Faultlines (17 page)

“We were going to go to this stand outside Greeley, but we couldn’t find it, and somehow we got off on 440, and Trav’s flying down the road like he’s Mario Andretti. Michelle was in back, and she’s screaming at him to slow down, but he said no, he was going to see how fast the old mothereffer could go—it was crazy. I never saw him like that.”

“You weren’t wearing seat belts.” Libby had heard this from Augie or Ruth.

Jordan shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I looked at the speedometer right before he lost control; he was pushing a hundred miles an hour. I was freaking, too—440 is bad enough when you’re sober.” His voice caught. He cleared his throat.

They shared a silence, Libby looking in the rearview. She kept expecting to see Jordan’s mother pulling up onto the driveway.

Jordan scrubbed his hands down his thighs. “Airbags only partially inflated. Travis went out the driver’s-side window. He landed about twenty feet away in some grass. I remember my head slamming into the passenger-side window, but when I came to, I was in the driver’s seat. I don’t know how I got there, or how long it was before I woke up, but I was real confused. I thought I was at home and had fallen out of bed. It was weird.”

He stopped and took a breath, steadying himself. His throat worked with the effort. A pulse throbbed at his temple. She wanted to tell him he didn’t have to go on, but he lifted a hand, as if he’d read her mind again.

“Michelle was, like, whimpering, but she said she was okay when I asked her.” Jordan took a moment, scouring his legs with his palms again. “Then I looked around for Trav, and I saw him in the grass, all twisted up, not moving—I don’t know—it’s like something took over, and somehow I got out of the car and over to him. I said his name, I tried to get him to wake up, but I kept passing out. ‘C’mon, man. I love you, man.’ I kept saying it. I kept saying his name and that I loved him and then I’d pass out—”

Libby put her hand on his arm; she couldn’t stop herself. He sounded so broken.

“If people find out Trav was driving, they’re going to hate him like they hate me. I don’t want that to happen. He’s dead now. All that’s left is his memory, and I’m not screwing that up. If I have to go to prison—so I will.”

“I can understand why you feel that way, but would Travis want you taking the blame?”

“Well, I’m not. I keep telling everyone I wasn’t driving.”

“But you have to do more, say more than that, right? What about your attorney? Have you told him the whole story?”

“Yeah, but the evidence—plus, everybody—I mean, I’ve got kind of a reputation for drinking a lot, you know?”

“Do you? Drink too much?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Anyway, there’s a witness who says he saw me driving that night. I remember there was this pickup truck coming from the opposite direction. We were in his lane, going right for him. I don’t know how we kept from hitting him head-on.”

“The driver of the truck that was coming at you? He’s the witness?”

“I don’t think so. That guy says we passed him, and he saw me in the driver’s seat. The truck I remember was coming from the other way, but my brain was messed up, I might not be remembering right. Anyway, I was yelling at Trav the whole time. I was so scared.”

“I can only imagine,” Libby said, and it was true. She’d never been in a car accident, not even a fender bender.

“My attorney seems pretty sure we can make a deal. I could get off with probation, community service, since it’s my first offense. The only problem is Huck. He’s not going to let me off. He knows the judges around here. He’s got all the cops on his side. They’ll make sure I go to prison. It’s what Huck wants.”

“Why?” Libby asked. “Why is he after you?”

Jordan looked at her, looked away, and then back. And then he told her.

Ricky Burrows was sitting on the front porch steps at the cottage when Libby got back from Jordan’s.

He stood up when she got out of the car. “I hope you don’t mind that I waited.”

“No. It’s fine.” She’d stopped in town at the grocery store and bought a few things, a fully cooked rotisserie chicken, the makings for a salad. It was ridiculous when she had a refrigerator full of food. Coleta Huckabee’s tamales, for one. But after talking to Jordan, she wasn’t in the mood for tamales, or much of anything else associated with the Huckabees. She shifted the sack to her other arm, letting herself through the gate.

“I was wondering about your plans for the house,” Ricky said. “I talked to Augie, but he wasn’t sure.”

“That’s because I’m not sure.” Libby paused at the foot of the steps. “It’s awfully big for one person. I really don’t know what I want to do.” Part of her wanted to build the house anyway, because Beck had designed it. She had the money. The attorney who was handling Beck’s estate had said she would be fine, that Beck had been overly cautious in his concern about their finances, which was typical of him.

