Gilt Hollow (5 page)

W
illow froze, unable to move or speak. Ashton's expression slammed shut and he pushed through the door, the shop bell clanging like a wakeup call in Willow's ears.

Really?
After being the only one to defend his innocence,
this
is what she got? A lethal glare and silence? If anyone should be glaring, it should be her!

Heat flooded her cheeks, and something snapped. Ex-convict or not, it would take more than a dark stare to erase their years of friendship. Nearly vibrating, she stalked to the door.

“Wait—” Lisa reached out to stop her, but Willow shrugged off her hand.

Out on the street, she spotted Ashton almost at the corner of the block. For a wild moment, she considered rushing after him and tackling him to the ground, but instead she stalked forward and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Why did you come back here?”

He stopped, his shoulders tensing as his head tilted, and she caught a glimpse of his hard profile. Willow waited, glaring at his back, bracing for a fight. But Ashton didn't take the bait. He just turned and walked away, dismissing her like they hadn't been friends since they were five, like she hadn't written to him every day for months.

Willow puffed out a breath and spun on her heel, heading in the opposite direction. She walked fast—down the sidewalk, around a couple holding hands, past Bill's grocery, her heart racing as if she'd done a 100-yard dash. The lights
of the outdoor patio of Postman's Tavern streaked her vision, laughter and the clink of glassware swirling in her ears like a funhouse recording.

Willow slowed her pace at the corner, waiting for a car to pass, her breath coming in short gaps.
Oh no.
Fighting against the rising panic, she didn't hear Lisa approach.

“Hey, you dropped this back there.”

Willow took the bag of clothes in numb fingers and crossed the street.

Oblivious to Willow's escalating distress, Lisa quipped, “Who was
that
mouth-watering specimen?”

“Ashton.” Willow scraped a breath through her pinched throat.

“
That
was Ashton?”

Willow couldn't find enough air. But she pushed her legs faster.

“If all felons look like him,” Lisa continued, “I'm signing up for prison guard duty today!”

“Lisa! Not helping.” Willow clutched a fist to her heaving chest.

“Hey.” Lisa gripped Willow's arm, pulling her to a stop. “Are you all right?”

“I just . . . I just . . .” Willow couldn't focus, her eyes darting, her fingers tingling.

Lisa gasped. “You're
not
okay.” She grabbed Willow's hand and led her off the main road and into a tree-shaded park.

Trembling, Willow stumbled to the closest bench and sank down. The world spun as she leaned her head back. She hated this. Hated that her body betrayed her at the first sign of stress. Hated that her new friend would see her weakness. Glimpsing a patch of vivid blue between the pink and purple streaks of the setting sun, she focused on it and began to mumble her panic script.

When the steel bands loosened from her chest, she sat up and turned to meet Lisa's wide eyes. “Sorry about that. I . . . er . . . sometimes—”

“Freak out when you run into your ex–best friend four years after he was convicted of murder and he looks at you like you're his next victim?”

Willow huffed, blowing the bangs off her forehead. “Um, yeah.”

“It's cool.” Lisa shrugged. “My granny used to have panic attacks. But hers weren't triggered by stress . . . more like lack of attention.”

“What did you do when she had one?”

“Pretty much ignored her until she shut up.”

Forgetting her own troubles, Willow's eyes widened. “You didn't!”

“We learned early on that woman could suck the joy out of any occasion if we let her.” Lisa's grin faded. “But you aren't anything like her.”

“Thanks . . . I think.” Willow grimaced, making Lisa laugh.

“Anytime, Lamott. What are friends for, if not to make you feel less weird?”

A streetlamp sputtered to life next to them, and Willow gathered her bags. “I better go. Calculus quiz tomorrow.” But as she stood, something Lisa had said made her pause and sit back down. “So do you think he hates me now?”

Lisa chewed on her bottom lip before answering. “I think he seemed angry. Whether or not that anger is directed at you is hard to say.”

