Ransom River (32 page)

“I lived in the wild and hunted my own food. You should see me wield a crossbow.” She pointed at the door. “Excuse me.”

Riss didn’t move. Her eyes were bright and hard. “What did Amber say to you?”

And there it was. As blatant as Riss ever got.

“Nothing.” Rory put up a hand. “Riss, please. Don’t.”

Boone closed in behind her. “Don’t what?”

In the mirror, Rory caught a reflection. Little faces gawking at the grown-ups. Addie, thumb in her mouth, stood watching them.

Don’t say anything else.
Just get out.

Riss stared at her. The limp breeze from the fan lifted her black hair and her filmy blouse. “Do you actually suspect Amber?”

Rory nearly jumped. “
What?
”

“It’s not her.”

“I don’t—”

“Everybody knew. Everybody heard. It was never a secret. Anybody could have been the source.”

“What are you talking about?” Rory said.

“I told you to watch yourself. That if you weren’t careful, things could boomerang on you.”

The hallway began to feel cold. “Riss.”

“I offered to help you with the media. But damage control ain’t my mission.”

She held still a moment longer, then shrugged and stepped aside.

Rory slammed open the screen and stormed out.

She jammed her Subaru into gear and gunned it out of the driveway and up the road. The sun raked her face. She drove a hundred yards, crested the hill, and passed the neighbors’ Winnebago. She pulled over beneath a canopy of heavy oaks, in dappled sunlight. On a cross street Seth sat in his truck, phone to his ear.

She shut off the engine and sat gripping the wheel. Why did she let them get to her? And what had Riss done?

She got out of the car. Pacing, she pulled her phone from her pocket and went online.

Seth ended his call and climbed out of the pickup, his face full of concern. “Rory?”

“I made a mistake,” she said.

She searched for
Aurora Mackenzie
and
juror.
It took her ten seconds to find it: a post on a gossip zine.

MIRKOVIC TRIAL JUROR HAS TROUBLED PAST.

Seth approached. She shoved the phone into his hands to keep from hurling it through the windshield of her car. Immediately she grabbed it back and read.

“Jesus, this?” she said.

Seth leaned in to read over her shoulder. “The sports awards ceremony? What the hell.”

It happened her junior year. That season she won every dual meet, won the conference, won CIF. She went to State for the first time, broke 18:30 and finished in the top twenty. Afterward she fell to her knees, arm around the girl she outkicked to the chute, and puked on the grass. It was the best moment she’d ever lived.

She was going to be named Ransom River’s Athlete of the Year. At the ceremony, the cafeteria was packed. Rory had on her girly dress, coral chiffon with spaghetti straps and sequins. The cheerleaders were up front, dancing. Then the vice principal approached with the cross-country coach and said, “Miss Mackenzie, we have a problem.”

When she followed them outside, Coach took out a cell phone. “I was forwarded this text message half an hour ago. The teacher who sent it to me got it from two girls in her history class. They said it came from you.”

On the display a message read,
OMG. EPT pos. Can’t deal. R.

Rory said, “I don’t understand.”

The vice principal said, “You shouldn’t have sent that message. It’s been forwarded to half the girls in your class.”

“But I didn’t send it. What…”

EPT pos.

The warm hum in her chest turned to a sharp ping, like the flat line on a cardiac monitor. They thought she was pregnant.

“It’s not true,” she said.

Coach said, “Do your parents know?”

Things deteriorated from there. Rory insisted she didn’t send the text. She wasn’t pregnant. Somebody had faked the message to start a rumor about her. Coach looked disappointed. The vice principal finally shut down the argument, saying, “When you joined the cross-country team you signed the honor code. You swore not to bring the school into disrepute. Given this situation, we feel it would be inappropriate for you to receive Athlete of the Year.”

All the heat leached from Rory’s body. She clamped things down and walked back into the cafeteria, into a blur of stares and whispers. She took
her seat and clenched her coral chiffon skirt in her pale fists. She sat like clay while Athlete of the Year was awarded to Ransom River’s star tight end, Boone Mackenzie.

Afterward, Riss ran squealing across the cafeteria, pom-poms raised, and threw her arms around Boone’s neck. As Boone spun her around, she spied Rory. Her gaze was eager: searching for pain, for lash marks. She looked triumphant.

Now Seth covered Rory’s phone with his hand. “This is bullshit.”

“Riss warned me something would happen if I didn’t play ball with her.”

“It’s crap-ass gossip.”

“Well, isn’t that peachy.” Rory leaned back against the car. “They’re implying I had an affair with Coach and then had an abortion. Ain’t that just a pie full of turds with whipped cream on top.”

“Especially considering Coach DiMezza was a woman.”

She tried and failed to laugh. She rubbed her forehead. “The cops will eat this up. Honor-code violation. Scandal. It’s fuel for their theory that I’m a rotten apple.”

“It’s a hit piece, but the truth’s in there. You won State the next season. You had your vengeance.”

