Page 90 of The Wicked

“I guess. I only ever heard them have one proper shouting match, and that was after Mike Colvin’s funeral. Don’t ask me what it was about—all I could hear was muffled yelling coming from the kitchen.”

“Your mom went to pay her respects to Colvin?”

“Of course. Both of my parents went, and Marcin’s parents too. We stayed at his place with a babysitter.”

His babysitter had been nicer than mine. His babysitter helped us to make cookies and didn’t hump her boyfriend on the couch.

“How did your mom seem after Colvin died? Sad? Scared? Angry?”

“None of those. I think…I think…relieved? There was a phone call one evening, as I was about to go upstairs to bed. Mom slumped into an armchair and stared at the wall for a full minute. Just stared. Then Dad came in and asked what the matter was, and she said, ‘It’s over.’ That’s all.It’s over.”

“What was over?”

“His life, I guess. Her job. She wanted to move back to Texas, but Dad’s paintings were in a bunch of galleries in Virginia, and he wanted to stay. That was one of the things they fought about in our final month together.”

“One of the things? What were the others?”

“The Baldwins, mainly. After the funeral, we had to fly to Oregon for Grandpa’s eightieth birthday celebration. Dad didn’t want to go, so Mom said fine, let’s not go then, but he said they were still family, and they bickered all the way to the airport. We made it through two days in Oregon before Dad had a fight with EJ and we flew home again.”

“He and EJ didn’t get along?”

“They hated each other.”

“Do you know why?”

“Probably because EJ’s an asshole. He acts all meek and nice, but he has a mean streak. He and Marianna were perfect for each other in that respect.”

“When you got home, what happened?”

“Well, obviously Mom was around more.” I remembered her putting on lipstick in front of the hall mirror before she went to job interviews, dressed in a suit and high-heeled pumps. “Dad said she’d find a new position in no time, that she had connections, but Mom was being picky. She didn’t want to make the same mistake again, she said.”

“What mistake?”

“I…I don’t know. Until now, I’d forgotten she even said that.”

But she had. The memory returned with perfect clarity. My parents had been talking in the kitchen over coffee, and Dad was worrying about the mortgage payment. And that’s when Mom made the comment. She didn’t want to rush into a new role and make the same mistake again. Better to wait until the right boss came along. Someone with…with integrity. I repeated what I’d recalled.

“And I’m not sure she was looking for another job on the Hill, not right then. I think…I think she mentioned working in a ski resort.”

Wouldn’t it be fun, kiddo? We could make snowmen every weekend in winter.

Blue sounded just a tiny bit triumphant. “Told you there was something hinky going on with Colvin. Did she accept a new job?”

“Not that I know of. There would have been some kind of celebration, wouldn’t there?”

“I’ll look into it.”

The words sent a chill through me. “Please, be careful.”

“I will, cross my heart. Let’s move on to the day of the crash. Can you talk me through what happened?”

I told her everything. About the babysitter, about me stowing away, about the headlights behind us. Being punched along the road, the screaming, thecrunchof metal on wood. Mom being silenced by the monster. The cold that had seeped into my bones and the smell of death that hung heavy in the air in my crumpled prison.

Until I tasted salt, I didn’t realise that tears were running down my cheeks. I felt a tissue being pressed into my hand and opened my eyes to see a blurry Brooke.

“Thank you.”

“You’re doing so well.”

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