“Oh, I think the direction of his anger was pretty clear. But I don't understand.” Suddenly too warm, Willow yanked down the zipper of her jacket. “I supported him when
everyone else had turned away, and got
nothing
in return. Shouldn't I be the one who's angry?”

A couple strolled by and stared at Willow. She knew her voice had risen to a shrill screech, but she couldn't care.

“I have a feeling he sensed your ire.” Lisa grinned. “That was pretty ballsy, yelling after him like that. If he stared me down, all dark and brooding, I probably would've run away with my tail between my legs.” She wiggled tawny brows. “Or thrown myself into his arms. Hard to say.”

Too wound up to go there, Willow glanced down at her clenched fists and forced her fingers to uncurl. “That's just it . . . anger wasn't my initial reaction. When I saw him and realized who I was looking at, it was like a huge weight lifted. Like I could finally let out a breath I'd been holding for the last four years.”

All traces of humor gone, Lisa placed a calming hand on Willow's arm. “Maybe he just needs some time. He's been through a lot.”

Willow slumped back against the bench, blowing out a breath. She couldn't begin to imagine what Ashton had been through, or how all of it had changed him. Or the reasons why he'd shut her out.

“There's something I don't get though.” Lisa rubbed Willow's arm in comforting circles. “Why would he come back here if his family is gone and everyone in town believes he's guilty?”

“I don't know.” Willow shook her head. “Obviously, it wasn't to rekindle old friendships.” Willow tugged the cuffs of her sweater down to cover her suddenly cold hands, and then got to her feet. “I need to go.”

“Do you want company? I can walk you home.”

“Thanks, but I need some time to think.”

Willow wandered through the park, taking random turns along the path. Could she have misjudged Ashton? Had she wanted to believe so badly in his innocence that she'd ignored the facts?

Questions crowding in, she ambled through short pools of streetlamps and long stretches of darkness, until she realized the shadows had taken over the light. Willow came up short. Rolling hills dotted with ancient trees, the scent of fresh-turned earth. She'd wandered into the Sanctuary.

She hadn't been here since . . .

Trees, angels, and headstones spin around her as she hightails it from her father's gravesite. Away from the crying. And the stares. The expectations.

Footsteps pound.

“Wil, stop!” A hand grasps her upper arm.

She staggers to a halt, grips her knees, heart pounding inside her throat.

“Are you okay?”

Stupid question, but she pants, “Yeah.”

“Really? 'Cause you don't look so good to me.” Ashton bends over and meets her gaze. “Kinda pukey, actually.”

She shoots him a steel-melting glare.

He offers a grin, but it collapses like a house of cards, and he tugs her into his arms. “Come here.”

She rests her head on his polyester suit–clad shoulder, the chemical smell of fresh dry-cleaning melding with his warm, citrus scent. Breathing deeply, she feels her world slowing into its regular rotation.

That was the Ashton she remembered—the side of him no one else knew.

Instead of turning back the way she'd come, Willow headed deeper into the cemetery. The air had cooled with the setting of the sun, and she tugged her jacket tighter around her. Odd that she remembered the way after so many years. But when she reached the correct section, she couldn't recall which row it was in. The darkened stones blended together—memorials of various shapes and sizes, some topped with flower arrangements or surrounded by flags, others dark and lonely. The day they'd put her father into the ground, it had felt like his grave was the only one there.

A tinkling sound like fairy bells drew her eye to a spiral wind chime twirling on a shepherd's hook, and she knew she'd found it. Only her mother would create such a monument.

Picking her way toward the grave, careful not to step on any freshly tilled ground, she wished she'd chosen to come here during the day. It wasn't that she felt some melodramatic aversion to cemeteries or that she couldn't stand the thought of visiting her father's final resting place, she just couldn't imagine paying homage to a slab of granite and a cadaver. She knew her father wasn't here buried under the dirt, tucked into a box. That was just his body—a body that had failed him. His soul resided elsewhere.