“You could make it smaller.” Ricky looked intently at her.

“I suppose I could.”

“So, are you going back to Houston, then? Maybe you want to renovate this.” He waved an arm, indicating the cottage.

“Are you looking for work? Is that why you came?” She scrambled, trying to come up with any odd jobs she might hire him to do. She asked about his truck, whether he’d ever heard anything from the police regarding the damage, who was responsible, and it only made her feel worse when he said no. She thought how she’d meant to go to the Greeley police about the incident and hadn’t. So much had happened.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Not your fault,” he said.

“No, but it happened on my property.” It didn’t make much sense that she felt responsible, but there it was—her brain, taking on the sins of the world. “You know it’s possible that Beck was the intended target, not you, and whoever did it keyed the wrong truck. They would have come from Houston,” she said when Ricky looked perplexed. “It’s a business thing, a grudge, I guess you’d call it.” She didn’t want to get into the whole issue with the lawsuit and the hostility that had ensued as a result.

Ricky’s grin was one-sided, commiserating. He said he knew about grudges.

“If you get me an estimate for a repair on your truck, I’m happy to pay for it. I should have offered before now.” Why hadn’t she?

“Nah. How would it look? A shiny door on my old beater?” He went to the gate.

“I’ll make a decision about the house soon,” she said.

“I talked to Sergeant Huckabee.” Ricky went through the gate, and as he closed it he looked back at her.

“Was he any help?”

“Everything these days is for a price. You ever notice that? Cops are no different.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Nothing. Cops just piss me off in general, you know?” He smiled another crooked smile and got into his truck, and when he waved as he drove away, she waved back, thinking it must be so frustrating, coming all the way here from Colorado, looking for a break, a fresh start, only to have every door slam in your face.

10

S
andy saw the woman loitering by the cart-return area nearest her truck when she came out of the grocery store, and as she passed her, she had a sense of the woman’s stare drilling her back like the hot August glare. She stowed her bags of groceries, searching her mind for a reference, and found none. She was pretty sure she’d never seen the woman before. But when she turned, there the woman was, so close Sandy took an involuntary backward step.

“You’re Jordy Cline’s mother.” The woman wasn’t asking so much as she was making an accusation. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she was shaking as if she were cold, which was ridiculous given that the temperature was still hovering near one hundred degrees. She was sweating, so much that her short, dark hair was plastered to her cheeks and temples. She looked worn-out, used up, battered by fatigue, maybe, or grief, or insanity.

Something about her was off. Sandy could feel it. She realized the woman had no purse, no car keys in hand. How had she gotten here? Common sense warned she should get into her truck and go, but a less cautious impulse ruled, keeping her in place, trying to sort out the woman’s identity, her problem, whether she needed help.

“I’m Patsy Meade,” the woman said, watching Sandy as if waiting for a sign of recognition.

But Sandy was clueless and shook her head.

“Michelle Meade’s mother?” The woman—Patsy—bit off the words. “I’m the mother of the beautiful girl your son put into a coma. The one who had her whole life ahead of her until your son got her into his car and drove her around drunk. I understand he’s fine now, out of the hospital, walking around free, while his cousin is buried in a graveyard and my daughter might never wake up again. How does it feel? To be the mother of a monster?”

“Jordy isn’t a monster.” Sandy dug in her purse for her keys. “He wasn’t driving.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Do you think denial serves you now? My understanding is your kid drinks—a lot more than he should—but you and your husband are blind to it.”

“Jordan doesn’t drink more or less than—you don’t know anything about him.”

“My daughter knows him quite well. She was concerned about him. Concerned! Both she and Travis were. As if it ever does any good to care about a drunk. They talked to me about him the weekend they were at the lake, and that’s what I told them. Cut him loose, stay away from him. I knew your son was bad news. I knew this was bound to happen. I just didn’t think—didn’t believe my daughter would be in the car—” Patsy broke off, looking away. She was shaking harder now.

Sandy wanted to leave, but she didn’t feel able to lift her foot onto the truck’s running board. It was beyond her. She apologized, saying, “I’m sorry,” and it was difficult to hear her voice over the thudding of her heart, the ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure about the apology. Something warned her that Roger wouldn’t be happy to hear she’d offered it. It might be construed as an admission of guilt. But that wasn’t it. She was sorry the way any human being, any mother, would be for what Patsy was going through—the fear and the worry, the constant dread for her child. She was sorry for Michelle, lying in a hospital bed, her outcome uncertain when she should be getting ready to return to classes at UT.

