Winter (Four Seasons #1) (5 page)

The apartment
is open plan and huge. I’m too empty to really look around, but I
do notice a lot of black furniture and more than one guitar leaning
up against the walls. Luke guides me to a breakfast bar, where he
gathers up pencils, pens, and stack of sheet music into a messy
pile, clearing the countertop. He sits me down on a cushioned
stool, then proceeds to rifle through his cupboards. After a second
he produces two rocks glasses and sets them down on the
counter.

“
What’s your
poison?”

I look at the
glasses and then look up at him. “You realize I’m going to be a
mess,” I say.

“
I know.” He
pulls a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer in the breakfast bar and
ignites the gas ring on the cook top so he can stoop down and light
it. “But if you need to be a mess, I’d rather you were a mess here
where I can keep an eye on you. It’s just me, Avery. I’m not going
to judge you. I’ll never judge you.”

He hands me
the cigarette and I take it even though I don’t smoke. It burns as
I pull on it and my head starts to spin again. I hand it back,
fighting the urge to repeat my vomiting act from
earlier.

“
No?” he
asks.

“
No.”

“
Okay.” He
puts the extractor fan on and smokes the cigarette in silence
before running it under the tap and tossing the stub in the bin.
When he comes back to the counter, he has an unopened bottle of
whiskey in his hand. He pours us both a shot and does his, but I
hold mine in my hand, staring at the counter for a long moment
before I put the glass to my lips and knock it back.

The burn of
the alcohol is a lot better than that of the cigarette. “How many
were there?” I ask. Luke remains silent while he refills our
glasses. When he hands my glass back, I drink its contents
immediately.

“
Fifteen,” he
says quietly. “All between the ages of thirteen and
seventeen.”

Fifteen young
girls. Five years ago, someone killed fifteen young girls and now
Colby Bright is about to tell the world the man responsible was my
father. Chalk that up with Colby’s brother Adam, Sam and Jeff, and
Maxwell Breslin is a few weeks shy of being declared a serial
killer. I bite the inside of my cheek and force myself not to cry.
It’s no good, of course. I just can’t do it. I may have fooled
myself into believing that I am stronger than I was back in Break,
but the truth is that I’m just as brittle. Prone to breaking,
myself. By the time I reach over and collect up the whiskey bottle,
tears are streaming down my face, and the fragile shell that was
Avery Patterson has shattered into a thousand pieces.

Three

Hangover

MOVEMENT WAKES
me.

“
Hey.” Luke
sits down on the edge of a large bed. A large bed that isn’t mine.
He holds out a glass of water and a pack of Tylenol, but when I
don’t take them he sets both items down on a small table beside the
bed. I frown and prop myself up on one elbow, trying to figure out
why the room is spinning.

“
Where…?” I
manage.

“
My place. I
gotta go to work but I wanted to let you sleep until the very last
minute. I have just enough time to take you home if we leave now.
Can you manage it?”

He isn’t in
his uniform. “You aren’t even ready,” I groan, hiding my face
underneath the pillow.

“
I don’t wear
it while I’m going to and from work. People might see me and follow
me home or something. Cops get lynched that way.” He tugs on the
pillow, freeing it from my embarrassingly pathetic grip. “You can
stay and sleep some more if you like. You can just lock up when you
leave.”

I think about
it. I think about falling back to sleep in this big, comfy bed, and
it is tempting. But the idea of having to try and make my way
across New York City via public transport with the biggest hangover
I’ve ever had is enough to counterbalance that.

“
Give me a
minute. I’ll be fine.”

“
All right. I
don’t mean to be a dick but you’ll need to hurry. I can’t be
late.”

I crack an
eyelid and survey Luke head to toe. He’s wearing a light grey
hoodie that’s a size too big for him over another plain black
t-shirt. The jeans are faded out again, frayed around the pockets.
He really can pull off a scruffy look. He slips out of the room and
I sit bolt upright in bed, holding my palm to my temple when my
head begins to pound. I’m freezing cold. I knock back the Tylenol
and get up, realizing I’m still fully dressed, and pull on my
shoes, which I find by tripping over them at the bottom bed. Very
uncoordinated. I suppose a half bottle of whiskey will do that to a
person. Luke is waiting by the door with a big sweatshirt in his
hand when I come out of the room. He doesn’t look half as bad as I
feel.

“
How much did
you drink last night?” I croak.

He puffs out
his cheeks and shakes his head. “As much as you.”

“
You look
completely fine.”

“
Well, I feel
like shit if it’s any consolation.”

I hurry to him
and take the sweatshirt out of his hand, slipping it over my head,
grateful of the warmth. I catch sight of a welter of rumpled
blankets on the black leather sofa where he must have slept. “That
actually does make me feel a little better.”

He exhales in
a tired way and smiles. “Well, they do say misery loves
company.”

******

I am miserable
all day, but thankfully I don’t have to deal with any company. Luke
drops me home—another silent car journey—and when I get back to the
apartment Leslie is already gone. I tumble back into bed, knowing
there’s no way I am making class today. I haven’t missed a single
class since the semester began, and now I’ve ruined that perfect
record because… I don’t want to think why. It’s too
painful.

When I wake up
six hours later, Leslie’s standing over my bed pulling a pretty
disgusted face. “It stinks like a brewery in here. Why does our
whole apartment stink like a brewery?”

I groan and
pull the covers up over my head. She drags them off me despite my
feeble attempts to cling onto them and points to the
door.

“
Shower. Right
now.”