She had to believe it.

After a short but fierce battle with colon cancer, her dad had passed away when she was thirteen. She stopped in front of the three-by-six plot and smiled. Her father had been a silver-lining kind of person. When they had no money for a vacation one summer, he'd created a “tropical beach” out of a kiddie pool, a strip of plastic and a hose, water balloons, and seashells made out of cardboard. Willow had reclined on her Hello Kitty towel with her face to the sun while he described
the ocean in such detail that she could smell the salt and hear the surf.

He'd brought light into every situation, which made the winding path of painted rocks that led to his marker, and the multicolored beads and crystals ringing music on the wind, a perfect tribute. A tiny handcrafted sign rose out of the ground at the end of the rock path. Willow tiptoed forward, careful not to displace the stones, and strained to read the words in the dark.

I L
OVE
Y
O
U
TO THE
M
OO
N
AND
B
ACK
, D
ADDY
.

A sob caught in her throat. It was written in Rainn's messy handwriting. This phrase had been whispered, yelled, sung, and even signed in their house more times than she could count. Willow dropped to her knees and brushed imaginary dirt from the top of the granite. “Hi, Dad, er . . . it's me . . . Willow. I'm not sure if you can hear me . . .” She sank back on her haunches with a sigh and ran a finger over the indention of his name. People always talked to dead loved ones in movies and it seemed perfectly normal, but this felt awkward. She traced the engraved dates. He'd only been thirty-three years old.

Maybe it didn't matter if he could hear her or not. Maybe it was more about the process of letting go. So in a soft whisper, she told him about school and Lisa and all the ways Rainn was like him.

“Oh yeah, and Ashton's back. You'd probably be disappointed in me. I wrote him tons of times, but when I didn't hear back after a while, I stopped. I tried to convince Mom to take me to see him, but she was always busy, and I just gave up. Now I'm pretty sure he hates me . . . or blames me or something. Which is totally unfair. But you know how he can be.”

Her dad used to joke that Ashton swept in like a turbulent wind, smiling and content one day, changeable and fierce the next. The Lamotts's cottage had been his safe place to land between adventures or after a storm.

Willow began to pull a few taller pieces of grass that had grown up around the stone. “All I've done since he went away was defend him, even though the entire town believes he did it. I didn't think it was possible . . . until tonight. He changed after you left, Dad, and not for the better.”

Shortly after her dad's death, Ashton began to pull away from her family. He'd started hanging with a different crowd and getting into fights. He was even arrested for vandalism and petty theft when he and some other boys “borrowed” all the garden gnomes in town and filled the school lawn with them. It would have been a hilarious joke if not for the lone pointy-hatted statue that had smashed through the science lab window and landed on Mr. Edward's desk.

Right after that, Ashton started showing up at their cottage, jittery and restless, and would take off without warning. Almost as if searching for something. Maybe the security he'd never known with his own family. Or the closeness he'd had with her father that he couldn't recreate—even with her.

She made a pile of the grass clippings and smoothed a hand over the bumpy surface of the pebbles. “But I'm trying to put all of that behind me now and enjoy my senior year. Brayden Martin asked me out. Can you believe—”

A crunch and the snap of a twig made her whirl around. The moon provided enough light to see the closest plots, leaving the rest of the cemetery in silhouette. Maybe it had been the wind in the trees. Slowly, she rose to her feet. It was late anyway.

She ran her fingers over the beads in the wind chime,
sending them spinning. “Bye, Dad.” He may not be able to hear her, but she knew if he could, it would please him that she had made the effort. Willow kissed her hand and then rested it on the top of the headstone. “Love you to the moon and back.”

A
shton plunked down a good chunk of his cash at the town hardware/sporting goods/drugstore, and headed outside wearing new black combat boots, cargo pants, a T-shirt, and a buttery-soft leather jacket. Feeling much more like himself, he dropped the sack containing his dad's old clothes into a trash can and turned toward home.