She was sorry for Travis and Jenna and her parents. Emmett, Jordy, herself. Her sorrow pushed into her throat, as hard as a brick. It gripped her heart. She didn’t cry. She thought if she were ever to start, she’d never stop. She couldn’t see the end of it—all this grief.

“I came to warn you.”

Sandy looked at Patsy.

“My husband and I hired an attorney. We’re suing you, and your insurance company, to recover medical costs, of course, but also to make sure Jordy is punished. If the criminal-justice system lets him off with nothing more severe than a slap on the wrist, then we’ll get justice for Travis and Michelle through the civil system—along with the settlement money.”

Go fuck yourself.
The retort was there, branding Sandy’s tongue with its bitter heat. She didn’t know what kept her from shouting it out, and to hell with what anyone thought of her—the wild woman, yelling her head off in the grocery-store parking lot.

She got into her truck, heaving herself into the seat. She was sick of defending herself, and Jordy, to her family, to folks all over town—and now to Patsy, whom she didn’t even know. She thought how uncertain she was of Jordy’s story, his conviction that Huck was setting him up. It had once seemed plausible, when she’d believed in Jordy’s claim that Huck had a motive.
What motive?
She’d asked Jordy repeatedly. So had Roger. Nothing. It was bogus, that was all. A way to buy time, maybe. Not smart. Not even close to smart. Now Roger was talking about Jordy taking a plea.

Patsy stepped around the open door. “You did hear me?”

“Yes,” Sandy said. “My attorney—or I should say, Jordy’s attorney, told me to expect this.” Roger had said not only was it likely the Meades would sue but that Jenna might as well. He had said in cases like this when the loss was uncountable, when emotions were raw and the nightmare never ending, blood did not run thicker than water.

Sandy looked at Patsy. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be.”

“Patsy?”

A man called her name. Sandy saw him standing several feet away, a grocery sack dangling from his hand. Mr. Meade, she assumed. She wondered what they were doing here in Wyatt. Their daughter was hospitalized in San Antonio, two hours away.

Patsy backed up.

“I really hope Michelle will be all right,” Sandy said, because it was the truth, the truest thing she knew in the moment.

Patsy’s snort was derisive. “We’ll see you in court,” she said.

She and Jordy had done the yard work together on Sunday, and she was cooking hamburger for taco salad when he came into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, staring inside it.

“Shut the door. You’re letting all the cold air out.” The admonition was mechanical, automatic.

He swigged milk out of the carton before returning it to the refrigerator shelf, making a face when she said, “Jordy, honestly.”

In the old normal days, he would have said, “Yep, I was raised in a barn,” answering the question that was implied, a family joke. But they didn’t share many of those lately, or any, in fact, and what he said was, “I got a job yesterday.” He set forks and napkins on the countertop.

She turned the browned meat into a colander. “Really? Where?”

“On 1620.” He named their rural route. “But on the other side of town.”

“Don’t classes at UT start next week?” Sandy glanced at him.

“Yeah, but I already said I’m not going back. What’s the point? We both know I’m going to jail. It’s where I belong, anyway.”

Sandy set the colander in the sink hard enough that bits of meat flew out of it. “I hate that attitude. It’s as if you’ve given up. I don’t understand you, in any case. You say you weren’t the driver, that Travis was, and Huck’s out to get you, and yet you’re willing to take the blame. Why?”

“I’ve driven wasted plenty of other times, Mom. Maybe if I go to jail, I won’t do it again.”

“What do you mean?” It shook her, hearing him talk this way. “You don’t have a problem. You don’t drink more than the rest of the kids.”

He seemed not to hear her. “If I go to jail, maybe you and Dad’ll get back together, and Aunt Jenna will get that closure everyone is always talking about.” His disdain for the concept was evident in his voice. “It’ll be better for the whole family if I’m gone. Might even be better for me.”

“You were just a passenger, Jordy. You had no control over how Travis was driving. It wasn’t even your idea to go out that night. You said Trav initiated—”

“I wasn’t
just
a passenger, Mom.” Jordan brought his hands down hard on the counter, making the silverware jump and clatter. “I participated. I didn’t do or say one damn thing to stop him, and I could have. I could have stopped him. I could have coldcocked him. Something—” His voice broke.

