About That Night (10 page)

Thirteen

W
hen Jordie gets home, her parents and Carly are back from the funeral. As she heads upstairs, she hears voices coming from her sister's room.

“Carly?”

The voices stop.

“Carly, who are you talking to?”

“No one.”

Right. Like Jordie is so stupid she can't distinguish two separate voices.

“I heard someone, Carly.”

“It's the radio.”

Uh-huh
. Jordie wraps her hand around Carly's doorknob, twists and pushes the door. Carly, knowing her sister only too well, has positioned herself in front of the door, and it doesn't give.

“Let me in, Carly,” Jordie says, suspicious now. More than suspicious—convinced that something is up and that she knows exactly what it is.

“No. It's my room, and you can't come in unless I invite you.”

Jordie pushes again.

Carly screams for their mom, who is downstairs in the kitchen, contemplating how to use the last of the Christmas turkey.

“What is going on up there?” Mrs. Cross shouts.

“Jordie's trying to get into my room, and I don't want her to,” Carly shrieks.

An exasperated-sounding Mrs. Cross tells Jordie she should know better and that if Carly and Tasha want private time, then Jordie has no choice but to respect that. “Do you understand me, Jordie?”

Jordie calls back that she does. Then she leans in close to the door, and in a stage whisper that Carly can hear but her mother can't, she says, “Maybe I should tell Mom about you-know-what. Then you can have a month of private time—without Tasha.”

There is silence. The door opens. Carly stares acidly at her sister. Behind her, cross-legged on the bed, is Tasha Nelson.

“Aren't you going to invite me in?” Jordie asks. “Or do you want to have this conversation downstairs, say, in the kitchen?”

Carly steps aside. Jordie enters the cluttered room. Carly swings the door shut.

“Hi, Tasha,” Jordie says sweetly. “Did Carly ask you about my bracelet?”

“We were just talking about that,” Carly says at the exact same time that Tasha says, “What bracelet?” Tasha sounds genuinely curious.

Jordie glowers at her sister's reddening face. “You stole from me and then you
lied
to me? You said you texted her, Carly.”

“I did text her.”

“What bracelet?” Tasha asks again.

Jordie turns to her. “Carly told me she sold you a bracelet.”

“Oh,” Tasha says. “Yeah. But that was, like, a month ago. At least.”

“Did she tell you where she got it?” Jordie asks.

“Sure.”

Jordie glances at her sister, who is frantically shaking her head.

“Knock it off, Carly,” Jordie says. Back to Tasha. “What did she tell you?”

“That she bought it and then decided she didn't like it, but she got it on sale, so she asked me if I wanted to buy it. It was cute, so I said yes.”

“Well, she didn't buy it on sale. She stole it from me. And I want it back.”

Tasha looks surprised, and again, the surprise appears genuine. Clearly, Carly lied about the bracelet's provenance. Surprise gives way to an agonized expression.

“I can't give it back,” Tasha says.

“Why not?”

“Because
I
sold it to someone else.”

Carly groans.

“I got a great price for it,” Tasha says brightly. Almost instantly, regret flashes in her eyes. “But I spent it all. On Christmas presents.”

“Who did you sell it to?”

Tasha exchanges glances with Carly. “Adam Noyes.”

“Adam Noyes?” Adam is in Jordie's class. He's a jock, not a jewelry connoisseur. “How did that happen?”

“I was in the cafeteria asking around, and he liked the price.” Here she glances at Carly. “What an idiot. You won't believe how much he paid for it.”

“It's sterling silver,” Jordie says. “And an antique. A genuine antique.”

Carly's face falls. “You mean I could have got more for it?”

“Does he still have it?” Jordie demands.

“I don't know. I guess so. Unless he gave it to someone, you know, as a Christmas present.”

“Who would he give it to?” Carly says. “He and Nicki broke up three weeks ago.”

“Maybe he gave it to her before they broke up,” Tasha says. “Or maybe he gave it to someone else as a Christmas present. Maybe his mom.”