Home?
The thought of storing his new wardrobe in paper bags, using the creek as an outhouse, and spending another sleepless night on the hard floorboards of the tree house slowed his steps. He'd served his time, paid for whatever role he played in Daniel Turano's death a thousand times over. Yet he was living like an escaped convict.

No more.

With decisive steps, he headed back to the trash can, where he yanked the black baseball cap off his head and tossed it in. Raking a hand through his hair, he turned and strode down the lamplit street. A middle-aged woman stared him down, and he lifted a corner of his mouth in a slow smirk. She blinked rapidly and jerked her eyes away. He didn't recognize her, but after his conviction, he was sure his face had been plastered all over the news. He could just imagine the headlines:
“Trust-Fund Teen Kills Classmate.”
Or
“Illustrious Keller Family Tainted By Scandal.”

Ashton turned down Oak Avenue and passed the Dairy Shed. Yellow fluorescent bulbs washed everything within a twenty-yard radius in a familiar jaundice glow.
Vanilla on a sugar cone with extra sprinkles.
Willow's high-pitched voice
echoed in his head. The girl would order the same blasted thing every time, without fail. No matter what special flavors were offered or how much Ashton goaded her about it.

Ashton walked faster, away from the sallow-cast patrons and their animated chatter. And the memories. Seeing Willow had hit him harder than he'd expected. For some reason, he'd never pictured her as anything other than the awkward fourteen-year-old girl in braces, her hair shorter than his. Definitely not the girl he'd seen today—luminous eyes, high cheekbones, and soft lips.

“Why did you come back here?”

The twine handle of the shopping bag dug into his palm, and he loosened his death grip, but he couldn't undo the sting of her words. He wasn't sure why they even bothered him. He'd written off Willow Lamott long ago. Just as she'd done with him. But when he'd decided to come back to Gilt Hollow, his need for retribution had blinded him to how hard it would be to just walk down the street. He hadn't been prepared for the memories punching him in the gut at every turn.

A For Rent sign in the window of a brownstone slowed his steps. His parents' old office building. He'd come there after school for years, hoping to get a moment of their precious time. He'd sit in the back office listening to his parents on the phone with clients, negotiating contracts or making plans for future deals, until they'd force him to head home, where he'd take his dinner into the den and watch reruns of
Full House
until he fell asleep. Nanny or the cook would usually wake him and send him to bed. He'd lived for the moments when one of his parents would come home, help him up the stairs, and tuck him in, even if his mom was chastising him all the while.

Ashton could almost see her sleek blonde head through the window . . .

Catherine Arnett-Keller straightens the jacket of her Akris suit—worth more than most people earn in a month—and sits in the folding chair across from her son. She holds her purse in her lap, as if afraid to let the police station germs touch her belongings.

Ashton meets her dark blue eyes, the same shade as his own. “But I'm telling you, I didn't do this. Mom, please believe me,” he pleads, tears clogging his throat.

She puffs out a long sigh. “Then why did you tell the police that you did? Why have Colin, Brayden, and Isaiah—the chief of police's son—come forward to say they saw you do it?”

Ashton digs his fingers into his hair. He had confessed, but only because his fear and confusion had jumbled with the responsibility he felt for Daniel's fall as the cops were screaming in his face.

“You get suspended for fighting at school, stay out all hours of the night, and then lie about where you've been . . . How do you expect me to believe you now?”

It's true. Since Adam Lamott's death, he'd gone off the rails, running from grief that always caught him in the end.

“Have you even thought about how your actions are affecting your family? Your father and I have a business to run that depends on our respectable image.”

Ashton draws in a deep breath. “Where's Dad?”

“He can't see you right now. He's too disappointed.”

Ashton's heart twists painfully in his chest. He and his dad didn't have a perfect relationship, but at least his father wasn't a heartless robot.

