind pounding with horror and disbelief. Up had looked down and down had looked up. She might have believed anything, even that the quiet boy with kindness in his eyes had been present during the most traumatic event of her life.
But then two months later, DNA evidence on the man she’d only heard called “AJ” had come back. It hadn’t been found in any law enforcement database, unfortunately, but neither did it belong to the boy who’d been looked at with suspicion by not only the community but also the nation. People at their school had talked to reporters about Rex’s “obsession” with her. Hollis did an interview and said he’d seen Rex at the hospital directly afterward, looking sketchy and out of breath. A gas station attendant had come forward and said Rex had suspiciously told him he was out for a run, when the man had never seen Rex jogging in the area before.
Even so, there was no real evidence against him, except perhaps of the weak, circumstantial variety. And the more time had elapsed, the more certain Cami had become that it wasn’t Rex. She’d have recognized his voice. She’d have known.
But by the time the police decided not to press any charges, it’d been too late for Rex Lowe. The damage had been done. She’d heard through the grapevine that the scholarships he’d earned had gone to someone else. The opportunities had passed. Whether anyone ever reached out to him to give him another chance, Cami had no idea.