“You better hope not,” Jordie says, angry at Tasha even though, strictly speaking, she acted in good faith. “I want it back.”

“So go ask him,” Carly says. Under her breath she mutters, “And good luck with that.”

Jordie hears her and turns on her. She grabs Carly's wrist and twists it hard until Carly lets out a yowl. Their mother's muffled voice comes from below. “What's going on up there?” Jordie twists Carly's wrist again until Carly shouts out, “Nothing. We're just fooling around!”

Jordie maintains her grip on her sister's wrist. “I should make you go and ask him.”

Carly waits. She has heard the magic word—
should—
and knows better than to say anything.

Jordie releases her with a shove, sending Carly careening back against her dresser. She storms out of the room. She doesn't hear the huge sigh of relief that escapes her sister.

» » »

“Where are you going now?” Jordie's mother asks. “You just got in.”

“I have to run an errand.” Jordie is out the door before her mother can say another word. She hikes the seven blocks to the new subdivision filled with almost identical large houses on almost identical postage-stamp-sized pieces of land that are surrounded by almost identical privacy fences. The house she wants is in the middle of the block. She hurries up the neatly shoveled front walk and rings the bell.

Jordie has never met Mr. or Mrs. Noyes, but there they are, both at the door, Mr. Noyes doing the actual opening while Mrs. Noyes hovers behind him, holding a cardboard box in her arms labeled
Christmas ornaments
.

“I was wondering if Adam is here,” Jordie says. When the two adults look quizzically at her, she hastily introduces herself, adding, “Adam is in some of my classes.”

Mrs. Noyes smiles so broadly that Jordie is afraid she has misunderstood. Maybe she thinks Jordie is Adam's new girlfriend.

“Is he here?” Jordie prompts.

“He is indeed,” Mr. Noyes says. “He's in the basement. You can go down if you want.”

“Oh.” She doesn't want to go down to the basement. She doesn't even want to go into the house. She doesn't know Adam well. It's true he is in two of her classes, but he is new to her school—new to town, in fact—and she can't recall ever having spoken to him. “Well, I have my boots on and—”

“Pull them off,” Mr. Noyes says jovially, moving aside so that she can step onto a generous boot mat inside the door.

Jordie pulls off her boots. She glances around.

“First door on the right,” Mr. Noyes says, indicating a hallway with an enthusiastic sweep of one arm.

Jordie pads down the hall in stocking feet. She opens the door. The stairs are wooden. The basement is unfinished. She creeps down the stairs and finds Adam in one corner, washing what turns out to be a Christmas-tree stand in a utility sink.

“Adam?”

He jumps and spins around. “You startled me.” Then he squints at her, seemingly at a loss.

“I'm Jordie.” He should know that, but maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's never even noticed her. “I'm in your—”

“Math and English classes,” he finishes. “I know.”

“I'm sorry to barge in on you, but your dad said you were down here.”

“Which I am.”

He turns off the tap and begins to dry the Christmas-tree stand with a rag. “My mom is kind of anal. Everything has to gleam all the time, even if she isn't going to see it again for a whole year.” He drops the stand into a plastic bag, which he closes with a twist tie. Then he waits patiently for her to speak.

“This is kind of awkward,” she says.

“I don't bite.”

“It's about a bracelet you bought from my sister's friend Tasha.”

He smiles right away. “Sterling silver. Early Victorian.”

She is stunned.

He laughs. “I showed it to my mom. She's the one who recognized it for what it was.”

Was? That doesn't sound good.

Then he says, “Do you like it?”

“Excuse me?”

His eyes flit to her wrist. He frowns and shifts awkwardly. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I thought…well, I guess I assumed…” His voice peters out.

“Do you have the bracelet, Adam?”

“Maugham has it.”

“Mom? You gave it to your mom?”

“Not my mom. Derek Maugham.”

“What?” She can't believe what she's hearing.

“I bought the bracelet from that kid, Tasha. She was trying to unload it. She had no idea how valuable it was.” Like he got the better of her.

“You didn't either, from what you just said,” Jordie points out.

