Uncertainty (33 page)

"Ariel!" Claire snipped, looking at me angrily.

"What? It's an honest question. You're not my friend." The confrontation with Jenna had left me painfully aware of how different I was from them.

"I didn't know where else to go," Madison said honestly.

"Is everyone still up at the school?" Hugh asked. He had stood up and retrieved his keys. Only about twenty minutes had passed since she'd appeared at the door, bloody and devastated.

"I don't see why they wouldn't be," Madison said.

"Let's go up there," Hugh said. "I have some questions."

"Hugh, what are you talking about?" Claire asked.

"Think about it, Claire. A boy gets murdered right in front of school. It's Warwick. He's finally come back to Hell."

"Is it getting dark in her?" I asked. My vision had started to blur and blacken. There must have been something wrong with the lights. Then my knees gave out completely, and I fainted.

Every police cruiser on the force was parked in front of Hawthorne, some with their red and blue lights still flashing. Policemen were outside, interviewing frightened-looking students in their formal wear, some of them wearing garish costumes like last year.

After I'd come to, I had begged Hugh to accompany him to the scene of the crime. He didn't want me anywhere near Warwick, but I put my foot down. And with all those people around, I would be much safer at Hawthorne than I was at home. If Warwick was back, our house would be the next on his list.

But why would Warwick kill Ambrose? I couldn't think of a motive. The only association between them was that Ambrose was in Warwick's Honors History class last year, but to my knowledge he just sat in the back row flicking spitwads at people.

Our car pulled up across the street from the school. Hugh, Lainey and I dodged between the police cruisers and went into the parking lot. The area around the fountain had been taped off. The people at the dance were now covering the lawn.

Hugh was scanning the crowd for someone. He saw whomever it was, and made a beeline for that area. I saw his target was the detective who had introduced himself when we went to the police station, Detective Sauter.

It only took a second for Detective Sauter to recognize my dad. "Mr. Donovan. How are you doing tonight?"

"Not too well," Hugh said.

"It's a tough night for everybody," Sauter said. He wasn't making eye contact with Hugh, reading notes in his flip pad.

"I'm guessing by the fact that you're here that you think it was Warwick," Hugh said.

"We're not ruling anyone out," Sauter said.

"But you're the detective in that case, and you're here," Hugh said. "I need to know if Warwick is here, to protect my daughter. We've been over this."

Sauter finally looked Hugh head on, his face grave. "I will just say, off the record, that if I were you, I would keep my daughter in the house until we know more. If you'll excuse me."

He walked off to talk to a cluster of detectives standing by the fountain.

"And you convinced me to come here..." Hugh said, shaking his head.

"Oh, what does that guy know?" I asked angrily. "He didn't even see this coming."

"What do we do now?" Madison asked, rubbing her red nose.

"Madison! There you are!" An older woman was quickly approaching us. She was dressed in jeans and a plain cardigan, with careless, curly blonde hair. She had the same bulging blue eyes as Madison.

"Mom!" Madison shrieked, throwing her arms around the woman's neck.

"We were so worried about you," Madison's mom said, pulling away and holding her daughter's face in her hands.

"I'm sorry. I just didn't know where to go, and I knew you were at grandma's," Madison explained. Having her mom there had started her tears anew. "I saw him, mom. I saw Ambrose, he was dead..."

She started sobbing anew and buried her face in her mother's shirt. Ms. Taylor rubbed her daughter back, soothing her like a child.

"She came to our house to see my daughter," Hugh explained. Madison's father was walking over as well. I'd never imaged Madison's parents this way. Her father was short, balding and wearing glasses, with an open, friendly expression. I remembered again that they weren't part of the Thornhill Society.

"Thank you for taking care of her," Ms. Taylor said. "You have a good friend, Madison."

Madison just sniffled.

"Let's get you home," Mr. Taylor said. They all bid us goodbye and walked off into the crowd.

I turned to Hugh, expecting him to be ready to go as well. But instead, he was stalking in the direction of Phillip Rhodes. I gulped and followed him.

Both Cliff Ford and Phillip Rhodes were standing around Ambrose's father. A bear of a man, I recognized him from the commercials of his car dealerships.
The deals keep getting better!
I heard him bark in my head.

He kept wiping his face with his hands, like his cheeks were hot. His meaty jaw was strained. He kept getting up and pacing back in forth in one spot, as if he didn't know which direction to travel in.

"What are you doing here?" Ford asked Hugh roughly as we joined them. I stood behind Hugh, feeling embarrassed, like I was relieving Hell Day up close. Ford stepped in front of Ambrose's father.

"I have every right to be here," Hugh said, standing his ground. "I'm worried this has to do with Robert Warwick, with the murders last year."

"It's possible," Phillip Rhodes said dismissively. I wondered if the man owned anything other than thousand dollar suits and wingtips.

"Possible? Hugh repeated sarcastically. "How can you say that? I would think you would be just as concerned as I am, considering how your son was almost shot by him last year, just like my daughter."

"I never said I wasn't concerned," Phillip said.

"Aren't you the troublemaker from Hell Day?" Cliff asked suspiciously, peering more closely into Hugh's face.

"He was the one who spoke at Hell Day, yes," Phillip said. This caused Ford to back down, just as certainly as if Phillip had told him "sit, dog". "He's also Ariel here's father."

Just then, I noticed Henry ambling up to our group. He was wearing glasses with shoegazer frames, which I'd never seen him in, and a casual sweatshirt and pants. The sweatshirt had holes in the sleeves for his thumbs. We exchanged a loaded glance, but didn't say a word.

"You said you only think it's possible that Warwick was behind this crime," Hugh said. "But who else could it have been?"