“The prosecuting attorney is pushing to try you as an adult for aggravated manslaughter. I've spoken with our lawyer, and he's negotiated a plea bargain for the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.”

“I—”

She silences him with a look. “The other boys testified that you and Daniel have been fighting for weeks. That they've all been worried you would blow and do something to really hurt him.”

“It's not like that! Daniel has been . . .” Ashton has to swallow as the image of Daniel's broken head reminds him that his friend is dead.

Mom continues as ifshe hasn't heardhim. “Considering that you were arguing with Daniel just before the fall, we're going to take the deal. We'll settle out of court to avoid a drawn-out trial and further negative publicity.” She sighs. “As it is, your father and I will have to relocate if we have any hope of salvaging the business this family has spent decades building.” She patted her hair and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Thank goodness your sister is going to UCLA in a month.”

Ashton stays silent, afraid the hurt and fury mixing in his heart will spew out of his mouth like poison.

His mother stands. “Ashton, I'm doing this for your own good. If my parents had been stronger with my brother . . . let him deal with the consequences of his choices . . .” Pain flickers across her face. Her younger
brother had been a druggy whom their parents treated like a disabled child instead of an adult with an addiction. They'd bailed him out of jail, paid for dentures when his teeth fell out, bought him a new car every time he wrecked the last one, paid his rent, you name it . . . until he'd overdosed. Mom never spoke to her parents after that, blaming them for her brother's death. “Well, you know the story.”

She turns her back and steps toward the door. Without looking back, she whispers, “I love you, Ashton, but I won't be your enabler. You need to learn to stand on your own.”

That was the last time Ashton saw her.

He'd spent years burying the rejection of his family and friends, but now he embraced it—let it fuel him. She'd wanted him to stand on his own, and he'd
more
than learned that lesson. It was time to begin reclaiming the life he'd lost, starting with a more comfortable place to rest his head. Setting his jaw, he turned onto Walnut Street.

A block and a half later, Ashton pushed against the front gate, which opened with a screech, and stared up at the familiar—or not so familiar—face of his ancestral home. The once beautiful Victorian looked like a faded old woman, barely holding herself together. The facade, once a blend of soft green, deep blue, and eggshell had faded and chipped, exposing the gray boards beneath. Shutters hung off their hinges, boards covered a window on the third floor, and the broken porch stairs made the entire house appear crooked. What had happened here? He knew his parents had moved out of town, but it appeared as if they'd abandoned the house along with him. Grandpa Keller would bust out of his grave if he knew his pride and joy had fallen into such disrepair.

Keller House had been built in the 1800s by his great-great grandfather, one of the original founders of Gilt Hollow. Ashton's dad used to tell the story at dinner parties, school events, the grocery line—any chance he got to brag that their family had been part of the abolitionist movement, and had migrated from the East Coast with the aim of creating a utopian society. But the idealistic community plan dissolved, due in no small part to Ashton's ancestor marrying a Filipino woman. Apparently incorporating other races into their Shangri-La didn't include procreating with them. Run out of town, Grandpa Keller bided his time and returned a decade later, instituting the Little Miami Railroad, becoming mayor, and building Keller House.

As a kid, Ashton had been proud that his home was one of the oldest in Gilt Hollow. He loved that everyone knew he lived in the big Victorian on Walnut.

Not anymore.

Suppressing a shudder, he walked up the weed-infested path. The closer he got, the worse the place looked. He bent down to inspect a hole in the lattice beneath the porch where an animal had gnawed through the wood, and no doubt still resided. At the juvie agricultural center, he'd learned everything from barn repair to tractor maintenance. Ashton straightened and gazed up at the old mansion again. Maybe he could use what he'd learned to fix up the place.