“You don’t know that, honey.” Sandy extended her hand toward him. He backed out of her reach. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll assume you’re right, but that still doesn’t make what happened your fault.”

“I’m working for Mrs. Hennessey.”

“What? You went there? When I expressly asked you not to?” Sandy couldn’t have been more astonished if Jordy had punched her. “She just lost her husband. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, Mom, but since I never had a chance to know the guy before he died, maybe she can tell me about him.”

He was accusing her. Sandy knew that, but she sensed his bewilderment, too, and his uncertainty.
He needs Travis,
Sandy thought. Travis would help him. He would make Jordy laugh about all this somehow. He’d make it easier for Jordy to live with it, the bombshell discovery that his father of record wasn’t his father of birth. If all else failed, Trav would drag Jordy out to the driveway to shoot hoops till they both dropped, then they would grab a pizza.

How had it helped, what Jenna had done, blurting out Sandy’s secret? In the wake of so much other loss, what had she accomplished dropping that bomb? The questions cut through Sandy’s mind. She thought if Jenna were here, she might kill her.

“We should eat dinner,” she said. At least she could do that; she could feed him.

He shrugged.
Whatever.

She turned to the sink. He took the napkins and forks to the table in the breakfast nook, muttering something about prison, that if he was old enough to get tossed into a cell for murder, he should damn sure be able to go to work wherever he wanted to.

“Manslaughter, not murder,” she said, uselessly.

“So what?” He raised his voice. “I’m screwed either way.”

She turned to him. “I know you’re scared, honey—”

“Look”—he interrupted her, throwing up his palms—“don’t take this the wrong way, okay? But you don’t know jack shit.” And wheeling, he grabbed the keys to her truck from the hook by the back door, pushed through the screen, and went out, letting it slam behind him.

“Jordy, come back here!” She followed him through the door, several steps down the drive. She had slipped off her sandals, and the pavement burned the soles of her bare feet, but she was heedless of that. “You aren’t supposed to drive,” she shouted.

“I need to clear my head,” he yelled over his shoulder.

There was nothing she could do but watch him get into her truck. He keyed the ignition and then he was gone.

Sandy didn’t know how long she stayed outside, looking at the empty space where her truck had been, where Jordy had been. Where now the only thing to see was the heat shimmering off the pavement. She felt it firing the bottoms of her bare feet, needling her calves, and when she turned and walked back to the house, she wanted her mother. Or Emmett.

But when she picked up her phone, she called Roger. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have a conversation with either her mother or her husband. Or her dad, for that matter. Or even Troy. They were still on speaking terms, unlike a lot of folks who flat-out refused to talk to her, who crossed the street in town to avoid her. But the only one of those she cared about was Jenna.

Go figure.

Sandy wanted to kill her sister, and she missed Jenna like crazy. If Jenna died the way Travis had, she wouldn’t know how to cope. But if she thought in that vein for too long, she would cry for Jordy’s grief, for worry over how he was coping. For herself.

She thought how as sisters, she and Jenna had squabbled endlessly over silly things like whose turn it was to vacuum or take out the trash. But they’d seldom gone a day without speaking. And if one of them was facing something horrible, like Jenna’s breast cancer, the other one was there to enfold her, to carry her, however figuratively.

In the past weeks since Jordy’s arrest, Sandy had parked in front of Jenna’s house in town several times and stared at the windows. She didn’t know what she expected. That Jenna might come to the door and beckon her in? That she would have the courage to take herself up the front steps, knock on the door, and ask to come in? Nothing like that ever happened. She only felt worse. She felt Jenna’s absence, her censure, in her core. It cut her from the inside in places she couldn’t see or touch.

There was one thing about it, though—Jenna’s shunning of her—it was honest. Sandy had no doubt in her mind where she stood with Jenna, and on that level, it was preferable to the false sense of concern she was treated to by some people, including her parents. It pissed her mother off when Sandy wondered out loud whether her parents cared about her, or that Jordy might lose his freedom.

After all, that was nothing by comparison. Travis had lost his life. Death trumped every other circumstance life could foist on you. That was how her family saw it. How everyone did. How could they not?

And where was her mom most of the time nowadays? Where was her dad if not at Jenna’s, or on their way to or from Jenna’s? Her mother had said they were going home to Georgetown more often now, that they needed to sleep in their own bed. And she assumed her dad was minding the business while Emmett holed up with his mother.