X climbs in with me and off we go. A few minutes later, a text comes in on my phone. I cradle the rabbit with one hand, cringing a bit at the pressure on my broken fingers, and check the message.
Well-played, Princess. As always, you are your mother’s daughter, a master of words.
“Parrish?” Maxx asks, his voice tense and his hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
“Safe … for now,” I offer up, but I can’t shake the feeling that things, as bad as they are, are about to get so much worse.
Luckily for all four of us, Tess is far too distracted with Parrish’s ongoing investigation to get too upset about the fact that we’re about an hour late coming home. She isn’t happy, but the fact that I was with Maxx while Kimber was with Chasm seems to appease her somewhat. The coffees in their hands assure her that the excuse is at least somewhat relevant.
“Thank you for texting to let me know the situation,” she tells Chasm as he slips a hand into the pocket of his blazer and gives a polite nod. “I’m not sure how I feel about … this.”
She looks at the rabbit in such a way that I imagine she’s never had a pet before, like she doesn’t even understand the concept.
“It’s my rabbit,” Maxx says, speaking up and forcing a smile. “After Parrish comes home, and I leave, I’ll take it with me.”
Tess doesn’t look entirely convinced, but again, with her son missing, an unwanted bunny is sort of small potatoes. The words those girls hissed at me this morning, about Tess buying reviews, about getting people to read her books out of sympathy, they echo like nightmares in my skull.
“Well, I suppose if you clean its cage and …” Tess just waves her hand absently at us. “I honestly don’t even have the headspace for this. It’s fine. Just … do whatever you need to do.” She turns and heads back to the living room. There are quite a few people in there, some of whom I recognize from the last two weeks. The pair of FBI agents, a couple detectives, a private investigator that Tess hired.
If their collective efforts can’t locate Parrish, it seems impossible that the three of us could pull off the impossible.
Only … they’re not being groomed by a serial killer. He wants me to find Parrish. I’m being given clues and information that they don’t have.
“Come on, GG,” I say, looking down at the bunny with a smile. “Let’s get you settled.”
Chasm grabs a cage from his car, one that he grabbed while at the pet store, and I find that strange heat permeating my body all over again. I never asked him to grab a cage or food or chew toys for the bunny, but he also figured I wouldn’t leave the rabbit where I found it. So of course it had to come home. Of course we needed supplies.
“This is so weird,” Kimber grumbles, but she follows us up the stairs anyway, watching as we assemble the cage and get it ready. The other kids—Ben, Amelia, and even shy little Henry—join us in Parrish’s room, oohing and aahing over the new pet and stroking gentle fingers along its back.
The entire scenario is … well, it’s warm and comforting in a way that I’ve been wanting since I got here. For once, I actually feel like I’m a part of the family. Considering I just lost my only friends, that I got jumped by my classmates (twice), that Tess is as cold and distant as always, it’s a miracle.
But that miracle, it’s bittersweet and broken on my tongue.
“Can I hold the bunny?” Ben asks, and I nod, scooting over on Parrish’s bed and patting the mattress with my right hand.
“Take a seat.” I pass the rabbit over as he flashes me a huge grin, stroking his hand over its ears. All around us, Parrish’s art hangs on the walls, fills the sketchbooks atop the desk, decorates the silicone hands and feet in the drawers. I can smell him, too, and the words dewy clovers come to mind, and then I start thinking about the conversation we had while lying on this very bed.
“Why do you always wear that perfume?”
“Me? I’m not wearing any perfume. You’re the one that douses himself in freaking dewy clovers and citrus every day.”
“Dewy clovers? I’m not sure what, exactly, a ‘dewy clover’ smells like. But I can promise you this: I’m not wearing anything either.”
“Excuse me,” I blurt suddenly, shoving up to my feet. I end up in his bathroom, slamming the door closed before Chasm or Maxx can stop me. I flick the fan on, turn the sink on full blast, and sit atop the closed lid of the toilet with my face in my hands.