Clearly his parents had given up on it, but they couldn't legally sell it. As part of the trust from his grandfather, this house, along with a sizable fortune, would rightfully be Ashton's when he turned twenty-one. So whoever lived inside had to be renting. He would just explain to the current tenants that there'd been a mistake and give them two weeks to vacate. The house had eight bedrooms, not including the
old servants' quarters in the attic, so staying on the premises until they'd found another rental shouldn't be a problem.

Anticipating a soft place to sleep and a hot shower, he loped up the crooked stairs and lifted a finger to the doorbell. A screech and pounding footsteps from inside made him step back. Squeals of laughter sounded, and Ashton leaned in to peer through a panel of wavering glass next to the door. A little boy with a mop of blond hair raced by, holding something small and black above his head.

Dark hair flying behind her, a girl raced after him. “Rainn! I swear, if you don't give that back . . .”

Ashton's breath caught as a woman with salt-and-pepper dreads and a weary frown marched into the entryway. “Rainn, that's enough. Give Willow her phone.”

Oh no.

He stumbled back from the door.

Turning on his heel, he leaped off the porch and ran into the tree line. Really? Of all the people in Gilt Hollow, why did it have to be
them
? He'd once considered the Lamotts more family than his own. Until they'd ditched him too.

Blood boiling, he crashed through the trees, branches scraping, damp leaves smacking his skin. Soon the lights of a neighboring house cut through the gloom of the forest. He pulled back into a circle of spruce and squatted, lowering his head into his hands. No way was he spending another night hiding in that godforsaken tree house.

He could find shelter at the lone seedy motel in town or one of the multiple bed-and-breakfasts, if they'd take cash—doubtful. But that wasn't the point.

He clenched his fists against his thighs. If it had been anyone else, he would have rung that doorbell and asked them to start packing. But the Lamotts had been the one solid he
thought he could count on. He'd waited for months, hoping every visiting day, every holiday, every mail run would prove they still cared. Until one particular day, six months after his incarceration . . .

“Dude, you're like a caged animal today. What's your deal?” Toryn demands.

Ashton turns from the cell door and flops down on his cot, staring at the random bumps in the popcorn ceiling. “What time does the mail run again?”

“Same time as every other day, man.” From the opposite bunk, his cell mate releases a long sigh. “Four o'clock.”

Ashton sits up and swings over the edge of the bed, legs jumping, feet tapping a silent melody.

“Seriously, what are you expecting? An Xbox? A flatscreen TV? A bikini-clad girl jumping out of a giant cake? 'Cause if you are, I'll blow off arts and crafts time to see that.”

“No, I . . .”Ashton trails off as the mail cart enters their hallway.

“Mallory!” Rumble. Rumble. Squeak. “Hudson!” Rumble. Rumble. Squeak. “Rozelle!”

Toryn rolls off his cot, takes the letter, and tosses it onto the desk. He turns to face Ashton. “See, no big. Just my mom ranting about my grades and what I'm planning to do with my life after this. Blah, blah, blah . . . You should be glad you don't get that bull from your parents.”

I don't get anything from my parents, bull or otherwise, Ashton thought. “I just hoped”—Ashton shrugs, swallows the baseball in his throat, and lies back on the cot, hands behind his head—“that somebody remembered my birthday.”

In that moment, it hadn't been his real family he'd wanted to hear from. They'd made their disassociation clear. But a tiny part of him had hoped for something from the Lamotts. Some acknowledgment that he was alive. That he mattered. But mostly, that his best friend hadn't forgotten him.

And now she lived in his house with no thought as to where he might be staying. Well, he didn't owe her a damn thing. She could sleep on the street for all he cared. Shooting to his feet, he took several strides toward the house and stopped. He couldn't do it. With a growl, he slapped a pine bough, needles and cones falling at his feet. Their rich, clean scent calmed him as he drew in a ragged breath.

If nothing else, he owed Adam Lamott that much. The man had been more of a father to him than his own. Ashton knew in his gut that if Adam were still alive, he never would have abandoned him. For his sake alone, Ashton wouldn't try to force his family out on the street.