She opens the
windows as I gather up my towel and wash bag. My bedroom is
freezing cold by the time I came back freshly scrubbed. Admittedly,
I do feel a whole lot better now that it doesn’t taste like
something crawled into my mouth and died while I slept.

“
Your phone
rang,” Leslie says, pointing at my cell. It lays on top of my bed,
where it appears Leslie has stripped my sheets and replaced them
with some of my fresh bedding.

I cringe. “Was
it that bad?”

She smirks at
me and slams the window closed. “Worse.”

I have four
missed calls from Morgan. For some reason I’d expected to hear from
Luke, but there’s nothing. I text Morgan and tell her I’m too ill
to meet her for coffee. She replies almost immediately:

Morgan: I
know some guy paid Melissa Collins fifty bucks to find out which
apartment was yours. You’d better call me right now! I need
details.

I turn my
phone off and hide it back under my pillow.

The rest of
the night is spent wondering how much I’ve missed in my classes. I
eventually get around to replying to Brandon’s email. I don’t
really know where to begin at first. I start out determined not to
mention what Luke told me about the Wyoming Ripper and Colby
Bright’s accusations, but that resolve lasts all of five
seconds.

Hey, Uncle
B.

Thanks for
the offer but I don’t think I can face coming back there just yet.
Maybe you could come to the city? We could rent an apartment and go
ice-skating or something. I know you hate it here, but it would be
better than sitting back at the house moping. I’ll even watch the
game with you!

So, I need
you to confirm something for me. I met up with Luke Reid last
night, and he told me what’s been going on back in Break. Is it
true? Does everyone think Dad killed all those girls? I know
there’s no real way to know what happened with those men that day,
but he would never have attacked teenaged girls. They were the same
age as me! There’s just no way. Please tell me no one’s listening
to Mayor Bright.

Love
you,

Avery.

I should make
more of an effort to reassure Brandon; I know he worries about me.
I should tell him how much I’m enjoying college and about the new
friends I’ve made, but I don’t have the energy. The nightmare from
four and a half years ago is still replaying in even the brightest
aspects of my life, and I’m never going to escape it. I go to sleep
with my heart pounding in my chest, unable to escape the feeling
that something terrible is looming on the horizon, about to ruin
everything I’ve worked so hard to build for myself.

Four

Noah

“
NOAH’S ON
exchange. This isn’t high school; I can hardly punish you for your
actions at college, Ms. Patterson, everything’s down to you. But I
can suggest that you could make up for your pyjama day by helping
our visitor adjust to life at Columbia. It isn’t easy joining a
subject mid semester. He’s going to need all the help he can get.”
Professor Lang is sterner than I’ve ever seen him before. Actually,
I’ve only ever seen him at ease and happy as we talk about class
topics, but obviously he is a different person when you get on his
bad side. Now I understand what everyone is complaining about all
the time. “Aren’t you going to spin me some yarn about unexpected
kidnappings or retrograde amnesia, Miss Patterson?”

I kick at the
table leg of his desk and curve my shoulders, trying to shrink away
from the fact that I can’t even be bothered to make up an excuse
for my non-attendance.

“
I was hung
over.”

Silence.

I slowly raise
my eyes up from the floor and face him, holding my breath. I don’t
know what I was expecting—that maybe he’d find my honesty charming
and send me on my merry way with a neatly typed up sheet of notes.
Not so much. He looks disappointed, which is about the very worst
thing he could be right now. I hug my file tighter to my chest and
go back to looking at the floor.

“
Are you
serious about this course, Miss Patterson?”

“
Yes. I know
I’ve dropped the ball this week but I swear it was a one
off.”

“
You
have
dropped the ball,
and at the very point when you should be concentrating the most.
You know these midterms are pivotal if you want to gain entry into
our journalism program, yes?”

“
I
do.”

“
And I know
that’s the career you’ve chosen for yourself. I really thought you
were committed to building something for yourself here, Avery. Was
I wrong?”

I feel like
utter crap. I’m twelve years old again and Dad has just caught me
lifting a twenty from his wallet. “You weren’t wrong, Professor
Lang. I
will
catch
up on the information I missed and I will do well on my exams. I
have to.”
I have nothing else
left.

Professor Lang
pushes off from leaning against his desk and paces over to the
window. He folds his arms across his chest and sighs. “Why do you
want to be a journalist? What is it that appeals to you so greatly
about this particular career path?”

I really don’t
feel like getting into this with him, but like with the hangover
confession, I’m still too delicate to summon up the energy to lie.
It appears two-day hangovers are going to be in full effect from
here on in.

“
It’s hard to
explain. Something happened to a friend of mine when I was younger
and the press…they were like vultures. They printed all these lies
and made her family’s life hell. I want to become a journalist so
there will be at least one person out there telling the truth. To
set the record straight.”

Professor
Lang’s shoulders stiffen. “And that’s why you enjoy my class so
much. I tell you, there aren’t many people too concerned in the law
or the ethics behind news reporting these days. Everyone’s too
preoccupied with finding the next big story to worry about whether
it might be true or not.” He turns away from the window and walks
to his office door. “I commend your drive, Miss Patterson, I really
do. But you should know…there’s a big difference between a
determination to be successful at something, even if it is for the
right reasons, and wanting to change something that happened in the
past. You won’t get any justice for your friend or her family by
pursuing this goal. You’re a smart girl. You realize that, don’t
you?”

I swallow the
tight lump in my throat and walk out of the door he holds open for
me, ignoring his comment. “I’m sorry, Professor Lang. I won’t let
it happen again.”