And Boone got kicked off the football team for punching a coach.

Seth looked at her warily. “You okay?”

“You can stop asking me that every ten seconds.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Tell me what happened at Amber’s.”

She exhaled. “Riss and Boone are creepier than ever.” She glanced around the side of the neighbor’s Winnebago. From this angle she could see down the hill to Amber’s kitchen window.

“You texted me,” she said.

“Got a lead on the people in prison for the heist.”

“You didn’t see Riss and Boone drive up?”

“I did. They didn’t see me.”

“Good. They know I’m on to something.”

She saw movement inside the kitchen window. And she stopped, dead.

Her cousins stood by the counter, talking, close together. Too close.

Seth turned to follow her gaze. He went still.

Riss and Boone weren’t touching, but they looked hungry. They stood inches apart, conspiratorial, intimate, like a single organism. Symbiotic. They were talking in low, staccato bursts.

Boone put a hand on Riss’s waist. Riss, lips moving, pressed against him. Her left hand slid around his back. Her right pressed flat to his chest. She spoke. He watched her face, as though being hypnotized, or receiving a dark blessing.

Riss tossed her hair. He nodded. Then he grabbed her around the haunches and lifted her onto the kitchen counter. He clutched her with both arms and pushed her hair back from her cheek and buried his face against her neck.

“Oh my God,” Rory said.

R
ory found her parents at their acreage. Her dad had converted the shed into a man cave, a workshop and second garage built around the sacred, tarp-covered red El Camino. The big door was half-open.

“Mom? Dad?”

The late afternoon sun was heavy orange and losing heat. Her mom was digging in the garden beside the shed. She stood up and took off her gardening gloves. Her smile evaporated.

“What is it?” she said.

“Everything.”

Sam’s face drew in on itself. As at all moments of tension, her drawl lengthened. “Is it the courthouse attack?”

“And everything else. Please. Both of you.” She called: “Dad, come here.”

Will Mackenzie came out of the workshop with his phone in his hand. “Honey, you’re pale.”

“We have to talk.”

“I know.” He held up the phone. “That was your aunt Amber.”

Rory dug her nails into her palms. “What did she say? I don’t know how she’s spinning this, but it’s bound to be full of lies.”

“Really? You haven’t spent the entire day joined at the hip to Seth Colder?”

He looked hurt and betrayed. She said, “Dad—”

“Aurora. Don’t deflect.” His face had reddened. “Why?”

“I’m not here to talk about Seth, and if you—”

“Rory, no.” Her mom put a hand over her mouth. “I thought you were over him. This…oh, Rory.”

Will Mackenzie slowly drew himself up. “Why is he here?”

“Stop. Please.” Rory put up her hands. “This is not about Seth. It’s something much worse.”

Samantha shook her head. She looked on the verge of panic. “Honey, if your head was clear, you’d see that not much is worse than hanging out with Seth.”

Rory felt heartsick. Their resentment and anger at Seth had seemed reasonable at the time of the accident, in the heat of the moment—no parent wanted to see a child lying injured in a hospital bed. Seth had provided an easy target for their fear and frustration. But this was off the scale.

She walked inside the shed, went to the workbench, and turned off the small television her dad kept tuned to ESPN. Her parents followed her in, looking baffled and wary. She paced.

“Riss and Boone,” she said. “There’s something wrong with them.”

Will drew a breath. Sam went perfectly still.

Rory stopped and looked back and forth between her parents. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“No,” her dad said.

“They’re sick. And they’re involved in something very bad.” She clenched her hands close to her sides. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Sam’s face was tight and pained. “You look like you’re going to cry, honey. Just start wherever.”

“This is going to sound awful,” Rory said. “But it’s important. Please, just listen. Don’t say anything until I finish.”

Will stood in the doorway of the shed, the evening light catching him from behind. He looked like a soldier about to throw himself on a grenade to muffle an explosion.

“Boone and Riss are involved with each other. Romantically.”

That was the wrong word, but one that might lessen the blow. Her parents didn’t react. They looked like abandoned puppets.

“I think they’re in love with each other,” Rory said. “Or as much as they can be. They have a relationship that passes for love, in any case.”

“Stop,” Will said.

“No, Dad. You have to listen to me.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“From what I saw today.”

“What you
saw
? What were they doing?”

“They were embracing. And not like brother and sister.”

“They aren’t brother and sister,” Sam said.

Rory looked sharply at her. “You’re not surprised. Are you? You don’t doubt me.”

Will turned and looked out the door at the countryside, as though he could disconnect from the conversation.

“Dad, don’t,” Rory said. “This is real.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“You have to.”

“Why are you bringing this up now? Don’t you have enough to worry about?”

“Because it’s all connected.”

That brought his head around.

“They’re not brother and sister. I know we all treat them that way, but they aren’t related. They grew up under the same roof, but they’re from completely separate families. Riss doesn’t even call Amber ‘Mom’ anymore,” Rory said.