“True. But I got it cheap. Then Maugham tells me he's looking for something special for his girl.” Here he frowns. “I thought that was you.”

“It is.”

“So, what, he didn't give it to you yet?”

“It was supposed to be an anniversary present. He was going to give it to me on New Year's Eve. And then…” Her voice trails off.

“Yeah, I heard,” Adam says. “They have any idea who did it?”

Jordie shakes her head. “Adam, are you telling me you sold the bracelet to Derek? I mean, he paid you and you handed it over to him?”

He nods. “If he didn't give it to you yet, it's probably at his house.”

He's right. Derek must have gone to get it, just like he said he would. But someone killed him before he made it home. Or he did get home and got it, and someone killed him on the way back to her house. She's not sure which. So the bracelet must be either in his room among his things or on him—assuming, that is, that it wasn't stolen by whoever killed him. She wonders for the first time if anything
was
stolen—his watch, maybe, or his wallet.

“I'm really sorry about what happened to him,” Adam says. “I never knew anyone who was killed. Murdered, I mean.”

Jordie thanks him and heads back up the stairs. If Derek had the bracelet, and if it wasn't stolen, then the police must have found it on him. Do they still have it? Or have they returned it to his parents? It's a murder case, so she's not sure how long the police hang on to things.

» » »

Ronan Barthe pushes the snow shovel up and back across the ice. Up and back. Up and back. After each length, he turns to look at Jordie, who is retreating across the ice. The very last time he looks, she is gone. She has rounded the point and is back where the big houses are. She'll go up the stairs that allow for public access to the lakefront.

Ronan shoulders the shovel and skates back to the shore on his side of the point. He's left his boots there, on top of a snow-covered rock. He sweeps some snow aside and plunks himself down to unlace his skates. He pulls on his boots, ties the laces of his skates together and slings the skates over his shoulder before grabbing the snow shovel and climbing up to the road.

He walks home. It takes nearly twenty minutes.

“Mom?” he calls after he's stamped the snow off his boots on the rubber mat inside the front door.

He gets no answer. She's probably sleeping.

He hangs his skates on a hook, stands the snow shovel in the corner of the little landing and opens the door to the kitchen. He shrugs out of his jacket as he heads up the stairs. A peek into his mother's bedroom confirms that she is asleep. He stands in the door for a few seconds, watching for the rise and fall of her chest. Funny, he thinks, how he's got into the habit of doing that. Funny, too, in a worrisome way, that before he finally registers the almost imperceptible movement, he is gripped by panic, because what will he do if she isn't breathing? It's the one thing he doesn't want to think about and the one thing he knows is coming at him faster than he would like to believe.

He tiptoes across the room to a cupboard under the window and opens it. There's a small basket inside. He carries it with him out of the room.

Moments later, he is perched on his bed, his army-surplus jacket in hand, sorting through the basket—his mother's sewing basket—for some navy-blue thread.

There isn't any.

Black will have to do.

He threads a needle and sticks it into his bedspread while he pulls out a small pair of scissors. He turns his jacket inside out, locates the spare button that is sewn onto an inside seam and cuts it loose. With needle and thread, he sews the spare button onto the front of his jacket to replace the one that was ripped off. If anyone asks, and he doubts they will unless Jordie decides to say something to the cops, he will say that he lost a button ages ago and sewed it back on then. Who can say different?

Problem solved.

Fourteen

J
ordie is barely listening that night as her mother makes table talk about the funeral. She's trying to figure out how she's going to do what she desperately needs to do. She's nervous about it. The truth is, she hasn't known anyone her age who died. She's never had to deal with people she knows, adult people, who are grieving. She's not sure she'll have any idea what to say. And what if she says the
wrong
thing? God, that would be terrible. She might make things worse.

“…set aside to look after her,” her mother is saying.

“Well, he won't have to worry about that now,” Mr. Cross says. “In fact, if I were him—”

“Can I make muffins after supper?” Jordie asks.

“Excuse me, I'm sure,” Mr. Cross says.