"They're saying that Ambrose was in an altercation with another boy," Phillip said, more gently so that Ambrose's still-weeping father couldn't hear. "The problem is, there don't seem to be any witnesses."

"My daughter says that he left the dance floor around 10:40," Ford butted in, hands in his pockets. Suddenly the tragedy was turning everyone into comrades. It was unsettling; as much as Lainey crying at my dining room table.

"Did you see anything?" I asked Henry.

"I was home all night. I didn't go to the dance," Henry said bluntly. I felt relief, even though I didn't realize that I'd been thinking he was involved.

"I think the best thing to do is lock our doors, and report anything out of the ordinary," Phillip said. "Apart from that, what else can we do?"

We stood together, not speaking then. The only one making noise was Ambrose's father, who couldn't stop sobbing, his harsh cries echoing in the night.

CHAPTER 29

I FIGURED I
should pack my bags when I got home. And I was so frightened at that point, it didn't sound like that bad of an idea this time. When we arrived home, with no more new information than when we'd left, Claire was sitting at the dining room table, sipping coffee. She'd made a fresh pot recently.

She half-stood up from her chair when we entered. "Well?"

"Well, nothing." Hugh said. He chucked his keys in a bowl on the counter. His eyes were rimmed with pink from being tired. It was nearly two in the morning. "But I want every door and window in this house locked. Ariel, you're sleeping upstairs in the guest room. And if you hear any noises, any at all, tell one of us immediately."

"Should I be packing my suitcase?" I asked wearily.

Claire looked expectantly at Hugh.

"Let's just get through tonight, and see where we are in the morning," Hugh said. "You just got back, I'm not sending you off again immediately."

I settled myself into the guest room for the night, not even bothering to go down to my room to get anything. I could hear my parents talking quietly through the wall, but I couldn't make out their words. Laying on my back, I stared at the blue ceiling.

Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Ambrose's throat cut, blood running down his shoulders and collarbone and pooling on the ground around him. Like someone had laid him down on a blanket of blood.

I wished Theo's mom hadn't picked this particular weekend to go out of town. But I knew it was selfish to rely on her being my security blanket all the time. She'd be back soon.

Jenna didn't follow me upstairs, since she was still giving me the cold shoulder. Thinking about her, I realized that connection — Jenna and Ambrose had something going, even if it was a mild flirtation. And Warwick killed Jenna...but I couldn't connect the dots any further. I didn't know how Nancy Drew made it without peacing out.

The night passed without incident. Neither of my parents looked like they'd gotten any sleep in the morning. Claire went off to do overtime at work. Hugh had me accompany him to Erasmus when he went in the afternoon. I figured soon I'd have to go around in a carrier strapped to one of their backs at all time.

Gwen had gone up north to visit relatives that weekend, so it was just him and me. When I complained of there being nothing to do, he put me to work cleaning up the break room and his makeshift office.

Theo had given me a stack of sketches to drop off, to fill up the spaces in the wall of works that had sold. After I'd tidied up, I set about putting them in frames. Normally Hugh was picky about how the work in his gallery was matted and framed, but I got a pass this time. I knew if it was really bad, he'd just take them down and redo them.

I'd been framing them in the break room, sketches all over the table. I went back out to the main part of the gallery to pick up some more glue.

When I walked in, I had a shock. Nurse Callie was there, engaged in conversation with Hugh. Both of them were laughing brightly. Red lipstick made a bow of her lips, and she was wearing a low-cut red and black shirt. I hadn't seen Hugh acting so boyish and blatantly flirtasious in a long time, when he'd chat up the waitresses at the restaurant and leave Claire fuming.

"It's something, that's for sure," Callie said. Her hand was on Hugh's forearm, and he wasn't making any move to take it off.

"Hey, Hugh. What's up?" I asked, making my presence known.

Both of them jumped, and turned their heads towards me. I could read guilt all over their faces.

"Hi, Ariel. Done with the framing already?" Hugh asked, taking a telling step away from Callie. She dropped her hand from his arm, and rubbed her neck self-consciously.

"Yeah, I'm done. What are you doing here, Callie?"

"Oh, I was just telling your dad, I bought some new living room furniture and I wanted to get a painting to hang behind the couch. Give it some color in there."

I got the distinct feeling I had walked in on something private. I thought of all those hushed phone calls, all the secrecy. I wouldn't think of my father as someone to cheat.

"And then we got to talking about the murder of that boy at your school," Hugh explained.

"It's awful," Callie said. "There's been so much drama in our little town this past year. It just needs to go back to being quiet."

"Yeah, I can see why you would laugh about that," I observed dryly.

Both of them looked shocked, which pleased me.

"Oh, no, Ariel," Callie said, too innocently. "I was just telling Hugh...your dad...about McPherson's new anti-bullying policy. Like Ambrose was a bully."

I opened my mouth to speak again, although I didn't know what to say. My phone vibrated in my pocket, saving me from having to come up with something.

Ariel can we meet up?
Henry had sent.

I excused myself into one of the rooms of paintings. I could hear Callie and Hugh talking, but I tuned them out. I didn't want to deal with this new knowledge now, on top of everything else. There was only so much my brain could take before it exploded.

Where?
I texted Henry back.

Ballrom found out sum more to tell u. im waiting there, in the back room

I wondered if his keypad was sticking. He normally spelled everything perfectly, or at least utilized his autocorrect. I cleared my throat, trying to prepare an excuse for Hugh.

"I need to run to the corner store," I told him.

"Ariel, I don't want you going on your own..." Hugh said.

"It's bright and sunny out there, Hugh. I'm sure Ariel will be okay," Callie said.