Page 95 of Haunted

I am almost completely numb. Grandma knew my heart before I did. She saw the pattern repeating and she tried to stop it. She cared. She really cared about what my future would hold. The prickle of tears comes knowing that such love had been there for me, and I’m gut-punched by the loss of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask my aunt.

“You had just lost everything. Your home, your family. What good would it have done to tell you this when you were eighteen and broken? I knew you would always miss your mother, but I was letting you build up a fantasy, and it’s hurting you now.”

“So Lance was right about her.” I look out the window at his building. His blinds are closed.

“That doesn’t mean that everything he’s doing is okay,” Aunt Shelley says. She sighs. “But maybe he’s as out of his depth as you are. That ex was a really bad guy. He really wanted to take you somewhere and hurt you.”

She has a point. And despite my fears, and all the red flags waving in my head, Lance has saved my life twice now.

“But his reaction was way over the top,” I say. “You must see that.”

“I do. And he needs to get help to deal with that, because if he doesn’t, it’ll happen again. But when people are under attack, they revert to training. That’s what the Marines taught him to do. It doesn’t make it right. But it makes it understandable.”

“It’s a lot,” I say.

“It is. And I’m sorry. You have no idea how much. I had hoped I would never need to have this conversation, but I can’t avoid it anymore.” She puts her hand on my knee. “Don’t make any decisions right now. But at least be fair to him.” She pauses. “And more importantly, be fair to yourself.”

Chapter thirty-three

Lance

The cop knocks on my door Monday morning just as I’m looping my tie. I open it and the key falls from where Jonny wedged it in the doorframe. I pick it up and hold it in my palm for a second before letting Van Hoek in.

She scans the studio with her cool eyes, taking in the empty liquor bottle on the counter. The apartment smells like a man who spent two days drinking himself into an early grave and only stopped when the bourbon ran out. My head throbs.

“Five minutes,” I say. “I was just heading to work.”

“It won’t take long.” She sits at the table. “This is also concerning Mr. Bishop.”

I go to the window. His curtains are drawn. They’ve been drawn for two days. “Second floor across the street, with his aunt. Nash is still in custody, right?”

“We have him for aggravated assault and battery against you and stalking. Our DA thinks we can make a strong case for premeditation.”

“Good.”

“But we need Mr. Bishop to pursue the matter in court.”

I stare at her. “You’re kidding.”

“We’ve tried reaching out. He seems resistant to pursuing the matter at this time.”

Of course he is. He wants it to go away. He wants all of it to go away—Nash, the charges, and me. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say, knowing I can’t do anything.

“One more thing.” She opens her notebook. “I know you were hoping we could connect Mr. Nash to the Cadwalader case. We can’t. He was arrested for drunk and disorderly and held overnight. He was released at 8:02 AM.”

8:02. By that time, Jonny was sitting at this table telling Van Hoek about Alice.

“So whoever killed Alice—”

“—is not Roger Nash. We’re still investigating.” She closes the notebook and stands. She looks at the room again—the empty bottle, the unwashed dishes, the dead roses. “Clean this up,” she says. “Jesus.” She leaves without saying goodbye.

I stand in the quiet apartment. The spice jars are gone from the cabinet. The shirts are gone from the closet. The sketchbook is gone from the desk. He left the roses, wilting in their glass.

I throw the bottle in the trash and run the roses under the tap, but they’re past saving. I dump them too—and that’s when I see it. A flash of green at the bottom of the bin. The Kermit bracelet. He didn’t take it with him. He threw it away. I stand there for a long moment. Then I fish it out, wipe it dry, and close my hand around it. I wash the dishes. I make the bed. None of this helps. The apartment is clean and empty, and clean and empty is worse than dirty and alone.

I feel the guilt rising like bile. I led Nash to Jonny. Everything that happened—the collision on the sidewalk, the photograph on the door, the taser—that was my past reaching into Jonny’s present and trying to destroy it. And then, when he was at his most vulnerable, I attacked his mother.